My Martin acoustic has developed a wierd problem with the bottom E string…

Any note played on it up to and including the fifth fret has a strange afterbuzz. It isn’t fret noise as I can easily slip a cigarette paper between the string and the next fret without it fouling – I prefer to play with a slightly high action (not stupidly high) on this particular guitar as it improves the tone. It only affects the one string, and ony for the first 5 frets. The sound seems to be coming from the bridge end but I can’t be absolutely sure.

Strangely, after I’ve been playing for a while – between half an hour and an hour of fairly continuous playing it diminishes until its almost un-noticeable.

The guitar has an under-saddle pickup (a Dean-Markely Sweet-Spot), and the wire for it goes through the bridgeand body nearest the bottom E, so maybe it’s the wire jangling until it ‘seats itself’ or something, but I’m not sure. If this is the case I can’t understand why it only does it for the first 5 frets – I would have expected it down the entire string length – hence the query.

I just wondered if anyone had any similar experiences. I’ve changed the strings several times and the saddle twice to no avail. I’m thinking maybe I’ll put a drop of hot-melt glue down the hole where the pickup goes through to see if that makes a difference. If anyone has any other suggestions I’d really appreciate the feedback.

Cheers.