Weird sympathetic resonance / doubled pitch on 12th & 14th fret G string on an LP style guitar.
Hey all. I have a solid body LP style guitar and I've noticed a strange phenomenon on the 12th and 14th fret of the G string specifically. When I hit those notes hard I hear what sounds like a minor second doubling the note — almost like a ghost pitch alongside the fundamental.
The weird part is how conditional it is:
- Only happens on the bridge pickup
- Only with hard attack — soft playing it disappears completely
- Only on a cranked Marshall emulation with specific EQ and mic placement settings
- Adding a Tube Screamer makes it disappear entirely
- Turning down the bright channel volume on the amp sim makes it disappear
- Clean signal — totally gone
- Unplugged the guitar sounds beautiful on those frets
Took it to a tech and the setup is clean. Intonation checks out fine on a clip-on tuner.
My current theory is sympathetic resonance from the G string saddle being excited above an activation threshold by hard attack, then amplified by the presence peak in the Marshall emulation. But I'm not certain.
Has anyone experienced this on an LP style guitar? Is it the saddle? Tailpiece height? Just an inherent characteristic of a resonant LP style guitar interacting with certain amp settings? Any fixes that worked for you?