EPOCH6

Going full redneck, picked up my first banjo Saturday morning, Gold Tone CC-100R.
I'm gonna be slammin' it for at least a couple of hours a day, aiming for damn good results by the weekend.

Sounds great and matches my Tele. Feels so strange to play, much different than a guitar.
The hardest part to grasp so far is how your picking hand fingers don't line up with your fretting hand fingers due to the extra string that only spans half the neck.

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LoathsomePete

Gold Tone is a great banjo brand, I was looking really hard at one before I settled on my Gretsch (although I've got my eyes on a Deering). I'd highly recommend the Hal Leonard Banjo Method books. I would not try taking on the Earl Scruggs book right away as it's pretty much for intermediate/ advanced players and can be a little discouraging. I ended up just putting a t-shirt in the pot to mute the sound and just sat and practiced open G rolls while watching TV and it really helped me with getting use to the style. I would also recommend learning with finger picks as it gives you a lot of volume, but try to find or order online national medium thumb picks. Most stores only carry Dunlop thumb picks and they are WAY too big and a little clumsy.

Other than that, have fun! Banjo is a great instrument.

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Last.FM
101 Albums That May Not Change Your Life, But I Really Like And You Might Too

EPOCH6

Thanks for the advice, the diversity of styles and approaches in the banjo world is a bit intimidating but I don't suspect getting a feel for the instrument will be all that difficult. I've been playing guitar for ~10 years so I'm hoping a lot of that experience will transfer over smoothly. I'm not concerned about having to teach my fretting hand any new tricks, I'm anticipating that most of the learning curve will involve my picking hand. You're certainly right about passively practicing open G rolls, helps a lot, as did passive picking practice with guitar back in the day.

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Carpe Mortem

I almost got a banjo until the guitar, I was actually leaning towards one. But I didn't feel like waiting for a six string to be delivered and as a beginner string player I figured guitar is a good place to start.

Enjoy what appears to be a 5 string and good luck with the learning! Its weird how so many big metal fans also gravitate towards folk and western ****...

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LoathsomePete

So after getting my Telecaster back I really found that my Epiphone SG was lacking in tone. I was still within the 30 days return policy and was going to return it and pay a little extra for a used Gibson SGJ but the store I was going to order it from sold it at pretty much the same time I was hoping to buy it. Anyways I decided to use the returned funds to buy an Ltd EC-401VF with DiMarzio PAF 36th Anniversary pickups.



All things considered I think things worked out well in the end.

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Last.FM
101 Albums That May Not Change Your Life, But I Really Like And You Might Too

Mister Mushroom

Welp, I have a cheapo Teisco ET-210n that I picked up at a Pawn Shop for $40. I love the feel, tone and everything about it.

Only problem is my high e strings keep breaking. It's always the same. They'll be on for a few days, and I'll be playing (not even on the high e) and then bam, the high e string breaks at the ball end. (literally the ball snaps off, the rest of the string is completely intact)

I have no idea what the problem is. I want to say it's my cheapness in buying really cheap Fender strings, but I have them on all my electric guitars and none of them experience this problem, even if I bend the high e string as far as it will go. Something probably needs filed down?

I'm just so confused here. If anyone has any ideas I'd appreciate it.

(p.s. wasn't sure if this warranted a new thread or not so I just posted it here to be safe.)

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Sequoioideae

Nah, that's a weirdly common thing on some models of guitars that no one is really sure about. It happens on Fender offset guitars like the Jaguar and Jazzmaster as well, it's a problem that no one knows the answer to. The solution is to solder the ball end of the string, and that has kept it for me (I own a fender Jaguar, so I know this problem well).

This is just a guess, but I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with imperfections of the bridge or nut, but how the tension is distributed across all of the strings, pretty much a design flaw.

edit: I have noticed that some of my various e-strings I've bought have lasted longer than others (unsoldered), one that lasted until I changed the strings was some .11 gauge string I bought in bulk, wish I remembered the brand or where I stuck the rest of them.

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Funnel From Another Lover

God Is My Solar System

Chula Vista

Maybe Dimarzio's best pickup IMO. I have them on my McInturff Glory.

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“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well,
on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away
and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”

LoathsomePete

Yeah they're pretty awesome. I've really only ever used stock pups, except for my Seymour Duncan mini humbucker in my Tele's neck position.

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Last.FM
101 Albums That May Not Change Your Life, But I Really Like And You Might Too

Mister Mushroom

I will definitely try the soldering thing out, thanks!

I was also thinking it may have something to do with the tuning pegs, as the tuners for the B and E strings are both very stiff. My theory was the string isn't able to go out of tune due to the pegs being so stiff, and instead is just snapping from the tension. Going to try to lube them up as well. Might not be the problem, but I should really fix it regardless.

Also, if you happen to remember the brand, please PM me or something, it'd be very useful to know.

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