Banjo tone question

First of all, let’s get past all of the banjo jokes - I’ve heard them all and this is a (relatively) serious question.

As a basis for comparison, I have my original no-name tenor banjo (17 fret, no resonator, Remo Renaissance head, Deering Irish tenor strings (12, 18w, 28w, 38w), action adjusted to 1.75 mm at 12th fret, Farqhar bridge, head tensioned using a drum dial.

My current go-to banjo is a 1925 DeWick - same specs as above except that the action is lower and using a custom bridge made by the high school buddy that sold me the DeWick.

I just did a complete rework/set-up on the original banjo and it sounds much better than before, but compared to the DeWick, it sounds shrill and tinny. There’s probably not much additional work that I can do to improve the sound. But I’m wondering if anyone else has had similar experiences and has any insight into what actually makes a banjo sound the way it does (good, bad, ugly, whatever).

I used to play 5-string banjo, and found that the tone ring type and material was pretty crucial in the overall sound (comparing banjos otherwise alike, but with different tone rings). Just a thought.

You could start with bringing up the action to 2.5 mm and see where that leads. If not, try lowering the number on your drum dial. Both of these adjustments are easily reversible and easy to do. What number on your drum dial have you set it too.

John

What tone ring does each banjo have - flat head or arched? What material is the tone ring made of? Sometimes no name entry level vintage banjos have either no tone ring or wooden tone rings. You’ve already told us that they sport different bridges, so that could be playing a part as well.

There are a lot of factors that go into the sound of a banjo. Head material, tone system, head tension, string material, string gauge, bridge construction, resonator, and tailpiece can all affect the tone of the instrument to one degree or another. The nice thing about the banjo is that a lot of those are really easy to change and experiment with until you get a tone that you like.

To work on shrill and tinny, the easiest thing to do is to loosen the head tension a bit. If it’s an 11“ pot, maybe try putting the Renaissance head at about 89 on the drum dial, making sure it’s even all around. You might also try heavier strings. For 17 fret banjos, I usually go with .012”, .020“, .032”, .044" with all of the strings nickel-wound, and a plain steel E.

But the tone ring may have the most influence over the sound (with maybe the exception of the head material), and that’s generally not something you can easily change. So you are generally stuck with mucking around with the other factors…

I’m also interested in your DeWick. I own a DeWick that was part of the Tsumura collection, and it is pretty tinny and thin sounding to me, compared to the behemoths that I generally play (Paragon, Ome, Silver Bell). It might be time for me to pull it out and do a different setup on it 😀 I would love a few photos of your DeWick if you have any. (There are pictures of mine here: http://itmbanjo.com/banjos/dewick-tenor/)

I’m with the others here in suspecting a tone ring difference as being the primary factor for the shrill tone. Changing strings and lowering head tension are usually the limits on entry level banjos in my experience.

Good advice all around - thank you. I’ll have to wait to the weekend to mess around with it.

Reverend - I’ll take pictures this weekend and post on Google Drive - I’ll try to make them generally available, in the off-chance that this level of esoterica may amuse others.

Jamming a cloth inside de head, between the drum head and the bar that prolonge the neck can reduce the treble very much but also a bit of the volume.