A-scale or travel banjo tuning issue resolved (Gold Tone CC-50TR)

New member, new CH banjo student (middle-aged guy learning an instrument for the first time).  Enjoying the new adventure immensely!

After spending my first several newby months playing an Epiphone MB-100 open-back, I noticed two things about myself:

1. I have sort of short fingers, so things like an F chord in open G tuning are physically very difficult, and

2. I started to develop a pain in my left lower deltoid, almost like a muscle pull, after long practices (> 1 hr), presumably from holding my left arm up in playing position for long stretches while manipulating my arm to finger the fretboard. It's become a chronic pain now (it’s tough getting older).

So I started researching banjos with shorter scales, and several weeks ago purchased the Gold Tone CC-50TR.  I absolutely love the size.  As Gold Tone states on their website, they've eliminated the first two frets, so effectively the nut is where the 3rd fret would be on a "normal" scale 5-string banjo.  And stood on end "fretboard-to-fretboard" with my MB-100, that's exactly the case with the CC-50TR.  The nut of the CC-50TR lines up with the third fret of the MB-100, and all the other frets "up the board” are an exact match. The scale is just about 23.5”.  Much easier chord fingering, much easier on my shoulder.  Plus, the string spacing at the nut (about 8 mm) is ever-so-slightly wider than on the MB-100, which suits my fingertips better.

The only issue with the banjo (and the reason for this post) was that the 3^rd string sounded “weird” in open G tuning (as a beginner, that’s what tuning I’ve been in to date).  To be clear, I’m not talking about an intonation issue: I was able to get correct intonation by bridge placement (and by correct, I mean the lightly plucked open note and the 12th-fretted note are on pitch with an electronic tuner).  This issue was a “sliding” sound as the open note was struck with normal playing force.  The tuner showed it as the note “striking” sharp by several cents, then sliding down into pitch as the note sustains (we’re talking fractions of a second, but very noticeable to the ears).  Trying to compensate by tuning slightly flat just made everything sound worse.

According to Gold Tone’s specs, the banjo shipped with 0.010-0.013-0.016-0.024w-0.010 strings.  I wanted a Fiberskyn head, and I thought the tailpiece was a little large (after correct bridge placement, the tailpiece was within 1” of the bridge), so I replaced the original head with a Fiberskyn and the tailpiece with a No-Knot, and replaced the original bridge with a compensated bridge.  For new strings I used D’Addario J61s (0.010-0.012-0.016-0.023w-0.010).  Unfortunately the 3^rd string “weird” sound was still there…. I also noticed that the 2^nd and 4^th strings had the same “sliding” sound, just much less pronounced than the 3^rd string.

So it occurred to me that maybe the strings were just too “loose” for open G, given that a shorter scale with medium gauge strings means that the strings are not as taut as on a longer scale.  First test of this was to tune the 3^rd string up to A, and sure enough it sounded better. I purchased a bunch of single strings of various gauges and spent several days experimenting with them in open G tuning, and was able to arrive at a combination that sounds pretty good on this banjo, at least to my inexperienced ears: 0.011-0.014-0.018-0.024w-0.010.  Oddly enough, for the 3^rd string the 0.016 was the worst – even going lighter (0.015 or 0.014), although looser, was better than the 0.016 (but, like a 0.017, still not perfect).

I don’t own a tensiometer, but by “feel” the tension of the strings is much closer now to the tension of J61s on my “normal” scale MB-100.  Of course, I guess another solution would have been to just tune up to A to tighten all the strings.  Or just call the folks at Gold Tone to pick their brains (that didn’t occur to me until after I had done all this!).  In hindsight, I guess this all makes sense, since I see that strings for tenor banjos (shorter scales) get pretty “heavy.”

Apologies to all the experienced players out there to whom this was a “well, duh” posting, but honestly I couldn’t find any help on the web that seemed relevant to the particular issue I was having.  Hopefully some folks find this useful – I’m a happy camper now with this very comfortable-to-play CC-50TR.