Banjo Head Adjustment - "G" For Me, Please

WARNING! This post is sort of banjo techy, but I think you should read it anyway.

Like most banjo players, I like to tinker with my banjo from time to time. When I say tinker, I'm not talking about playing it as a musical instrument; I'm talking about making various adjustments on it to see how it will react to whatever changes I've made. There are also times when I'll make adjustments that are not for the purpose of tinkering; these adjustments are required as part of the normal care and feeding (aka maintenance) of a banjo.

It would appear some people think if you need to make adjustments a few times each year, you must have a lemon for an instrument, but nothing could be further from the truth. Whether you pay a hundred dollars or ten thousand dollars for your banjo, you'll need to make frequent adjustments.

There are many factors that can affect the tone of your banjo - all instruments actually, but it seems the banjo is very adept at letting you know when it isn't in tip-top form. This is partly due to the tonal range of a banjo and the characteristic ringing that banjos produce; anything too far out of whack quickly shows up in your ear.

Probably the single biggest item that can affect the tone of a banjo is the tightness of the head. As luck would have it, head tightness is also one of the items that changes most often. This means frequent adjustments are required. When I say frequent, I'm talking anywhere from 2 to 4 times a year. I think that would be considered frequent if you compared how often most people make adjustments to their guitars.

Why does the head tightness keep changing? I think there are two main reasons for this. The main reason for the change in head tightness would be from changes in the humidity level. During the winter season in my neck of the woods, the air is dry; and even dryer indoors because of the drying effect of heating my home. If you're in an area with these conditions, the lack of moisture will eventually show up as a change in tone to your banjo as the wood rim shrinks. The tone will probably be more "tubby" sounding. As the rim shrinks, the hooks that apply pressure between the tension hoop and the flange become too long because the rim isn't as high as it used to be. This results in the head having less tension. You might even notice the action on the banjo becoming a bit lower due to less "up pressure" on the bridge as it more readily sags into the head.

The opposite is true in the summer months (in my neck of the woods). The summer months are humid, which allows the rim to take on more moisture. The banjo may become more "tinny" sounding as the head becomes tighter. The head becomes tighter because the rim is swelling and the hooks now need to be longer if the same tension is to be applied, that once was.

I've just described how the head can become tighter in the summer months, but it can also become loose in the summer. I know, this sounds like some type of contradiction, but it's not. The banjo vibrates a great deal and this can cause the nuts on the hooks to back off. If the nuts back off more than the amount required to compensate for the extra moisture, you'll witness a loose head.

The answer to all of this is simply to check the tone of the banjo frequently; I suggest at least once a month. Tap the head to determine which note the pot assembly resonates at. Is it the same as it was the last time you checked? Also, try playing the banjo up the neck. Are the notes ringing out loud and clear all over the neck? They should be.

I've talked about tightening banjo heads in previous posts and even performed a small audio spectrum analysis on my Deering Deluxe banjo. In those posts I talk about how to "tune" the head to a certain note, which I learned how to do from Steve Huber of Huber Banjos. You can read those articles (August 9 and 12, 2006) here if you wish.

Aapparently (read from what I've been told) there are those that argue whether I am able to tune the head of a banjo using the head tapping technique; that there is no way I can hear the note to which the head is tuned. For the record, I don't claim to have invented the idea of tap-tuning, but I can also tell you I'm not making this stuff up. I learned the technique from Steve Huber's Killer Tone DVD. I've also seen a Morris Music employee tune a set of drums this way; he matched each drum in a set of four to the notes on a bass guitar. I doubt anyone even remotely familiar with banjos would dispute what Steve Huber says about the topic, but I could be wrong about that too.

Somebody said "you should have your hearing checked" ... so I did. That's right, I actually had a hearing test performed this past Monday at AudioCorp in Saint John, NB and I'm happy to report that both of my ears are still in the normal range of hearing. I want to keep it that way, so I'll be practicing with ear plugs from now on.

My most recent head adjustment (banjo head, that is - if I were talking about the head on my shoulders it would be more of an attitude adjustment) was performed a couple nights ago and that was to correct a mistake I made while tightening it just a few weeks back. Yes people, I made a mistake! About 3 weeks ago I noticed the banjo just wasn't up to par; just not sounding as good as it should. The resonant frequency of the head and pot assembly had slipped all the way down to an "F" note; I normally keep it tuned to a "G" note.

Somebody said "you should get your hearing checked" ... so I did.

While the banjo sounded "okay" in open G tuning, it really lacked brightness and sustain up the neck. I decided I couldn't take it any longer and began to make adjustments. I inadvertently tuned the head to a "G#" note, but decided to leave it there for a while to see if I liked it. I thought it was okay, but still lacking something, so I took it back to a "G" note and now I'm happy with it again.

It is my belief that you cannot buy a banjo, have it tuned by a pro and then walk away from it, expecting it to sound great for the rest of its life; you WILL need to make adjustments if you want to keep it sounding optimal. Having your banjo tuned by a luthier up to four times a year may or may not be something you are willing to pay for. If you're opposed to paying for this service, the tone of your banjo will probably suffer; that's why every banjo player should know how to do it for themselves. To learn how to tune your banjo head and keep it in tip-top shape, I recommend highly Steve Huber's DVD called Killer Tone, available from Huber Banjos.

In the image at the top of this post, you will see the tools I use for tightening a banjo head. These tools consist of a tuner for tuning the banjo strings (Peterson Strobo-Flip tuner shown but could be any tuner), a Tee wrench for tightening the nuts on the tension hooks, and a drum torque wrench for getting even tightness all the way 'round the head. I used to tighten the head by "feel" without a torque wrench; after using the torque wrench however, I'd never do another head tightening without one.

Click on the image to see a larger version of the same.

More Tweaking, When Will It Stop?

Warning! This post is another one of those technical ones, where I talk about improving the sound of my banjo.

I'm one of those that like to tinker and experiment - I like to know why things work the way they work! And when I get into something new, I don't want to know just a little bit about the topic, I like to get into it deep. Such is the case with my banjo. It's not enough to just try to learn how to play it; I've got to know why and how it makes the sounds it does.

When I hear a great sounding banjo on a CD, I want to know how much of that great sound is from the banjo itself, how much is because of studio work and how much is from the talent that's playing it. If you are a regular reader of this blog, you already know that I recently had a chance to hear a Huber Lexington banjo up close; in fact, I got to try one out. That's when I learned just how good some of these banjos really sound.

This thirst for knowledge leads me into my experimentation phase. So, here I am again, tinkering with my banjo, looking for that elusive "perfect sound." At the very least, I want to get the best sound possible from it.

Just three days ago, I posted an entry titled "Banjo Head Audio Spectrum Analysis." In that post, I stated there were two prominent notes where my banjo head seemed to be resonant - F# and A#. I also came to the conclusion that, because the A# note was slightly louder, according to the audio spectrum display, the head must be tuned to an A# note, and therefore needed to be loosened because I want a G or G# note.

Experimenting tonight has revealed the two resonant notes (F# and A#) are only present when the resonator is installed. With the resonantor off the banjo, only the F# note is present. This leads to the question, should I tune the head with the resonator on or off the banjo? You might think with the resonator on, since that will be the final configuration when playing the banjo. However, since the resonator needs to be removed in order to tighten the brackets on the tension hoop, and since Steve Huber tunes with the resonator removed, I decided to tune with the resonator off. This means only the cavity made from the pot assembly and the head covering the pot, is involved in tuning. The extra air space provided by the resonator is now out of the picture.

I remember worrying when I installed the new head, about over-tightening, and possibly tearing the head. I have already tightened this head several times, so I'm wondering just how much further I can go without ripping it. As it turns out, the head must have stretched some over the last few weeks, because I found all of the bracket nuts securing the tension hoop to be on the loose side - not sloppy, ready to fall off loose, but certainly looser than I left them the last time I made an adjustment. Having tightened the head several times already, discovering the loose nuts surprised me. It's not like it should have been obvious - the head itself was not sagging.

I have tightened the head once more. At this point, the head is tuned somewhere between a G and G# note; probably closer to a G# note. It sounds pretty good to my ear. I'm using Ron Stewart's Huber Lancaster on his A Bluegrass Banjo Professional DVD from Acutab, to compare the tone of my banjo, which by the way, is a Deering Deluxe.

At this point, I am very happy with the sound of my banjo. I think it's the best its ever been, exhibiting lots of brightness and lots of volume. I may very well be at the point where I'm getting the best sound possible from this banjo!

Banjo Head Audio Spectrum Analysis

This post may not be of interest to most, but for those of you interested in the science behind trying to make your banjo sound its best, read on.

There is a technique for tuning banjo heads that involves striking the head with a hard object such as a metal finger pick or your fingernail, and then listening closely to the tone produced after the initial strike. This after-tone is then compared, using your ears, to various notes on the banjo by fretting the high D string at various positions. This technique is demonstrated very well by Steve Huber, on his Killer Tone DVD.

For many banjos, the optimum tone from the banjo will be produced when the head is tuned somewhere between a G and a G# note. Obviously, tone preference varies from one person to the next, so the G or G# note is just a guideline, but considered a good place to start.

Tonight, I took some audio samples of my banjo in an effort to determine exactly what fundamental note the head of my banjo is tuned to. I wanted to see if the spectrum agreed with what I thought I was hearing. In order to reduce the error count, I took several samples, analyzing each one for similarities and differences.

I learned a lot from my experiment. The first thing I learned is how difficult it is to read the spectrum due to the large number of harmonics produced. To get a feel for how the spectrum is displayed, and how to interpret it properly, I took several samples of the middle G string note first. When I was satisfied I knew what I was doing, I took samples to determine where my banjo head was tuned, using the head tapping method described above.

From what I can tell, my banjo head appears to be tuned to an A# note. This corresponds to what I was thinking all along - that my banjo may be a bit too "ringy," although the amount of ring is not dictated by head tightness alone. At one point, while tightening the head, (when I first installed it, not during this experiment), I thought I had the banjo sounding really nice, but then, I pushed my luck and tightened the head a bit more.

You may think it an easy task to distinguish one note from another while listening for the predominant after-tone during the head-tapping process, but in actual fact, it can be very difficult. After analyzing the audio spectrum samples, I used my ears and the head-tapping method to see if my spectrum analysis agreed with what my ears were telling me. The answer is, I think they agree, but I'm not absolutely 100% sure. I heard two notes that seemed to be about the same intensity: an A# note and an F# note.

There are several overtones that occur when the banjo head vibrates, which can be seen in the audio spectrum waveform. This makes it very difficult to determine which note is the fundamental note of interest, but again, I think it's an A# note.

If you look at the image at the top of this post, you will notice two notes of significant amplitude. The first note is an A# (B-flat) and the second note which I failed to label, is an F#. This picture seems to correspond with what I was hearing. Even though the image shows the A# note to be louder than the F# note, to my ears, the F# note was every bit as prominent. So, is the head tuned to A# or F#? Well, because the graph indicates the A# note is more prominent, I'll say the head is tuned to A#; however, if I didn't have access to a spectrum analyzer and had to use my ears only, as would be the norm for most people, I may very well have thought the head was tuned to the F# note.

In any case, it looks like I'll be doing some more tweaking. I figure by the time I'm finished, I'll probably have another torn banjo head to add to my collection, but hey, look at all the stuff I'm learning!

If you'd like to do some playing of your own, the software I used for recording the audio samples was Goldwave version 5.14 from Goldwave Incorporated and the spectrum analyzer capabilities were provided by Transcribe! by Seventh String Software.