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Please note this is an archived topic, so it is locked and unable to be replied to. You may, however, start a new topic and refer to this topic with a link: http://www.banjohangout.org/archive/360153
ClayTech - Posted - 01/06/2020: 20:30:43
I've got a goat skin head on my banjo. It sounds fabulous in the winter when everything is dry. In the summer it sounds slightly less so. I can tighten up the head, but it still doesn't sound like it does in the winter. So my question: is it really just a matter of head tension, or is there also something to be said for the dryness of the head? It seems that the dryer the head is, the better it will vibrate. Your thoughts?
Noah Cline - Posted - 01/06/2020: 21:47:40
Humidity and moisture are a skin head's worst enemies. Try keeping it in A/C during the summer months -- that usually keeps my banjos with skin heads happy. And if it's a rainy or muggy day, I just tend to not play them and play something else and then play them on the days when the heads are tight.
Billybiltbanjo - Posted - 01/07/2020: 03:16:36
If you tighten the head too often, you might eventually find the tension hoop sitting lower than you like. Warming up the skin for a minute or two with a hand held hair dryer works well to tighten the skin if high humidity has gotten at it. Thin bridges will sink into a skin more than others with bigger feet and that will have an effect on the tone and string height... Experimenting with bridges may help.. Yes skins can be aggravating at times but the difference in tone between real skin and a plastic head is enough for me to put up with the aggravation.
lucas73b - Posted - 01/07/2020: 04:36:05
I have the same experience as you with a goatskin head. In humid weather conditions it just does not sound well, tightening the head does not help. I guess that the moist absorbed by the head affects the properties of the material and thus the way it sounds. For rainy days I have a banjo with a mylar head.
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