Overall Comments

A helpful visual walkthrough on how to affect tone with proper set up of your Mastertone-style banjo. Steve explains the basics of head tightness, bridge placement, tone ring to rim fit, adjusting the height of a Presto, truss rod adjustments, and how to hunt down and fix the common sources of annoying buzzes. He also shows you how to break down a banjo, replace the head, and put the instrument back together. Pick placement technique and proper maintenance of nut slots, also are covered.

John Lawless of Acutab did his typically excellent job producing a very useful DVD, but there are some minor shortcomings. When Steve removes the Presto, it would have been nice if there had been a close up shot of how he removed the tailpiece nut and bracket. Close-ups of his removing the nuts of the coordinator rods also were absent and would have been helpful.

This video includes a video documentary of Huber Banjos. Keep in mind that since the time this DVD was produced during 2002/2003, the Huber line-up has changed significantly, and much of the DVD’s information for ordering Huber Banjos is out-of-date.

Overall, an excellent review of banjo set-up basics, especially for beginners. If you don’t mind paying for a subscription to Tony Trischka’s banjo teaching site, which is part of www.academyofbluegrass.com, Mike Munford’s video banjo set-up lessons (located under the “Special Guests” tab) goes into some of most of these topics in greater detail, although as of the date of this review, Munford’s lessons did not discuss tone ring fit or how to tap for the source of a buzz.

Overall Rating

8