22 Comments |
 | JimHand says:
2/3/2012 6:12:37 PM
Hey Scott: Yep I have one also. I use D'Addario J-61 (mediums), mainly because that is what I use on my Gold Tone OB-175. Mine has more of a brighter sound but if I stuff something behind the head it helps. I usually have it tuned to double C or sawmill and that is plunkier. Hope you enjoy it!!!
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 | AlpacaLips says:
2/3/2012 10:19:37 PM
Scott, I sure love mine. I've played for less than a year, but I have three banjos and have played several others, and the WL250 is my favorite of all. It does have a somewhat bright sound, but that doesn't mean it isn't plunky. I think of "plunk" as the sound of the attack (like a stone entering a pool), rather than the sustain. There are bright banjos with plunk and warm banjos with plunk, but there are also plunkless bright banjos and warm banjos.
I'm on my first set of strings on the WL and they desperately need to be changed (they're on order), but my goal is to keep the sound it has now.
I think the sound is perfect, but you'll just have to see for yourself. If it's too bright for you, you can always try a Fiberskyn head or Nylgut strings. Like you, I ordered without hearing one in person, and it turned out for the best. There were some cosmetic issues which I worked out with Gold Tone, but for sound and playability I can't imagine beating the WL-250 without spending a LOT of money.
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 | Scott Barnbilly56 says:
2/4/2012 6:20:29 AM
Hey Jim is double C tuning 2nd and 4th string tuned to C ? I seen a clawhammer lady play like this last year but not sure if that's what she did .
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| JimHand says:
2/4/2012 1:47:48 PM
Yes, the low D goes down to C and the B gets raised up to C.
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| Scott Barnbilly56 says:
2/4/2012 2:49:34 PM
Ok now comes the real dumb question . Is this like a idea instead of playing in the key of C you can do this and play in G like a capo idea and your in C ?????? I have done this before and like the sound for something diffrent which it was . Special times you like doing this type tunning ?
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 | mptjr13 says:
2/5/2012 7:07:30 AM
Congrats on the WL-250, I agree with the other owners, you will love the instrument. I also have other banjo's but my White Ladye is in my hands most of the time, size, weight and feel is perfect. I went to a fiber skin head to get the clawhammer sound I was looking for and also added a segented bridge that had a lower profile and quicker action, that was a personal preferance and it probably would have played the same with the factory bridge. For strings I went to medium gauge and it seems to work well. Good luck and now you will bw able to say that you have a mistress (White Layde).
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| Scott Barnbilly56 says:
2/11/2012 1:51:32 PM
I see in your picture "mptjr13"you have a banjo that looks just like mine the orange blossom 250 resinator banjo and see a white ladye right beside it . Do i have the picture right . That's the same set up i'll have when my ladye arrives in a week or so . Got the drool bib on already .
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| mptjr13 says:
2/12/2012 5:28:10 AM
Oh yes, you are right on the money, the OB-250 was my first banjo that had a price tag of more than 175.00 and within a few moths after that I had the chance to buy my WL-250. I think you are really going to fall in love with your white ladye, I know its the one that is in my hands most of the time. Please keep me posted on your journey with your WL. It so fun to get excited about a new banjo.
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| Scott Barnbilly56 says:
2/12/2012 6:18:47 AM
I started with the 175.00 type banjo too then the ob 250 which was a grand . I have that off set bridge on my Ob 250 that the pic shows on your white ladye also . Yes great joy and jublee is around the corner when i get my gold tone double option .
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 | JanetB says:
2/14/2012 5:26:02 AM
The whyte ladye's tone ring is the secret of her mystique. Does anyone have an explanation for this?
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| mptjr13 says:
2/15/2012 3:26:46 AM
Of the three layde's which one did you get, 250, 250+ or the 250 long neck
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| Scott Barnbilly56 says:
2/15/2012 7:12:31 AM
Just got the 250 with the clouds on neck .Still waiting for them to ship it though . I had em add the fifth string capo so might slow down order . Still drool'in here anyways . On your orange blossom 250 are those two spots on your banjo head like finger grabs or something to hold your fingers in place ? I have the dancing ring finger problem when i play fast pick'in other wise it seem well behaved .
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| mptjr13 says:
2/15/2012 2:30:44 PM
The two spots are worn places on the head where the frost has worn off from my fingers being in the same spot all the time. I thought when I started playing the WL that I would play at the base of the neck in the cut out, but that has not worked out too well, my clawhammer style has me playing on the head right under the neck. I am sure you will find your comfort zone.
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 | writerrad says:
2/23/2012 4:09:17 PM
I have owned a GT WL250 since 2003 or 2004 with a skin head. I have come to love that banjo even though I have acquired four other banjos since I bought it, including a couple banjos that cost two or three times as much, and a vintage fairbanks. I like the punchy sound on it that makes, which matches the sound many of the Black banjoists I try to emulate play. For plunky I have a enoch tradesman and a 19th Century fairbanks.
My question is what strings do people use. I used to use the Earl Scruggs mediums but tried the Gold Tone old set with a w26 string that is just too big and
hard on the fingers.
I am thinking of trying just changing the fourth string to a 23, but what do folks use, particular folks who play two finger style. I love this banjo's skin head for two finger playing help
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| Scott Barnbilly56 says:
2/23/2012 6:29:50 PM
There suppost to ship it finally tommrow and it's been a wait but had em add the fifth string capo to it and have on my other banjo's and like instead of spikes . Ya i will watch for that 26 gauge 4th string because when i asked them they mentioned something about a 26 , 4th string . I'm ok with a 24 . I put heavy strings on my orange blossom once and did'nt like trying to pick heavy strings . On clawhammer banjo is 16 gauge ok for 3rd string ? I know it was to heavy for pick'in banjo .
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| writerrad says:
4/1/2012 6:06:14 AM
I learned tht the set of strings I had with a 26 was an old set that was discontinued several years ago. I had been using the Earl Scruggs Martin medium set that has a 22 for several years as that is what Schenkmen at Turtle Hill put on my banjo when I bought it from him in 2003. I think it depend on what kind of music you are playing. I put a 23 back on it from an odd set of strings I had and it feels better, particularly as I am getting into more of a round peake sound. But I use my enoch tradesman and my fairbanks electric for that.
I have a skin head on the banjo and it give sit a realy nice strong tone.
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| writerrad says:
4/1/2012 6:26:33 AM
Just to answer a question. The scalloped tone ring in the Whyte Lady is the product of the greatest banjo designer of all time David Day who work successively for the Fairbanks, Vega, and Bacon Banjo companies across the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
He designed the three main tone ring designs used on open back banjos, the electric tone ring, the tuba phone tone ring and the silver bell. : the scalloped "Electric" tone ring first used on the Fairbanks and Cole Electric banjo (it wasnt electric just that Electric was a way of saying something was jazzy back in the 1890s like Atomic was in the 1950s) which came out in the Fairbanks Electric Banjo in the 1890s (mine was built in 1894). In 1901, Fairbanks came out with a larger banjo with more ornamentation with a lounder more metallic sound known as the White Lady because initial models came out with blond maple. The scalloped tone ring in our gold tones is what allows it the pretension of being a whyte lady.
Later particularly as plectrum 5 string and tenor banjos became known, Now working for Vega which has bought fairbanks Day, built banjos with the louder brighter tubaphone tone ring he had developed earlier which brinngs out more treble than the whyte lady.
Perhaps his greatest masterpiece came in the 1920s when he worked for Bacon Banjos when he developed the Silver Bell Tone ring for their great Silver bells. Ome, probably the best non-custom banjo manufacutrer today, uses such tone rings.
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| Scott Barnbilly56 says:
4/1/2012 6:57:07 AM
I'm going to need to amplify my white ladye to play on stage and getting the double microphones set up for mic stand which is upper singing mic and one half way down . Don't know how this will work but looking for ideas like are those clip on mics any good and functional ? Is anyone using the attaching mic set up on there banjo?
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| Scott Barnbilly56 says:
4/1/2012 7:02:37 AM
Ps . i got a 24 gauge on my 4th string of my clunker banjo and like how it "gong's"
Don't know what is on the new white ladye i got and gold tone would only say mediums which leaves alot of room for gauge sizes to me so I know there kinda heavy cuz i pick em with picks sometimes for fun and harder to pick gauge wise .
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| writerrad says:
1/23/2013 12:44:45 PM
Goggle David Barlett Microphones. Barlett based in NC makes a very nice banjo microphone. bartlettmics.com/banjomic.html. It requires phantom power most PA setups in clubs and other venues I have played have phantom power these days, although barlett can tell you want you need to hook up to a PA that doesnt have it. When I go the microphone, I thought that would be a problem, but that was in March and I have played at festivals, clubs, universities, folk concerts, radio programs all over the US and that has yet to be a problem.
This happens to be the brand I use because the fiddler and leader of my band uses his fiddle microphone. So others might be just as good. I know Gold tone sells a clip on microphone too.
My strong opinion coming from MCing folk and acoustic shows for years before I began playing out on my own is that except for expensive setups, microphones do a lot better than pickups for both guitars and banjos.
When I first biought my WL 250 in 2003 from Turtle Hill it had strings on it that measured 10-12-14-22-10 (Shenkman the great luthier who runs turtle hill actually measured them witha micrometer. which is the same diameters as the Earl Scruggs Vega sets. I used them for years and then had an old set of Gold Tone mediums that used to come with a 26 fourth string. I replaced that with a 24 fourth string from another banjo set, but I think that is just too big.
I have a lot of different odd strings and I might put the earl scruggs strings on my banjo, but put a 23 fourth string from another set. I have J61s on a huge tubaphone clone banjo I have and that is a nice sound for it, but I dont think it would be so good for old time finger styule or clawhammer.
I went to a workshop with Mark Johnson whose playing I really admire and think is much loser to the real old time traditions of banjo playing that most people think. Learning about his thinking really helped me improve my playing and also gave me useful insights into banjo historye ven though he sees himself as a progressive modern bluegrass player.
I noticed he had much lighter strings on his banjo--a custom made deering that he says deering will make for anyone who gives them 10 or 15 K LOL--that the mediums I had on the tradesman I had there.
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| writerrad says:
1/23/2013 12:50:39 PM
PS I just reread a communication from 2004-5 with Shenkman about the strings where I got the diameters and he did say one could put J61s on a WL-250 though they are a lot heavier than what was coming on those banjoes back then. I think the WL 250 is a good banjo, but each banjo has its own joys and its own sorrows.
My WL250 is my most inexpensive banjo, but there are times that I have to play it and will take it out for a job or a workshop or a class I have given and no other banjo could sound better for that job.
Setup is probably the most important thing. UI have seen Bob Carlin set up a Wl 250 he took out of a box from the factory and play it with a couple of us with WL 250s and it sounded like a better banjo. I have had the great George R Gibson visit my home and tinker with the setup on all my banjoes even the good time my wife used to own and make em sound like a million bucks
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| writerrad says:
1/23/2013 12:52:49 PM
NB the banjo in the picture is not a Wl250 and unfortunately not mine, but one of the finest banjoes ever made. It is the Kyle Creed Banjo that Tommy Jarrell played for years and can be seen on the cover of several of his CDs and in Les Blanc's film about Jarrell. It was owned by Paul Brown who brought it to a banjo collectors meet in 2005 where I got to play it
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