Franklin Has the ringing zingys!

[Fred Treece]

This is such a common problem, I’m surprised it doesn’t have a more technical sounding name instead of a slangy ringy zingy. I’ve seen it called an “overtone” ring too, but that’s not accurate.

It’s similar to the sound of a metal fingerpick held against a vibrating string, lightly enough to create a faint buzzing. It also does seem to create an octave overtone, but not always.

Regardless of whatchamacallit, it’s the sound of metal not making full contact with metal. Once you rule out nut roller contact with an adjacent nut roller, there are only a couple or three points where metal-to-metal contact happens along the length of a string. String to nut roller, string to top of finger, string ball end to whatever it connects to. If you have a keyless, you don’t even have the ball end thing.

When I had this issue, it was suggested to me to try scotch tape between the string and top of the finger. It worked until the string cut through the tape after a few pulls, but it did isolate the location of the problem being at the top of the finger where grooves had been etched into the aluminum by skinny plain strings. Never a problem with wound strings, even though grooves had also been worn into their fingers.

Thus began a process of sanding the tops of the fingers once or twice a year, until I got so tired of that I bought a Williams 700 guitar with that ingenious bridge design. Problem solved.

I also agree that it could possibly be caused by corrosion and other crud on old strings, or new ones made with inferior metals.