Hi guys,
I am wondering what tenor banjo you are using.
I know there are discussions on the number of frets, string gauge, but what about the maker? Is there any good banjo maker(s) favored by Irish banjo players?
I currently have one banjo made by Vage, but thinking of buying another one.
I saw Seamus Egan using Bacon & Day, but Paramount also look very nice.
Any opinion?
He's got all sorts of tenors for sale. I bought a 1927 Vega, Whyte Laydie, "R" (17 fret) from him in Feb. I'm delighted with it....tone and action are excellent.
He fitted a resonator (Vega) for me at no additional cost.
If you're looking for a new banjo, have a look at Tom Cussen's site. Eoin O' Meachair of Caladh plays one. There's a link to Tom site on Caladh's and you can hear Eoin play.
I have two Bacon&Days, and I must say they are lovely. The older banjos have (in my humble opinion) a nicer rounder sound than the modern banjos. But it's also a question of the setup.
I know I can recommend B&D anytime, if you find a nice one!
I used to play a Clareen Elite Gold, and they play like a dream! But they have the somewhat sharper sound, much more cut. If you play a resonator Clareen, and play it hard, you'll be leading the whole thing everytime you play! (not to say that it's not cool;)
i play a dave boyle banjo and am delighted with it. it has a deep tone and looks beatiful.dave is excellent to deal with also but im not sure what his waiting lists are like.
After I posted this topic, I looked for some thread dealing with tenor banjos and found quite a few including the discussion on D. Boyle's and Clareen's.
On and off, I check the websites of some shops including Bernunzio's but haven't ordered anything yet. I will keep my eyes on it as I don't think I will spend that much money for new Boyle nor Clareen. Anyway, I am quite interested in B & D and Paramount at this moment I don't know why.
I do agree with the comments of those who mentioned that the setup is very crucial to determine the tone of the banjo, anyway...
Now I wonder what kind of tone do those banjo players look for. I have played Seamus Egan's Bacon & Day, but the sound of his was very crispy. I was quite surprised by it as Vega Little Wonder (with animal skin head) which I currently have doesn't sound like it at all...
Each of the vintage brand banjos have a distinct sound that any jazz banjo player can recognize at a distance. So it is no wonder that your Little Wonder sounds different from a B&D. Of course you have a skin head on yours so there is the annoyance factor of environmental changes. But I have the same banjo and love it.
My experience with Paramounts, B&D, Vega, Weymann, and Leedy is that they all sound good as long as they are setup properly. After that it is a matter of taste.
Don't get caught up in the "sound like Earl (Scruggs)" mentality that the Bluegrass players have. They spend all their time and money tweaking banjos to sound like a set of recordings that are 50 years old. Even Earl's banjo doesn't sound like them since the recording technology has changed.
Instead learn to produce the best tone on your instrument that you can and then go out and listen to as many banjos as you can. One of these days a banjo will just cry out to you and you will know that that banjo is the one for you.
I have read your comments on the other threads about banjo, too, and I start wondering what is the best tone on my banjo now.
I don't think I know about setup of banjos so much other than changing the strings, so I don't know how to adjust the things like banjo head, bridge, tailpiece etc... I want to listen to as many tenor banjos as I can, but in my area, I know only one banjo player other than me playing Irish music. So it is difficult for me to compare different banjos...
Anyway, now I feel like trying to find out what kind of tone my banjo can produce.
Banjos, unlike guitars or fiddles, are an assemblage of parts which means that (theoretically, anyway) you can take them down to their component parts, of which there are many, and then put them back together again. If you duplicate the fit and the various tensions, etc., a banjo will sound exactly the same as it did before you took it apart. Try that with a guitar and you will end up with a pile of firewood.
If any of the zillion parts of a banjo is not fit the same, the sound will change, again theoretically, and some parts have a greater effect on the sound than others. Also, since banjos are vibrating machines, parts loosen all the time, usually just enought to change the sound.
That being said, most banjos are in need of a setup every so often because constant playing, the environment, and the animosity of non-banjo players all have a tendency to change things. If your banjo has a skin head, it is even more sensitive to these forces.
We will use as an illustration a typical Vega Little Wonder tenor banjo. The LW is an entry level (in 1925) banjo with great genes. They are usually found with a 17 fret neck, although 19 fret instruments occur, may come with or without a resonator, and have the entry level tailpiece by Grover. When setup for Irish tuning they have a little bit of snap to the sound but overall are mellow sounding. Quite a nice little banjo.
The first thing to do is to inspect the banjo from top to bottom. 17 fret instruments are not as prone to neck warpage as the 19 fret ones, but it does occur. Look down the neck from the side to see if there is any forward bowing. You can also press the G string at the twelfth fret and the first fret to see if there is any space under the string. If there is not, you have a problem as there should be some, this is called relief and it allows the strings to vibrate without hitting a fret in the process. If there is excessive bowing (which to some extent is subjective, but after a while is obvious) this will interfere with intonation and fretting which is a bad thing. Reject that banjo unless you are willing to pay to have it fixed - the problem could be in the neck, the dowel stick, or the fit to the rim, all expensive fixes unless you do them yourself. Also check for twist in the neck. A little clockwise twist of a few degrees (looking at the bridge from the headstock) is not a bad thing, most fiddles have that, but a noticable twist is another costly item. This type of inspection should be done before you buy if possible. The good news is that 17 fret instruments are usually free of excessive warping.
The next thing to do is to look at the rim. If there are any de-laminations (you will see a split in the lamination of the rim) that will effect sound. This is one thing you can fix, you fill the de-lamination with glue and then clamp the hell out of it until the glue sets. Use tite-bond original and it should do well (unless you want to deal with hide glue which is the best way to go.) If the rim is solid, then check the bracket bolts and make sure that they are all snug but not over tight. Then check all the other screws but don't touch the hooks and nuts that hold the head on. The idea is to make the banjo a unified a unit as possible so that when you start the setup, you don't have loose parts around to rattle and mess things up. While the LW does not have coordinator rods (these should be slightly over finger tight and not used to set the neck) or truss rods (they should be snug and set the neck to have a little relief, don't use it to set the action), those banjos that do should be set so there are no rattling nuts and bolts.
More theory: The components that effect the sound of your banjo are as follows, in order of importance: The head and head type, head tension*, bridge* and bridge placement*, tailpiece, tailpiece tension*, strings*, and picks*. Those components with the asterisk (*) are easy to adjust or change while the others require time and taking parts off the banjo (well the strings do to, I grant you.)
Heads generally give you a brighter sound as you progress from a clear head (brightest and thinnest), through the various frosted heads, to the Renaissance head to the fyberskin head (Tyvek, the same stuff used to protect the engineered wood on the side of your house.) Skin heads are a separate category as they have a unique sound and unique problems, more on this later.
I prefer the less bright heads but not Fyberskin which I think just dulls everything.
Bridges can change the sound from bright to darker depending on construction, wood and mostly weight. Heavier bridges are darker sounding with fewer of the highs. Well made bridges such as the Kateyz, Snuffy Smith, Scorpion, and several others are more expensive, but can be tailored for your instrument and the sound you want. Changing a bridge can make a remarkable change in the sound.
Tailpieces can in themselves cause a change in the sound, but the pressure that a tailpiece places on the bridge is arguably more important. The angle of the string from the bridge to the tailpiece should be about 13-15 degrees according to every source I can find. I prefer the Oettinger tailpiece which allows individual string angles (they are not to be used as fine tuners) that place similar stresses on each string. But I also use a variety of other tailpeices and they all seem to impart a special sound to the instrument.
Most of you are familar with the different tones that come from stainless steel and the various bronze materials that strings are made of.
Picks often change the way an instrument sounds. I prefer the .60 Dunlop nylon picks on my banjos and very thick picks on mandolin and guitar.
Now to setup, I hope you are still with me.
The most common thing that is wrong with a banjo is that the head is not tuned properly. Most of the time the head is too loose. Plastic heads (more on skin later) tend to stretch for at least 6 months after they are put on and hooks/bolts loosen with playing and temperature change. As you will find out, a small change in the hook tension can mean large tonal changes. If you talk to the majority of BG banjo players they constantly talk about tuning the head of a banjo to a specific note, usually G or G#. Naturally, they are all wet.
Banjos are individuals and you can't tune a head to a specific note and expect it to be great. Besides, I seriously doubt that very many players can hear a specific note when the head is tapped as there are numerous overtones sounded with this procedure. The best way to use your ear is to listen for the sound of the banjo being played while you slowly tighten the head down. (Tighten, then play, not both at the same time.)
Before you tighten the head, make sure that the tension ring is on square to the rim. You do this by taking several measurements from the hoop to a fixed point such as the top of the brackets. This distance (you can make a crude gauge with a dowel) should be the same all around, otherwise you will warp the tension ring over time and the banjo will not sound good. (For those of you with coordinator rods, any excessive tension there will warp the rim with similar results.) Once the head is on square, you can begin to tune the head. I also prefer to lubricate the hooks using wax or a very small amount of a thick grease (the wax will not stain your banjo.)
My preferred method is to tighten the head in small increments (one sixth of a turn) in a clockwise manner starting at the neck and going all around. Some prefer to use a star pattern (tightening opposite nuts back and forth as if you were tightening the head gasket of a car) but I always get lost and have found that the way I use now is just as good as long as you make sure that the tension ring is square. At some point (experts say that there are at least three points) your banjo will start sounding good to you. If so, don't stop, instead keep on going until you start to choke off the sound. Then simply back up the number of increments you need to get the good sound back. At this time you can take measurements with a DrumDial or a Neary wrench (all available from janet Davis and are used by drummers) to see what your tension numbers are. Later on when you find that the tone of your banjo is fading, you can reset the tension to the optimal one. I don't use those aides any more as I can usually just find the sweet spot with my ears.
IF you are beginner at doing banjo mechanics, it can be daunting. Most of us fear that we will break the head. Unless you head is faulty (there was a run of faulty Remo heas for a while, and if you are not improving your sound, you should check for small breaks at the hoop) you will be hard pressed to break a plastic head. In fact, I have seen demonstrations of people standing on the head while it was on the rim of the banjo (neck was off, of course.)
Remember that your head will stretch after you tune it up and you will have to do this again at some time. One way to slow the process of stretching down is to pre-stretch the head by pressing down on the tense head with your elbow or the heel of your hand to set the head on the rim. You will not break the head unless the head is defective.
The next step, if you need it, is to make sure that the bridge is in the right place. Check this by playing the harmonic at the twelfth fret and then playing the note at the twelfth fret. If they are different, move the bridge, closer to the headstock if the note is flat, closer to the tailpiece if it is sharp. Check the E note and the G note (you can't do anything about the others, anyway) and most of the time you will find that the bridge is slanted when you are finished. This is OK. This is called compensation and is there because the strings have different gauges.
IF you decide to change bridges, remember that putting a new bridge on changes the tension dynamics of your banjo and you have to a) let it settle in for a week or so before deciding if it is helping (although sometimes the change is dramatic and immediate) and b) you may have to reset the head to get the best sound from your new bridge.
Next look at your tailpiece and see if it is putting any pressure on the bridge. If you have a no-knot tailpeice, change it out for a Waverly type (don't worry if it is for a 5 string banjo, the banjo can't count) which has some capability of putting tension on the strings. Go for that 15 degree string angle.
The next thing you can do is to change strings. Most Irish tuned banjos have G strings that are too light in gauge, especially with a 17 fret instrument. I prefer a .042 inch string as my G string but each instrument will need a little experimentation as to string gauge and type of material. I use Stainless steel on my Littel Wonder, but yours may vary.
The rest of it, especially the action at the nut and neck/rim fit issues, are best left to the experts (well anyone can change out a tailpiece) but are worth the money as far as playability goes.
Skin heads are a special class. Skin is a very durable material for heads but it is sensitive to head and humidity. It is hard to break a head, but if you leave it in an attic at full tension, it will dry out, become brittle, and eventually crack. I keep my LW skin head at about 80 percent of the tension that makes it sound good and I literally warm it up with my body heat as I play. This means that I have to tune it down during a session until it stabilizes in the environment but as far as I am concerned it is worth it. I keep the banjo in a climate controlled room (AC and a humidifer, it is not that fancy) and am aware of the state of the head at all times.
Try these tricks and see if you have a different sounding banjo when you are finished.
Thank you very much, Mike!!
I am not sure if I can do all the things to get the best sound from my banjo, but I will try.
Knowing that people say every banjo has its own sound, now I wonder what is the favorite old/vintage banjo maker those Irish banjo players love.
I haven't tried so many banjos, and I don't think I can try many banjos. But I want to know the "general opinion".
As for the "new" makers, now I understood people talk about the Clareen and Boyle, but how about the other makers? I heard Oakwood is making good banjos, too.
hi, ive just bid on abanjo on ebay, because i recently broke my banjo, and need a replacement untill mine is repaired. its a "del oro", has any one heard of "del oro" any information would be really appreciated, as i stupidly bid on this item, without even knowing what it plays like. i wouldnt usually buy an instrument without playing it, but i panicked as i have a big gig coming up. thanks.
Tenor Banjo Maker
Tenor Banjo Maker
Hi guys,
I am wondering what tenor banjo you are using.
I know there are discussions on the number of frets, string gauge, but what about the maker? Is there any good banjo maker(s) favored by Irish banjo players?
I currently have one banjo made by Vage, but thinking of buying another one.
I saw Seamus Egan using Bacon & Day, but Paramount also look very nice.
Any opinion?
# Posted on May 15th 2006 by lowdens
Re: Tenor Banjo Maker
Hi lowdens, are you familiar with John Bernunzio, Rochester, NY ?
http://www.bernunzio.com
He's got all sorts of tenors for sale. I bought a 1927 Vega, Whyte Laydie, "R" (17 fret) from him in Feb. I'm delighted with it....tone and action are excellent.
http://www.bernunzio.com/item.php?sku=059463
He fitted a resonator (Vega) for me at no additional cost.
If you're looking for a new banjo, have a look at Tom Cussen's site. Eoin O' Meachair of Caladh plays one. There's a link to Tom site on Caladh's and you can hear Eoin play.
# Posted on May 15th 2006 by Strathfoyle
Re: Tenor Banjo Maker
Whoops ! Sorry, here's the Caladh link :
http://www.caladh.com/index.htm
# Posted on May 15th 2006 by Strathfoyle
Re: Tenor Banjo Maker
I have two Bacon&Days, and I must say they are lovely. The older banjos have (in my humble opinion) a nicer rounder sound than the modern banjos. But it's also a question of the setup.
I know I can recommend B&D anytime, if you find a nice one!
# Posted on May 15th 2006 by Larshansen
Re: Tenor Banjo Maker
I used to play a Clareen Elite Gold, and they play like a dream! But they have the somewhat sharper sound, much more cut. If you play a resonator Clareen, and play it hard, you'll be leading the whole thing everytime you play! (not to say that it's not cool;)
# Posted on May 15th 2006 by Larshansen
Re: Tenor Banjo Maker
Here's another link. Eamonn Coyne playing a David Boyle banjo.
http://www.eamonncoyne.com/profile.htm#
# Posted on May 15th 2006 by Strathfoyle
Re: Tenor Banjo Maker
i play a dave boyle banjo and am delighted with it. it has a deep tone and looks beatiful.dave is excellent to deal with also but im not sure what his waiting lists are like.
# Posted on May 16th 2006 by mike meade
Re: Tenor Banjo Maker
Thanks guys for the comments.
After I posted this topic, I looked for some thread dealing with tenor banjos and found quite a few including the discussion on D. Boyle's and Clareen's.
On and off, I check the websites of some shops including Bernunzio's but haven't ordered anything yet. I will keep my eyes on it as I don't think I will spend that much money for new Boyle nor Clareen. Anyway, I am quite interested in B & D and Paramount at this moment I don't know why.
I do agree with the comments of those who mentioned that the setup is very crucial to determine the tone of the banjo, anyway...
Now I wonder what kind of tone do those banjo players look for. I have played Seamus Egan's Bacon & Day, but the sound of his was very crispy. I was quite surprised by it as Vega Little Wonder (with animal skin head) which I currently have doesn't sound like it at all...
I wish I can try more banjos...
# Posted on May 17th 2006 by lowdens
Re: Tenor Banjo Maker
Each of the vintage brand banjos have a distinct sound that any jazz banjo player can recognize at a distance. So it is no wonder that your Little Wonder sounds different from a B&D. Of course you have a skin head on yours so there is the annoyance factor of environmental changes. But I have the same banjo and love it.
My experience with Paramounts, B&D, Vega, Weymann, and Leedy is that they all sound good as long as they are setup properly. After that it is a matter of taste.
Don't get caught up in the "sound like Earl (Scruggs)" mentality that the Bluegrass players have. They spend all their time and money tweaking banjos to sound like a set of recordings that are 50 years old. Even Earl's banjo doesn't sound like them since the recording technology has changed.
Instead learn to produce the best tone on your instrument that you can and then go out and listen to as many banjos as you can. One of these days a banjo will just cry out to you and you will know that that banjo is the one for you.
Mike Keyes
http://www.banjosessions.com
# Posted on May 18th 2006 by mikeyes
Re: Tenor Banjo Maker
Hi Mikeye,
Thank you for your comment.
I have read your comments on the other threads about banjo, too, and I start wondering what is the best tone on my banjo now.
I don't think I know about setup of banjos so much other than changing the strings, so I don't know how to adjust the things like banjo head, bridge, tailpiece etc... I want to listen to as many tenor banjos as I can, but in my area, I know only one banjo player other than me playing Irish music. So it is difficult for me to compare different banjos...
Anyway, now I feel like trying to find out what kind of tone my banjo can produce.
# Posted on May 18th 2006 by lowdens
Re: Tenor Banjo Maker
OK, here is the short course on setup.
Banjos, unlike guitars or fiddles, are an assemblage of parts which means that (theoretically, anyway) you can take them down to their component parts, of which there are many, and then put them back together again. If you duplicate the fit and the various tensions, etc., a banjo will sound exactly the same as it did before you took it apart. Try that with a guitar and you will end up with a pile of firewood.
If any of the zillion parts of a banjo is not fit the same, the sound will change, again theoretically, and some parts have a greater effect on the sound than others. Also, since banjos are vibrating machines, parts loosen all the time, usually just enought to change the sound.
That being said, most banjos are in need of a setup every so often because constant playing, the environment, and the animosity of non-banjo players all have a tendency to change things. If your banjo has a skin head, it is even more sensitive to these forces.
We will use as an illustration a typical Vega Little Wonder tenor banjo. The LW is an entry level (in 1925) banjo with great genes. They are usually found with a 17 fret neck, although 19 fret instruments occur, may come with or without a resonator, and have the entry level tailpiece by Grover. When setup for Irish tuning they have a little bit of snap to the sound but overall are mellow sounding. Quite a nice little banjo.
The first thing to do is to inspect the banjo from top to bottom. 17 fret instruments are not as prone to neck warpage as the 19 fret ones, but it does occur. Look down the neck from the side to see if there is any forward bowing. You can also press the G string at the twelfth fret and the first fret to see if there is any space under the string. If there is not, you have a problem as there should be some, this is called relief and it allows the strings to vibrate without hitting a fret in the process. If there is excessive bowing (which to some extent is subjective, but after a while is obvious) this will interfere with intonation and fretting which is a bad thing. Reject that banjo unless you are willing to pay to have it fixed - the problem could be in the neck, the dowel stick, or the fit to the rim, all expensive fixes unless you do them yourself. Also check for twist in the neck. A little clockwise twist of a few degrees (looking at the bridge from the headstock) is not a bad thing, most fiddles have that, but a noticable twist is another costly item. This type of inspection should be done before you buy if possible. The good news is that 17 fret instruments are usually free of excessive warping.
The next thing to do is to look at the rim. If there are any de-laminations (you will see a split in the lamination of the rim) that will effect sound. This is one thing you can fix, you fill the de-lamination with glue and then clamp the hell out of it until the glue sets. Use tite-bond original and it should do well (unless you want to deal with hide glue which is the best way to go.) If the rim is solid, then check the bracket bolts and make sure that they are all snug but not over tight. Then check all the other screws but don't touch the hooks and nuts that hold the head on. The idea is to make the banjo a unified a unit as possible so that when you start the setup, you don't have loose parts around to rattle and mess things up. While the LW does not have coordinator rods (these should be slightly over finger tight and not used to set the neck) or truss rods (they should be snug and set the neck to have a little relief, don't use it to set the action), those banjos that do should be set so there are no rattling nuts and bolts.
More theory: The components that effect the sound of your banjo are as follows, in order of importance: The head and head type, head tension*, bridge* and bridge placement*, tailpiece, tailpiece tension*, strings*, and picks*. Those components with the asterisk (*) are easy to adjust or change while the others require time and taking parts off the banjo (well the strings do to, I grant you.)
Heads generally give you a brighter sound as you progress from a clear head (brightest and thinnest), through the various frosted heads, to the Renaissance head to the fyberskin head (Tyvek, the same stuff used to protect the engineered wood on the side of your house.) Skin heads are a separate category as they have a unique sound and unique problems, more on this later.
I prefer the less bright heads but not Fyberskin which I think just dulls everything.
Bridges can change the sound from bright to darker depending on construction, wood and mostly weight. Heavier bridges are darker sounding with fewer of the highs. Well made bridges such as the Kateyz, Snuffy Smith, Scorpion, and several others are more expensive, but can be tailored for your instrument and the sound you want. Changing a bridge can make a remarkable change in the sound.
Tailpieces can in themselves cause a change in the sound, but the pressure that a tailpiece places on the bridge is arguably more important. The angle of the string from the bridge to the tailpiece should be about 13-15 degrees according to every source I can find. I prefer the Oettinger tailpiece which allows individual string angles (they are not to be used as fine tuners) that place similar stresses on each string. But I also use a variety of other tailpeices and they all seem to impart a special sound to the instrument.
Most of you are familar with the different tones that come from stainless steel and the various bronze materials that strings are made of.
Picks often change the way an instrument sounds. I prefer the .60 Dunlop nylon picks on my banjos and very thick picks on mandolin and guitar.
Now to setup, I hope you are still with me.
The most common thing that is wrong with a banjo is that the head is not tuned properly. Most of the time the head is too loose. Plastic heads (more on skin later) tend to stretch for at least 6 months after they are put on and hooks/bolts loosen with playing and temperature change. As you will find out, a small change in the hook tension can mean large tonal changes. If you talk to the majority of BG banjo players they constantly talk about tuning the head of a banjo to a specific note, usually G or G#. Naturally, they are all wet.
Banjos are individuals and you can't tune a head to a specific note and expect it to be great. Besides, I seriously doubt that very many players can hear a specific note when the head is tapped as there are numerous overtones sounded with this procedure. The best way to use your ear is to listen for the sound of the banjo being played while you slowly tighten the head down. (Tighten, then play, not both at the same time.)
Before you tighten the head, make sure that the tension ring is on square to the rim. You do this by taking several measurements from the hoop to a fixed point such as the top of the brackets. This distance (you can make a crude gauge with a dowel) should be the same all around, otherwise you will warp the tension ring over time and the banjo will not sound good. (For those of you with coordinator rods, any excessive tension there will warp the rim with similar results.) Once the head is on square, you can begin to tune the head. I also prefer to lubricate the hooks using wax or a very small amount of a thick grease (the wax will not stain your banjo.)
My preferred method is to tighten the head in small increments (one sixth of a turn) in a clockwise manner starting at the neck and going all around. Some prefer to use a star pattern (tightening opposite nuts back and forth as if you were tightening the head gasket of a car) but I always get lost and have found that the way I use now is just as good as long as you make sure that the tension ring is square. At some point (experts say that there are at least three points) your banjo will start sounding good to you. If so, don't stop, instead keep on going until you start to choke off the sound. Then simply back up the number of increments you need to get the good sound back. At this time you can take measurements with a DrumDial or a Neary wrench (all available from janet Davis and are used by drummers) to see what your tension numbers are. Later on when you find that the tone of your banjo is fading, you can reset the tension to the optimal one. I don't use those aides any more as I can usually just find the sweet spot with my ears.
IF you are beginner at doing banjo mechanics, it can be daunting. Most of us fear that we will break the head. Unless you head is faulty (there was a run of faulty Remo heas for a while, and if you are not improving your sound, you should check for small breaks at the hoop) you will be hard pressed to break a plastic head. In fact, I have seen demonstrations of people standing on the head while it was on the rim of the banjo (neck was off, of course.)
Remember that your head will stretch after you tune it up and you will have to do this again at some time. One way to slow the process of stretching down is to pre-stretch the head by pressing down on the tense head with your elbow or the heel of your hand to set the head on the rim. You will not break the head unless the head is defective.
The next step, if you need it, is to make sure that the bridge is in the right place. Check this by playing the harmonic at the twelfth fret and then playing the note at the twelfth fret. If they are different, move the bridge, closer to the headstock if the note is flat, closer to the tailpiece if it is sharp. Check the E note and the G note (you can't do anything about the others, anyway) and most of the time you will find that the bridge is slanted when you are finished. This is OK. This is called compensation and is there because the strings have different gauges.
IF you decide to change bridges, remember that putting a new bridge on changes the tension dynamics of your banjo and you have to a) let it settle in for a week or so before deciding if it is helping (although sometimes the change is dramatic and immediate) and b) you may have to reset the head to get the best sound from your new bridge.
Next look at your tailpiece and see if it is putting any pressure on the bridge. If you have a no-knot tailpeice, change it out for a Waverly type (don't worry if it is for a 5 string banjo, the banjo can't count) which has some capability of putting tension on the strings. Go for that 15 degree string angle.
The next thing you can do is to change strings. Most Irish tuned banjos have G strings that are too light in gauge, especially with a 17 fret instrument. I prefer a .042 inch string as my G string but each instrument will need a little experimentation as to string gauge and type of material. I use Stainless steel on my Littel Wonder, but yours may vary.
The rest of it, especially the action at the nut and neck/rim fit issues, are best left to the experts (well anyone can change out a tailpiece) but are worth the money as far as playability goes.
Skin heads are a special class. Skin is a very durable material for heads but it is sensitive to head and humidity. It is hard to break a head, but if you leave it in an attic at full tension, it will dry out, become brittle, and eventually crack. I keep my LW skin head at about 80 percent of the tension that makes it sound good and I literally warm it up with my body heat as I play. This means that I have to tune it down during a session until it stabilizes in the environment but as far as I am concerned it is worth it. I keep the banjo in a climate controlled room (AC and a humidifer, it is not that fancy) and am aware of the state of the head at all times.
Try these tricks and see if you have a different sounding banjo when you are finished.
Mike Keyes
http://www.banjosessions.com
mikeyes@charter.net
# Posted on May 18th 2006 by mikeyes
Re: Tenor Banjo Maker
Thank you very much, Mike!!
I am not sure if I can do all the things to get the best sound from my banjo, but I will try.
Knowing that people say every banjo has its own sound, now I wonder what is the favorite old/vintage banjo maker those Irish banjo players love.
I haven't tried so many banjos, and I don't think I can try many banjos. But I want to know the "general opinion".
As for the "new" makers, now I understood people talk about the Clareen and Boyle, but how about the other makers? I heard Oakwood is making good banjos, too.
Any opinion?
# Posted on May 20th 2006 by lowdens
Re: Tenor Banjo Maker
hi, ive just bid on abanjo on ebay, because i recently broke my banjo, and need a replacement untill mine is repaired. its a "del oro", has any one heard of "del oro" any information would be really appreciated, as i stupidly bid on this item, without even knowing what it plays like. i wouldnt usually buy an instrument without playing it, but i panicked as i have a big gig coming up. thanks.
# Posted on April 25th 2007 by gabriel