Banjercat - Posted - 10/29/2023:  05:18:17

It seems to me builders are trending towards wider and wider nuts on clawhammer banjo's these days? I see a couple of Goldtone's for instance with an 1 7/16" nut width? I personally find anything over 1 1/4" excessive and uncomfortable to play, especially with the longer scales, which I prefer for their richer tone (to me at any rate and I have average to slightly smaller hands)

I am curious as to what is driving this trend? I have found myself put off from acquiring more than one new banjo due to this wide nut.

Edited by - Banjercat on 10/29/2023 05:37:41

csacwp - Posted - 10/29/2023:  05:56:43

With the wide nuts, decreased gamut thanks to scoops, and mellow, un-banjoistic tone, modern banjos are starting to resemble guitars.

Edited by - csacwp on 10/29/2023 05:57:00

Banjercat - Posted - 10/29/2023:  08:27:56

quote:

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Originally posted by csacwp

With the wide nuts, decreased gamut thanks to scoops, and mellow, un-banjoistic tone, modern banjos are starting to resemble guitars.

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Seems so to me too sadly .

Alex Z - Posted - 10/29/2023:  09:33:25

Those new to the banjo have difficulty making clear chords because their fingers hit the adjacent strings.  They almost always feel that a wider nut is the solution.  Thus a banjo with a wider nut will feel more comfortable, and -- from the perspective of a seller -- more easily sellable.

The solution to clear chords is (1) toughening of the fingertips so that the fingertip does not have to press so deeply into the string, (2) "cheating over" on  specific fingers, rather than putting the center of each fingertip on the center of the string (as the books say), to allow more room as needed, and (3) practice, specifically enough practice until (1) and (2) are accomplished and learned.

I always think of meeting Sonny Osborne.  Mr. Sonny had the hands of an NBA center, yet cleanly fretted the narrow fingerboard of a pre-war Gibson. 

A 1-1/4"  banjo fingerboard is roughly equivalent to a 1-7/8" guitar fingerboard, which is pretty wide.   1-1/4" with steel strings is wide enough for most all players.  Nylon/gut strings might use wider, similar to classic guitar vs. steel string guitar -- I don't have experience with nylon/gut banjos.

davidppp - Posted - 10/29/2023:  10:54:44

quote:

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Originally posted by csacwp

With the wide nuts, decreased gamut thanks to scoops, and mellow, un-banjoistic tone, modern banjos are starting to resemble guitars.

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I resolutely refuse to advocate for "what sounds better."  I enjoy hearing the differences, try to understand their origin, and love them all.  (OK, I admit to having personal preferences, but those change over time.)

The very popular Banjo Bolster is an example of many serious players'  banjo sound preferences leaning in the guitar direction.  The spectrograms on banjobolster.com/pages/david-p...ter-works show that the Bolster weakens much of the banjo's sound at frequencies that are not harmonics of the plucked string.  Those sounds, which are quite apparent with normal banjos across the historical spectrum, are largely absent from normal guitars.  Interestingly (to me, at least), resonator guitar sound differs from normal acoustic guitars by producing precisely that find of extra "noise."  Some folks like it.  Some don't.  For the time being, if you want to hear direct comparisons and view spectrograms, you have to go to its.caltech.edu/~politzer/ and view the top four posts on resonator guitars.  I write stuff up when I think I've got something interesting.  A proper overview won't come until I run out of angles on the subject to investigate.  I've got more in the works. 

John's comment including "mellow" raises an interesting question.  Do mellow, really old banjos, i.e., pre-1870 styles, produce their own extra banjo noise, albeit at lower frequencies?  I suspect that they do and will certainly try to listen and look.  I always point out that banjos in the time of Joel Sweeny and Stephen Foster were said to "ring," in spite of having no metal parts.  (Guitars simply do not ring.  In the context of resonator guitars, I've isolated their "ring" explicitly.  That is demonstrated in its.caltech.edu/~politzer/pluc...hesis.pdf.  For starters, listen to the sound files and look ate the spectrograms.  They're self-explanatory.  (I nearly fainted when I listened to the sounds that I had laboriously synthesized with math software, i.e., its.caltech.edu/~politzer/pluc...bined.mp3 and  its.caltech.edu/~politzer/pluc...NTIAL.mp3.  I plan to do the same sort of thing for an open-back banjo.)

The physics origin of banjo "ring" is actually presented in the papers on my Web page labeled "APRIL 2021: Banjo Physics Bonanza!"  However, we didn't make that part of the guitar comparison explicit and didn't identify it as "ring."

Dan Gellert - Posted - 10/29/2023:  14:43:45

I like extra width for the left-hand plucking ("pull-offs") that I find essential to traditional styles.

Banjercat - Posted - 10/29/2023:  14:44:01

"The very popular Banjo Bolster is an example of many serious players' banjo sound preferences leaning in the guitar direction."

Davidppp, I agree with you on this. I see the banjo , especially the open back being led in this direction by a lot of folks. I enjoy the old timey tone and as you , relish the differences in tone of all the different banjo's, a banjo should sound like a banjo, IMHO....

NotABanjoYoda - Posted - 10/29/2023:  15:02:43

I like 1 7/16 but I like 1 11/16 better. It is not because my fingers hit adjacent strings, they rarely do. My guitar strings are closer to each other than my jer.

I like it wider because it feels more comfortable and makes hammer ons, pull offs, bends and vibrato much easier for me. ymmv

And if its a trend, then Im sure my experience might not be unique. Luckily one can get necks and nuts made your way like BK.

KCJones - Posted - 10/29/2023:  19:34:17

quote:

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Originally posted by csacwp

With the wide nuts, decreased gamut thanks to scoops, and mellow, un-banjoistic tone, modern banjos are starting to resemble guitars.

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Which is terrible, because guitars are best known for their limited dynamic range and musical inexpressiveness.

Jokes aside... I asked my girlfriend and she prefers narrow nuts. 

GSCarson - Posted - 10/29/2023:  20:20:34

I find this totally depends on your playing style and hand position. I have large hands and really love extra wide string spacing. My son Russ plays both bluegrass and clawhammer, and he handles both the original narrow old Gibson necks and my extra wide necked banjos designed for drop thumb playing equally well. The wider string spacing makes makes drop thumb playing much easier for me and many others. I first really focused on this when I built a banjo for my friend Reed Martin, Reed has enormous fingers and very wide string spacing. The string spacing and nut width has nothing to do with the scale length or how the banjo sounds or rings, and I have banjos that are intentionally mellow and also several that ring loud and clear which I also love.

Alex Z - Posted - 10/30/2023:  07:45:26

For those who have extra-wide necks, what string spacing do you use at the bridge?

R.D. Lunceford - Posted - 10/31/2023:  11:05:42

quote:

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Originally posted by KCJones

Which is terrible, because guitars are best known for their limited dynamic range and musical inexpressiveness.

 

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Christoph Denoth - Frog Galliard (John Dowland) - YouTube

OldPappy - Posted - 11/02/2023:  09:04:57

Jeff Kramer built banjos for Dwight Diller for a dozen years, and I built banjos for him for the last 12 years of his life.

He wanted a wide neck, short scale (23 1/2"), 5th string peg at 6th fret to allow more room for slides, and a slight radius of 20" on the board to facilitate pull offs, and other left hand embellishments of which he was a master.

Hard to bend them strings on a skinny necked banjo. I have built a number of banjos with the same specs for other people and they were very happy with them. Played the same setup myself for most of the last 12 years.

Lately I have been playing one of Dwight's older banjos which has a "standard" scale and width neck which was made for Dwight in 1973 and once I got reacquainted with the longer scale I have no difficulty playing it, and enjoy playing it, but I can't do the same things with this banjo as I can with one of my own, or Kramer's design.

Lew H - Posted - 11/04/2023:  07:37:39

Several things lead me to want greater nut widths: I've always used a lot of pull-offs (pluck-offs, really) and wider nut width makes this easier. I have come to like bluesy songs and string bending is a big part of this, and again a wider nut with string separation makes this easier. Last, my hands (in my late 70s) are now arthritic and minor stroke make it difficult for me to fret in the exact intended spot without bumping adjacent strings. My first banjo was a Kay with a nut scarcely wider than an inch. I think my preference now is about 1 3/8, although 1 1/4 is OK