Chris Cioffi

Submitted by Chadwich on 4/5/2012

Overall Comments

I am fortunate enough to live about 30 minutes from Chris so I've spent a lot of time at his shop in the last few months and have gotten to know him fairly well. He's very knowledgeable on all things banjo and actually knows how they are suppose to fit together.

I have a 1926 TB3 with a Huber conversion ring in it that I just got back from him. I actually quit playing for about 7 years because the banjo just didn't feel good playing it and the tone was just so so. Let me tell ya folks, I can't put it down now. Chris knows what he's doing because in the 12 years that I have owned this banjo it has never sounded or played like it does now. The tone is absolute perfection, it has gobs of volume you wouldn't believe and it just feels like a banjo now. It's got the deepest growl of any banjo I've ever heard. I'm amazed at how much better it is. Within 10 seconds of playing it I could tell that he really "opened" the sound of if up. Hard to explain unless you actually experience it but it's clearer, louder and just has an openess to the sound I've never heard from the banjo before. When I went to pick it up on sunday it sounded amazing sitting there listen to Chris pick it. And yes he can pick and quite well I might add (really good with the Reno stuff) unlike some luthiers who don't even play the banjo!

This man is an absolute perfectionist, I've seen it with my own eyes. You just can't find this type of workmanship nowadays in any field of work. I usually do most everything myself because you just can't find people that care about their work nowadays but I have no problem letting him work on my other banjo. He actually thinks about his work instead of being a get in get out type of service provider. I had the privilege of seeing some other banjos he was repairing and setting up and the painstaking detail he goes thru to make sure it is right amazes me. I got to pick 3 other banjos he had just finished up also and they all were excellent banjos.

On my banjo he started with re-carving the neck because it was a fairly hefty piece of wood. He allowed me to come to the shop during the process and get a feel of the neck and see if it suited me. If it didn't he would continue carving until I was satisfied with it.

After that I wanted to add some inlay in between the 14th and 15th fret which looks better than any piece of inlay that was already on the neck. We decided on stainless frets which will probably outlast me playing the banjo and I'm glad we did. The frets and fingerboard are smooth as silk, there's no scratchy feeling when doing chokes or pull offs like there is with traditional fret wire. I also went with a speed neck which is smooth as a baby butt now, the neck feels great compared to the big chunk of wood it was before.

I arrived at his shop at about 2 sunday afternoon after he had called me to let me know it was ready, I left at 1:30 monday morning. That's how dedicated he is in making sure it's just like you want it. We picked it as is with the huber ring for a while and then I had a special tone ring I had made that I wanted to try out so right there on the spot he changed the ring for me and we picked it with that ring for awhile changing bridges and messing with head tension and action making sure we got everything out of that banjo we could. You just don't get service like that everyday.

Almost forget, the neck was nowhere near being inline with the tailpiece or co rods when I took it to him. I had to shove the tailpiece all the way over to one side just to get it to sort of line up with the neck. It's kinda sad the workmanship (or lack thereof) that went into this neck from a different luthier when I first got it. After Chris worked his magic on it I can sight down the neck from the tailpiece and the third string is straight as an arrow now all thanks to his neckset with out any need to shove the tailpiece one way or the other. I've partially witnessed his neckset process and I don't know how he has the patience to do it but it's second to none.

Overall you just can't ask for better workmanship and you can't ask for someone to go to any more trouble than he did of making sure it was done right and the end result is the way you want it.

Dare I call him a mad scientist of banjo repair and setup? Experience his wok for yourself and you'll see what I'm talking about it!

Overall Rating: 10