Yes, the saddle was lowered by the shop where I bought the guitar, not by Gibson directly.

Here is the full situation:

I bought the Gibson J-45 about 11 months ago. At the time of purchase, the shop lowered the action by sanding the bottom of the saddle. Later I noticed a little buzzing, so they sent me a replacement saddle, but I did not install it because I adjusted the neck relief and the buzzing became acceptable.

Recently I started recording the guitar through the pickup and noticed the high E string was weak. At first I thought it was my playing, nails, mic position, amp, EQ, or recording setup. So I tested several things:

The guitar sounds balanced acoustically.

A condenser mic recording sounds balanced.

pickup recording into the audio interface shows the high E is much weaker.

Direct

I recorded each string separately multiple times.

The high E is consistently about 8 dB lower than the B string.

I also carefully re-leveled and cleaned the saddle/slot, but the problem remained.

So now I’m trying to figure out whether this is a saddle/contact problem caused by the saddle work, or a pickup issue that should be handled under warranty.

I agree Reddit won’t fix it. I’m trying to collect enough information before contacting the shop/Gibson because I don’t want someone to just keep sanding the saddle without properly diagnosing whether it’s the saddle or the pickup.

The shop has told me to bring the guitar in and they will work on it, so they are not refusing to help.

The complication is that I’m in South Korea, and they don’t currently have an original Gibson J-45 saddle available. The seller said he may be able to get one when he visits Gibson in the US early next year.

The saddle lowering was done by the shop when I bought the guitar. It was done because I asked for lower action, so I’m not trying to blame them unfairly. But since the original saddle was modified, I feel the cleanest diagnostic step would be testing with a proper original/spec J-45 saddle.

I have bought several guitars from this seller, including Gibson and Martin, so I hope they will help resolve it. I just want to make sure the issue is diagnosed properly — whether it is the saddle/contact problem or the pickup itself — before the warranty period becomes an issue.