Blue Mountain, 100 dB measured how far from the banjo head? (I could leave my Telecaster home.)

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Originally posted by geopatrick

I'm looking to buy a vintage 5 string banjo, probably a conversion with a quality neck. I'm looking for a traditional sound, warm and sweet, kind of plucky, hopefully a Vega. I'm a little bit new to this and want to know if you have a suggestion or two. Thanks

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There are many idea of what traditional is and what a traditional sound. Much of the sound that people imagine is traditional is the of the interaction of a variety of show business styles.

As a music historian of the banjo and especially of traditional players, almost all traditional players from the Southeast and beyond were playing RBs by the 1950s and 1960s since they were the only quality banjos to have.  This image is adjusted by the way old time music revivalists went around and bought Boston banjos and gave them to artists like Roscoe Holcom because they felt such banjos were more appropriate than the RBs such musicians had.

What do you think you will probably buy "a conversion with a quality neck?"   While I like older Vegas and Fairbanks, the number of them that are available keeps shrinking, while on the other hand the number of high quality banjos made now or recently used that is available which instruments are as high or higher quality but less expensive and more adjustable than the older banjos is growing.,

You are not being very specific, nor do you give us the idea of what range of banjos you want.,

You give us absolutely no idea of what kind of music, or sound you wish, or if there are limitations on the price of the banjo you seek.

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Originally posted by banjopaolo

Maybe a 12’ pot would be better for the kind of sound you are looking for?

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why?  he has not really defined what sound he is looking for.  There is a certain fad of round peake banjos that arose in the late 1970s and 1980s, that steam rollered over any knowledge of the actual banjos a vast majority of traditional Southern banjoists who were not Bluegrassers played, although a good deal of those banjoists played RBs.  Actually the chief designers of the Round Peake banjos were trying to ad innovations that that had blossomed in the postwar Gibson RBs to open back banjos.

This is an abstract discussion

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Originally posted by Joel Hooks

I’m curious about “traditional clawhammer sound”. That has changed significantly in the last two to three decades.

There is nothing more hetrogenous than the number of different down picking styles used by banjoists who have the a relationship to the tradition.  Moreover, the styles and fashions of clawhammer banjoists especially as to banjos played, reflect the ideologies, ignorance, and fads of people outside the realities of the living tradition of show business, folk, community, vernacular, old time and bluegrass banjoists.   

It was fairly difficult for Southern musicians to obtain say a Vega or Fairbanks or  Bacon banjo during the Heyday of the banjo unless they were professional performers.,  If one sees pictures of these musicians playing such banjos, it is often that old time music revivalists supplied such musicians with  Boston banjos they owned trying to tell them they were more appropriate than the variety of RBs they actually owned.   Myself, I have played banjos that I have seen pictures of Dink Roberts or Odell Thompson play at the homes of the actual folk revivalists owners who actually owned the banjos when Dink or Odell were above the grown. Pretty standard of what I know that Black Southern banjoists found in the revival uniformly desired to have resonator banjos,  not open backed Vegas and Fairbanks.  The desire of others was not much different.   Players like Doc Watson who were widely seen wide resonator banjos before they encountered revivalists adopted these fashions

Emulating a traditional artist of the 20th century, anyone who played after 1920 is best done by purchasing an RB of some kind, because that is pretty much what these musicians used.  Myself,  when I want to get down with the spirits and approaches of 20th century traditional banjoists,  I pick up my bottom of the line Recording King Dirty 30s RB,  not my Vega Tubaphone, not my Fairbanks Electric,  not my Enoch Banjo that Kevin said was designed to emulate Dobsons when he first designed it.

I think a big part of the prizing of the Boston Banjos comes from the seminal days of old time revivalism especially in NYC and Boston in the 1950s and 1960s.  Five string banjos were not at all in fashion.  Rather famously  Pete Seeger's original banjo instruction book truthfully says at the time he wrote it in the 1940s, you could find a good banjo, including Vegas and Fairbanks, in pawn shops because the 5 was outmoded.   When I got into music around 62 or 63 in Hartford that seemed to be the idea of a good banjo, and several of the banjoists  I knew had Vegas and Fairbanks they or someone they knew found in pawn shops or in one case helping someone clean out their attic before selling their house.   A cult of the Boston Banjos seemed to develop.

But we shouldnt confuse what became a passion or a fad in the 50s and 1960s, with what Southern banjoists who reflected the tradition, although so many were in context with the non traditional elements of banjos in show business, old time music, and bluegrass.

Dead on, Tony. Thinking about Doc Watson’s childhood banjo with the catskin head. Would that mean that you have to have a catskin head for a traditional sound? Of course not. The key is the player. By definition, a traditional player [let’s say musically unlettered; without a radio or record player] would produce a “traditional sound” with whatever banjo you put in his or her hands. Question then: if you take that traditional player and give them a radio and record player to learn songs and tunes from, are they still traditional? This sort of postulating could go on ad infinitum. That’s why I have never worried about whether I was producing a “traditional” sound or sought to produce that. I play tunes that I like in ways that are comfortable for me both physically and musically. I let others worry aobut producing “traditional” sounds.

Creed's style was interesting, but if one wants to speak as an adult, the influence of his style among people coming to the banjo from old time revivalism outside of traditional Southern picking is massively bigger than his influence among Southern banjoists white or black.   In his own banjo design, Creed tried to adjust the innovations and attractions and designs that attracted people to the Gibson and other resonators to open back banjos.  The massive over popularization of "Round Peake" as some kind of representative form of general Southern banjo picking is a distortion flowing from exterior middle class college educated revivalists, rather than any real reflection of the flow of what you can call traditional playing.   

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Originally posted by geopatrick

Thanks for the helpful comments. For me, hard to beat the banjo play of Wade Ward. Wonder what banjo he played. Love the earthy sound.

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All of the banjoists mentioned  played Gibson RBs when they were able to purchase them.   None of them EVER played a Boston Vega or Fairbanks banjo. 

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Actually when Doc first began performing with Revivalists in the 1950s and 1960s, he used RBs fairly frequently until Rinzler got someone to make him a custom made banjo around 1962 or 3.  I have seen him play that RB with my own eyes in the same room.

  LOL actually when Doc was first asked to record for revivalists around 57 or 58 when Ralph Rinzler and Mike Seeger ran into Tom Ashley at Galax or some other festival and Tom asked Doc to come to the radio station where they tried to record Ashley,  Doc did not bring a banjo, but did bring this little Gibson electric that he developed his flat picking fiddle tune style on.   Merle Watson when he was pickign certainly preferred to use an RB

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Originally posted by Bill Rogers

Dead on, Tony. Thinking about Doc Watson’s childhood banjo with the catskin head. Would that mean that you have to have a catskin head for a traditional sound? Of course not. The key is the player. By definition, a traditional player [let’s say musically unlettered; without a radio or record player] would produce a “traditional sound” with whatever banjo you put in his or her hands. Question then: if you take that traditional player and give them a radio and record player to learn songs and tunes from, are they still traditional? This sort of postulating could go on ad infinitum. That’s why I have never worried about whether I was producing a “traditional” sound or sought to produce that. I play tunes that I like in ways that are comfortable for me both physically and musically. I let others worry aobut producing “traditional” sounds.

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I can’t say I ever saw Doc play an openback banjo. He usualy had a resonator Vega—and not an old one.

@writerrad

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Originally posted by Bill Rogers

I can’t say I ever saw Doc play an openback banjo. He usualy had a resonator Vega—and not an old one.

@writerrad

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Here Doc is playing open back: https://youtu.be/XI1Z4rFcU14 and https://youtu.be/MQT9FoYDtVY and https://youtu.be/YDjneRAfB4A

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Originally posted by BlueMountain

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Originally posted by Bill Rogers

Maybe a non-Tubaphone Vega, but my ear says you’re looking more for a Dobson. You also describe the sound of my all-wood rimmed Stone banjo, which I got only last year from maker Steve Gerritsen. I’d take a look at what he offers.

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I agree. Try a handmade C. Waldman, made in California, with a Douglas fir tone ring. It has the tone you want and weighs only four pounds. I have nylon strings on mine, but a good stroke with a finger gives me over 100 dB. Louder than my OME Grand Artist.

http://www.cwaldmanbanjos.com

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Just curious about 100 dB -- measured at what distance from the head?

Two feet from the head, in the front. That would be meaningless except that that I do all my measurements on instruments in the same place, same distance, same app (SPLnFFT) and keep records. By comparison, it’s meaningful.

(Sometimes I believe one instrument is louder than another, but it turns out that they are essentially the same. There IS a big range in average or peak volumes between various banjos, or guitars, or Mandolins, or ukes, etc. However, sometimes what is heard as a difference in decibels seems to be more a difference in tone. Thus, an old Gibson D-28 guitar and an old L-5 may sound very different from the front and act differently in an ensemble, yet both max out at around 85 decibels, while an Eastman 00 parlor-size guitar reaches a record guitar max of 88 dB. It came as a surprise.)

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Originally posted by writerrad

Creed's style was interesting, but if one wants to speak as an adult, the influence of his style among people coming to the banjo from old time revivalism outside of traditional Southern picking is massively bigger than his influence among Southern banjoists white or black.   In his own banjo design, Creed tried to adjust the innovations and attractions and designs that attracted people to the Gibson and other resonators to open back banjos.  The massive over popularization of "Round Peake" as some kind of representative form of general Southern banjo picking is a distortion flowing from exterior middle class college educated revivalists, rather than any real reflection of the flow of what you can call traditional playing.   

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You're right Tony, I've worked on quite a few Creed banjos, and for a lot of his hardware he used Liberty banjo parts, including their 11" no hole flat head tonering, dual coordinator rods, and 3/4" three ply pots.  I will say that some of the builds are rough finish wise, but every one I've ever had in the shop sounded absolutely amazing.  That being said, I would buy a Kevin Fore made banjo before I bought a vintage Creed, Kevin makes some of the finest sounding banjos I've ever heard, surpassing (in my opinion) an original Creed...

You are quite right.   About 10 years ago at what used to be called the Banjo Collectors Gathering, we had a whole day discussion of Creed, and people brought about 20 or 30 Creeds there all of which were measured and photographed by a bunch of luthiers.  People who had actually known Creed talked about how he wanted to build open back banjos that had some of the zing and power that the Gibson Mastertones had and how he designed his banjos to try to take advantage of what he had learned from Mastertines.   The Creeds were not at all harkening back to some ancient form of banjo playing or ancient banjos but a modern attempt to renew and sustain the old time music as something relevant to late 20th century and 21st century musicianship and life.   Many of the better known "Round Peake" players were quite familiar with Monroe and his band mates.  People I know who spent time with Tommy  Jarrell told me that Kenny Baker was a friend of Tommy's and sometimes would show up for music jams and parties at Tommy's house.   

Old time revivalists are often looking for some express train back to a past that never was, while the folk themselves are always blazing trails into the future!

I recommend going to a store that sells banjos, have them play the banjos for you until you hear what you are looking for, also setup is everything, I recommend looking at a 12inch pot, more plunky in my humble opinion.

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I have nylon strings on mine, but a good stroke with a finger gives me over 100 dB

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Hmmm, sound kinda optimistic. Make sure you use the correct settings for this kind of sound measuring: select the A scale setting on your volume meter and use it at 1 meter (3 feet + 1 beer) from your banjo. At these proper specs my killer steel-strung Stelling maxed out at 99 dBA...

As yet another side diversion, the use of the middle finger for clawhammer is 100% Pete Seeger post WW2 because he had developed is basic strum and the middle worked better for him.

If you really want to play "traditional" then you need to use your index finger for striking.

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Originally posted by Joel Hooks

As yet another side diversion, the use of the middle finger for clawhammer is 100% Pete Seeger post WW2 because he had developed is basic strum and the middle worked better for him.

If you really want to play "traditional" then you need to use your index finger for striking.

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With all due respect to Mr Hooks (and that's a lot of respect, in banjo terms I am a speck almost not registering) how do we know hundreds of banjo players streaching back many decades who where never recorded audiably, visably or even on paper, didn't use a middle finger whilst frailing?

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Wish I could be as cogent in as few words.  The idea of a traditional sound or players seems very abstract especially if you are trying to apply it to Southern white and Black banjo players from ANY TIME IN THE 20th century.

The idea that banjo playing proceeded by "folk tradition" and was not markedly influenced by the international time of commercial  banjo playing in shows, dances, recordings, and instruction materials that exploded in the entire English Speaking world starting in the late 1830s and 1840s  is a childish idea and not the way it happened.  Whatever its origins among African Americans, first as part of secretive spiritual devotional cults,  the banjo playing that becomes known and extends to white people and spreads more deeply to Black people is a result of the success of show business banjoists, the most widely known and perhaps with the most lasting influence being Joel Walker Sweeny.

Above all the key element in even the survival of the banjo at all was the innovation of the frame or hoop headed banjo as opposed to the gourd banjo which was a total product of show business banjoists like Sweeny and manufacturers and craft banjo makers centered in East Coast cities the most famous being Boucher.

The spread of banjos are not only the product of a pure folk tradition, by and large, but the success of commercial entertainers who used banjos and the work of manufacturers who redesigned banjos in ways that were easier to make, louder to play, and adapted them to changes in music.  Added to it has been across the 19th century the continued infusion into banjo playing of the spread of popular music in various forms including what has been termed parlor music and ragtime which were commercially distributed internationally.  

To be sure unique components to banjo playing came from outside of formal and commercial music, and the most celebrated banjo entertainers sought to emulate or to appear that they emulated Black folk tradition, but if one looks at the repertoire of pre-Bluegrass Southern white and Black banjoists rather than pure tradition, you see the mark of the international exchange of banjo playing, tune creation, and above all a devotion to what can be called advances in banjo construction that some believe was climaxed by the appearance of the Tubaphone, The Whyte Lady, and The Silver Bell while others believe was perfected with the creation of the Mastertone.

The big problem is that many if not most people in the banjo world are completely ignorant of the massive international explosion of show business, parlor, and other banjo playing that flower in the 19th and early 20th century not just in the USA but across the English speaking world in particular, as well as other areas thanks to the spread of the frame or hoop headed banjo,

 

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Originally posted by Bill Rogers

Dead on, Tony. Thinking about Doc Watson’s childhood banjo with the catskin head. Would that mean that you have to have a catskin head for a traditional sound? Of course not. The key is the player. By definition, a traditional player [let’s say musically unlettered; without a radio or record player] would produce a “traditional sound” with whatever banjo you put in his or her hands. Question then: if you take that traditional player and give them a radio and record player to learn songs and tunes from, are they still traditional? This sort of postulating could go on ad infinitum. That’s why I have never worried about whether I was producing a “traditional” sound or sought to produce that. I play tunes that I like in ways that are comfortable for me both physically and musically. I let others worry aobut producing “traditional” sounds.

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Originally posted by Joel Hooks

As yet another side diversion, the use of the middle finger for clawhammer is 100% Pete Seeger post WW2 because he had developed is basic strum and the middle worked better for him.

If you really want to play "traditional" then you need to use your index finger for striking.

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For clawhammer, I use index and/or middle as the occasion suits, with middle mainly on the first string and index on the inside strings that need a little extra oomph for better articulation.  Initially, this was because I used to be a carpenter and was always bashing one finger or the other, but in the long run the increased flexibility of either/or is very helpful.  I teach beginning banjo students to use both index and middle before they know whether they have a preference.