i would be interested in what fretless banjos you folks own? which is your favorite and what banjo do you want that you don't have.
i have a Bell minstrel, a Brewster (English), And a Buckbee flush fret. I like the Buckbee the most tuned to E. I want a new half fretless next. Maybe an Enoch.
12 Comments |
 | hubbanjo says:
4/14/2015 12:06:37 AM
As a coincidence, I also own (and play!) a Bell Minstrel and an old Buckbee flush fret; my third fretless is a Bary Sholder gourd banjo. Not bad for a player from Holland, I gues ;-). I don't have a favorite as I love to play all three of them.
As all of them are strung with Nylguts, I would like to own a steel-strung fretless one day, preferably an Enoch or a Bonefaas, but I would have to rob the bank first...
|
 | Dave Vinci says:
4/14/2015 7:36:00 AM
I have a Bell minstrel, a Bell gourd banjo and a Bob Flesher Minstrel I built from a kit. The Bells are both strung with Nylguts and the Flesher banjo is strung with gut.
I thought it would be nice to have a fretless with flush frets strung with nylon. I restored an 1888 Stewart and strung it with nylon which makes it a real joy to play but it does have frets. Funny how banjos seem to multiply in the dark...
|
 | winterfritz says:
5/5/2015 8:07:32 AM
Kyle Creed semi-fretless..........wouldn't mind having a tubaphone.......
|
 | championofnorthhuron says:
5/5/2015 3:53:06 PM
I have a little Robert Thornburg grain measure, a Bell Minstrel I built from a kit, and a recently completed full size custom Noel Booth Antebellum. The latter is simply beautiful... perhaps the most so that I own. I need to get pictures of it up here, and when I get the courage... some videos. My Bell is funny because despite always keeping Nylgut Minstrels on it, it developed a wicked and noticable neck twist (a rotation, not a warp). But yet the twist doesn't affect the playability one iota. What banjo do I want? I think a half fretless... perhaps with steel strings and a brass plate... Enoch? I've often thought I'd like to convert a marginal condition SS-Stewart to such a banjo if I could find one that were suitable for such a conversion.
|
 | TKarrow says:
5/12/2015 12:11:01 AM
I have an "A scale fretless that I built using an ebay pot and made my own neck.. I used purple heart wood for the (non)fret board and strung it with nylon.. Last year, I built 10" double headed "a scale" with rawhide heads and nylon strings but gave it to my niece who's a much better player than I..
I have an old Harmony banjo with a plastic pot that the same niece rescued from a dumpster and I restored.. Also some others that I built- a Pete Seger long neck, an "a scale" with a tunneled 5th string, a full length wide neck with a full length 5th string..
Planning to build an "a scale" with a full length 5th string and a bouzouki banjo.. BUt the only fretless that I currently have is the 1st one I mentioned..
|
 | LFree says:
6/6/2015 12:28:59 PM
I've got a Reiter fretless (love it!), a Bell Minstrel (love it too!), a Menzies tackhead, a Robert Browder gourd, and a John Huron mountain banjo (Stanley Hicks style)--all good ones!. I've also got an SS Steward 2nd grade pot with a cool, hand-made (very crude) fretless neck attached to it.
I also have a Mike Ramsey Standard fretless with the brass plate on the fingerboard that I will likely put up for sale soon, to fund another hard-to-find banjo that I've been waiting for. I hate to sell it and it's great for Round Peak style with that brass fingerboard plate.
|
 | rmcdow says:
7/12/2015 6:24:08 AM
I have a Gold Tone cello CEB-5 fretless, and find it is one of my favorite banjos to play. The scale is shorter than the fretted banjos I have, and the neck is wider, I guess to allow those strings to vibrate without hitting each other, as the cello is tuned an octave lower than the standard 5 string. On recommendation from a hangout member that has a fretted one, I have ordered a set of flat wound strings that I feel sure will help a lot with the sound of fingers moving along the strings. The CEB-5 is a very enjoyable banjo to play, and the fretless neck has taken me into unexplored territory, a lot of fun.
|
mipake says:
7/12/2015 8:39:30 AM
cool I have wondered about the cello banjo. in what style do you play it?
|
| rmcdow says:
7/14/2015 6:55:18 AM
I am just learning, and have only been playing since November of last year. I'm missing most of the middle finger of my right hand, and am trying to work out a style that works with that issue. Right now, at my stage of learning, what suits me best is to fill in the harmony or play the melody with fingerpicking along with my fiance, who does three finger rolls along with the melody. She also started playing last November, so we are working with each other on tunes. Primarily the tunes she likes are folk melodies, not bluegrass, and she plays pretty softly, depending on the banjo she is on, so our co-developed style is most likely described as folk picking or something like that. I don't know a lot about the different styles, so don't know the descriptions used. We're still a bit shy about posting our playing, as we are really newbies, and lots to learn.
|
 | hman0217 says:
7/13/2016 10:47:03 AM
I have an enoch tradesman fretless tuned to E. I use a goat skin head I obtained from Jeff Menzies and...presently, I use Savarez KF carbon on all but the fourth string, on which I use silver plated nylon strings. I'm still a newbie and experimenting, but I really like what's happening with the sound of it now, for the most part. If anything, I'd just want to tune to D without sacrificing the openness of the strings up top but I'm not sure how to go about doing that on a 25.5" scale banjo.
|
 | chas5131 says:
1/31/2017 7:14:21 PM
Ome Juniper nylon string.
|
 | Schmidtrock says:
4/11/2017 4:50:31 PM
John Peterson Watauga County - carryinon.com/
|
Post a Comment
|
You must be logged in and a member of this group to post a comment.
|
