Homemade Upright Bass-Banjo. Awesomely unique instrument.

guitarz.blogspot.com:

I'd love to hear how this Bass-Banjo sounds. I think it's a great idea and I had one of those " how have I not thought of this" moments. This particular bass looks like it was made quite cheaply It makes me wonder if it's a viable concept to make a higher end version.

Has anyone seen something like this before?

R.W. Haller


© 2015, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - the blog that goes all the way to 11!
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Rayco ResNick Resophonic Banjo

guitarz.blogspot.com:

As a struggling Dobro and Banjo player the thought of adding a hybrid of the two to my arsenal is both appealing and daunting.
Perhaps this Rayco ResNick Resophonic Banjo designed by Ross Nickerson could be a replacement for the other two.

Less gear to carry is always a good thing, right?

Currently listed for $2200 Canadian.

R.W. Haller

© 2015, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - the blog that goes all the way to 11!
Please read our photo and content policy.

1920s Epiphone Inspiration round tenor guitar.

guitarz.blogspot.com:

This seems like a rare bird. When the guitar started to overtake the banjo in jazz some companies took to installing tenor necks on their guitars. This gave us the common tenor guitars by Martin, Gibson, and others. But this Epiphone Inspiration took a different approach, essentially replacing tone ring and head with wood. Maybe they thought that it would be an easier sell to banjo players if the instrument still resembled what they were accustom to. 

Maybe they just liked how it looked. 

I know I do.

R.W. Haller

© 2015, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - the blog that goes all the way to 11!
Please read our photo and content policy.

Nechville Meteor 5 String Electric Banjo with Fleximount Neck design.

guitarz.blogspot.com:

I must have missed Bertram's post about the Nechville Meteor Electric Banjo from a few years ago because until today I didn't know that this incredible beast existed.

This Nechville Meteor is apparently the only electric banjo that they have made with the Fleximount neck design. It allows you to easily swap out necks.

The listing does not say, but since i see 2 volume pots I can assume that there is some kind of acoustic pickup under the bridge which with the EMG81 would make for a nice hybrid instrument. ( please note that the pictures with the single coil are from Nechville to further illustrate the design of the Fleximount )

I'd love to see how closely the smaller head sounds compared to typically larger banjo heads. I suspect with the right tension it would be pretty close.

R.W. Haller


© 2015, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - the blog that goes all the way to 11!
Please read our photo and content policy.

Banjocaster. Custom made Telecaster conversion

guitarz.blogspot.com:

I recently purchased a 1970s era made in Japan banjo and I was doing some internet searching to figure out if it was sold under a specific brand as it has no name ( my best guess so far is that its an Iida.....but will keep looking ).

In my searching I came across this great little custom project.
This Banjocaster looks like it was built from a fairly entry level Telecaster, or from parts of that quality level.

The idea is great even if some of the work is not of the highest fit and finish. Plus I'd love to hear Foggy Mountain Breakdown through that humbucker.

R.W. Haller


© 2015, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - the blog that goes all the way to 11!
Please read our photo and content policy.

One of A Kind Doc Fossey acoustic Banjo. A Banjotar in reverse?

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Here is a nice take on a hybrid instrument. With all of the 6 string guitar-tuned banjos out there its nice to see someone go the other way with the idea. An acoustic tuned to open G with a high G on top should thrill finger-stylists and banjo players looking for a different sound.

It's a very nice looking instrument as well, and I'm way less offended by the double cutaway than I normally would be. I guess it's an odd enough instrument that it's ok.

Currently Listed at $1200 Canadian.

R.W. Haller

© 2015, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - the blog that goes all the way to 11!
Please read our photo and content policy.

What's that ... Banjo?

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Here's an interesting bantar guitanjo thing played by Brian Setzer in his Stray Cat days. Is it a one-off? Can anyone ID it? Thanks!

yours, Tone Deaf Radio

Hi Tone, it does indeed very familiar. I have a feeling I've seen one being used by The Pogues. But yeah, it's a Deering Crossfire electric banjo. It actually has two magnetic pickups mounted beneath the head and is designed to be played at volume without any feedback.

Note it's not really a "guitanjo" or a "bantar" - those names are usually given to six string banjos, which are essentially banjos tuned like a guitar so as to accommodate guitar players' existing know-how.  This Deering is a proper 5-string banjo, but in electric format.

G L Wilson

© 2013, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - the blog that goes all the way to 11!
Please read our photo and content policy.

1930s vintage Vega electric tenor banjo, made in the USA

guitarz.blogspot.com:

I love bizarro vintage stuff like this. This isn't a round electric guitar, it's an electric tenor banjo bearing the Vega brandname and can be dated to the late 1930s thanks to a pencil inscription on the inside of the removable back.

I shall copy from the seller's eBay listing, just for the sake of preserving some of this information:

Description: 1930s / 40s Very Rare Vintage Vega Electric 4-String Tenor Banjo made in USA.

Condition: Super cool vintage vibe - various minor nicks, chips, dents & dings; surface scratches, finish wear & light weather checking. Overall the banjo has a great look to it with a gorgeous patina. This is an exceptionally rare instrument and is the first of its kind we’ve had in the shop.

Body: Double bound 11 7/8” diameter body with maple top, back and sides in natural finish. There’s some really pretty flame figuring in the top & back. Nickel trapeze tailpiece with height-adjustable rosewood bridge; single-ply tortoise pickguard. There are no cracks in the pickguard. A hand written note on the inside of the back panel reads: “Purchased new in 1939 Pruneau Music Studio Worcester Mass”.

Neck: Soft “V” shaped maple neck with ivoroid binding & red side-dots. Ebony fingerboard with pearloid star & dot inlays. Nickel machine tuners with ivoroid buttons in perfect working condition. 1/8” nut width, 23” scale length. There is a 9-digit number pressed into the back of the headstock, which appears to be a social security number.

Pickups/Electronics: Original single coil pickup with master volume and 3-way rotary tone control with settings for bass, normal and treble.

Playability/Sound: This banjo produces some exceptionally good tones both acoustically as well as plugged in. The pickup provides excellent output (2.03 Ohms) and a sound that is full, rich and has the utmost in ringing clarity. The three-way tone control allows the player to dial in highly useful sounds. The hollow maple body creates an overall “openness” to the sound that still retains plenty of snap and attack. The neck is exceptionally comfortable and is set up with perfect action.

Case: Includes equally rare hardshell case with multiple stripes in the tolex & two vintage screen prints of dancing women.

Currently listed on eBay by Cream City Music in Brookfield, Wisconsin, with bidding currently nearly at $600 and just under a day left on the auction at the time of writing.

G L Wilson

© 2013, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - the blog that goes all the way to 11!
Please read our photo and content policy.

A banjo guitar made from trash

guitarz.blogspot.com:


Check out the above video amd then see how this banjo guitar was actually made here. Don't worry if you can't read Hungarian, there are plenty of photographs to illustrate the whole process. I particularly like the novel approach to the frets, and the tuning system is something else too!

Thanks to Zirig Árpád for the heads up! And if you've ever wondered what fuzz banjo might sound like:



G L Wilson

© 2013, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - the blog that goes all the way to 11!
Please read our photo and content policy.

1960s Teisco electric banjitar which allegedly sounds better than a Strat

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Here's an oddity from 1960s Japan that I find curiously appealing for some reason that I cannot fathom. It's a Teisco electric banjitar. That's right, a solidbody electric 6-string banjo. With a whammy bar!

Actually, my guess is that the only thing "banjo" about it is the shape. Surely, without a resonating head on the body it couldn't possibly sound like a banjo, even if the body is chambered and the instrument has really bad sustain. To confuse matters even more, the seller claims that it "...has a better Stratocaster sound than either one of my two Strats."

Currently listed on eBay with the quite astonishing price of $1,799. Yeah, I appreciate it might be a rare model in excellent condition but I can't see it selling at that price somehow.

G L Wilson

© 2013, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - the blog that goes all the way to 11!
Please read our photo and content policy.

For the left-handed player who has everything... leftie Gold Tone Banjitar

guitarz.blogspot.com:

I've just been trawling through all the left-handed guitars on eBay, trying to find something a little bit different for our southpaw friends - who, rather unfairly, do not get the same range of choices when it comes to guitars as right-handed players (northpaws?) - and the best that I can find is this Gold Tone Telecaster-styled left-handed banjitar - ideal for the left-handed guitarist who wants to let a little banjo into his or her life!

Currently listed on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $779.

G L Wilson

EDIT: Several of you have commented that the above photo is a stock photo of a right-handed guitar which has been flipped to make it look left-handed. It's good to know you guys out there are alert, which is more than I was when I wrote this blog post late on Friday night. But the point is that the left-handed version of this guitar/banjo does exist and is what the successful bidder on the auction will be getting.

© 2012, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - 10 years and counting!

1967 Rickenbacker 6000 Bantar Electric 5-String Banjo

guitarz.blogspot.com:

This instrument is unmistakably a Rickenbacker with its gently contoured upper body edges, the back's checkered binding, the varnished rosewood neck with distinctive triangular inlays, the fireglo finish... but it's a banjo!

Indeed it's a Rickenbacker 6000 bantar, a hybrid between a solid electric guiar and a 5-string banjo, as played be legendary banjoist Bela Fleck. It doesn't feature the skin as found on a traditional banjo so is not going to have the same percussive tone, so soundwise its classid Rickenbacker all the way, just utilising banjo stringing and tuning.

Another weird Rickenbacker hybrid instrument of the time was the Banjitar, which according to the promotional literature:

"...combines the sounds of the plectrum banjo, mandolin, Hawaiian guitar and Spanish guitar. Two harmony string pairs and two single strings plus a vibrato unit create this incredible range of tones."

To look at the Banjitar you might think at first glance that it was a standard Rickenbacker guitar, but the very narrow long neck might cause you to do a double take.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Antique vintage tenor guitar banjo uke banjitar - handmade and possibly unique?

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Here's another instrument that looks to be a handmade one-off, although a lot more craftsmanship has gone into creating this than on the boat oar guitar we saw in the previous blog post here on Guitarz.

I'm not sure what instrument the maker thought they were building here, but for our purposes I think it's safe to call it a cross between a tenor guitar, a tenor banjo and a baritone ukulele. The headstock style is very banjo-like, as is the general shape, but the all-wooden construction and soundhole are more guitar- and/or ukulele-like. The scale length is 21 1/2" which is more akin to a tenor guitar or banjo than it is to a baritone uke, but I guess it's up to the player to decide how to tune it and play it. I do like the hexangonal shape at the back of the body. If you've ever tried playing a banjo you'll know that a round body is not the best shape for playing when seated; I'm sure a hexagon-shaped instrument isn't going to slip as easily.

It does need some minor repair work doing to it, but with a starting price of $0.99 on eBay it could provide a nice little project for someone which is unlikely to break the bank.

G L Wilson

© 2011, Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 10th year!

Harmony H82 electric tenor banjo

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Here's another electric banjo, this time it's a Harmony 4-string tenor and, unlike the previous ones we have looked at, it doesn't have a skin top to it - so that purists may argue that it's actually a tenor guitar. It has an electric guitar style magnetic pickup mounted onto a spruce top. The seller has copied out the marketing blurb from the 1955 Harmony catalogue that this appeared in, and which I in turn shall reproduce here:

A completely NEW instrument!

Harmony Electro Banjo (Pat. Apppl'd For).

A new instrument in which banjo tone is created electrically - an achievement of Harmony research and ingenuity.

Tuned and played as the traditional banjo. Though the magic of an ingenious bridge and electronic pickup assembly, mounted on a resonant spruce sounding board, it produces the familiar crisp banjo tone so popular today - through an amplifier.

Finished in Jubilee Red and white. Harmo-metal band with fluted red plastic insert at top edge. Pearlette inlaid fingerboard, with edge binding.

Individual tuning keys.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

Nechville Meteor Electric Banjo

guitarz.blogspot.com

OK, to be honest, I know nothing about banjos, and even less about electric banjos, so maybe I'm unduly amazed by this Meteor by Nechville, but I find the concept of the cutaway really brilliant and inspirational! It's so cool that it deserves to be a guitar (sorry banjo lovers!)

I won't pretend I can bring any more information about it - I would just copy-paste what you can find on Nechville's website, so if you're interested, just click on the link above. 

Bertram

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

Steve Puto's 5-neck

guitarz.blogspot.com:

Scott from RockGuitarLife.com brought this crazy instrument to my attention. It's a five-neck electric bass/guitar/banjo/mandolin/fiddle and with a harmomica attached at the top too just for good measure! The guitar belongs to Steve Puto and is on loan to the Cantos Music Foundation in Calgary

Read about it here.

Photo by Steve Puto.

G L Wilson

Guitarz - The Original Guitar Blog - now in its 9th year!

Bizarre electric tenor guitar... or is it an electric banjo?

guitarz.blogspot.com:
Guitarz reader Doug Barker brought this very strange 4-string electric to my attention.

It has a 27" scale, and so is much longer than a tenor guitar which tend to have a scale length between 21 and 23".

I wonder if the neck has come from a 5-string banjo because of its length and because of the headstock shape (although it looks like a piece has broken off). However, it doesn't have the fifth string or the "step" in the neck at the fifth fret where the extra machine head would be located. It's possible that the neck has been reworked to give it an even taper along its length.
The guitar is fitted with two pickups each of which has its own output lead. These would be the kind of magnetic pickups designed to be used on a flat-top acoustic. The rear pickup is quite a sought-after DeArmond unit (in fact, the same unit that John Martyn used to have on his Martin acoustic. I never did understand, by the way, the reason that there is a polepiece missing in the B-string position. Does anyone know?).

As this is a one-off instrument (apparently having belonged to the seller's grandfather), it's very likely that it was tuned to the player's own requirements and it doesn't necessarily have to adhere to the conventions of guitar, tenor guitar or banjo. Those are just labels that are convenient to help our own understanding.

G L Wilson

NB: Please make sure you are reading this Guitarz post at guitarz.blogspot.com and not on a Scraper blog that copies posts without permission (and steals bandwidth) so as to profit from advertising. Please support original bloggers!

My guitars...

The collection has changed a lot since I last featured an item on my own guitars on this blog. Here is the collection as it currently stands after having sold a few guitars recently (warning BIG pictures):

Fender Japan Blue Flower 70s style Strat circa 1988. Bought approx over one year ago - it had one lady owner previously who had played it once then put it away in its case for years, so it's in mint condition. Not to be confused with the more recent inferior re-issues.

Fender Japan candy apple red 12-string Strat

Feline Holy Panther - built by Feline guitars of Croydon using an original 1970s Fender body. Inspired by Russ Ballard's guitar.

DiMarzio one-off "Red Beauty" built for 1984 NAMM trade show. Read more here.

Sanox Sound Creator plexiglass bodied Strat-type guitar. Made in Japan in the 1970s.

Fernandes Pink Plexiglass Sustainer Guitar. Totally unique. One-off guitar made for the trade shows. VERY heavy. Has far more sustain than other Fernandes guitars I have played.

Ovation Celebrity acoustic. I can't remember the model number off the top of my head. Names are always much easier to remember. Nice sound and the built-in tuner is a god-send, but the action's a little high for my tastes.

Ovation Breadwinner - circa 1976. A true classic - the first truly ergonomically designed guitar - first production guitar with active electronics and 24-fret neck. Note glossy black finish and small scratchplate.

Gibson Flying V Faded Cherry, circa 2004.

Mania Fretless Bass. Bought to replace my Mexican-made Fender Jazz Bass fretless which I never got on with. Thru-neck, lovely woods, lovely sounds... (with roundwound strings, btw. I know a lot of people put flatwounds on a fretless because they are scared of marking the fingerboard but they sound like crap. Use roundwounds and the bass literally sings.)

Short-scale EB0-bass, probably Japanese, early 70s. No, it wasn't me who painted and decorated it. Cheesy-looking but nice sound - particularly from neck pickup.

Kay K45 Travel Guitar. Thru-neck construction, DiMarzio designed pickups, brass hardware. Circa 1980s.

Traveler Pro Series travel guitar. Features magnetic single-coil pickup, piezo pickup under bridge for acoustic sound, plus "stethophones" which pick up sound from internal diaphram under bridge which lets you privately practice totally acoustically. Made in USA.

Yup! It's only got 4 strings. (No - it's NOT a bass). It's a tenor guitar. Very limited edition in Telecaster styling from Soares'y Guitars.

Guitbass. Three-stringed guitar as used by The Presidents of the United States of America. I built this from parts from an old Japanese Strat copy, Epiphone humbucker, plus various other bits and pieces that I had in my box of bits. The three strings are tuned C#, G# and C# (octave higher than the low C#). Looks like sh*t but sounds great.

Yamaha EZ-EG. Not really a guitar at all, but a guitar-shaped synth-controller. Has on-board sounds and can connect to other synths via MIDI. The right-hand has picking "strings" and the left hand has buttons laid out for each of the strings at 12 fret positions, so you can indeed play it like a guitar.

Countryman 6-string banjo. Banjo players would call it a guitar and guitar players would call it a banjo! It's a banjo, but with six strings so that a guitarist can use regular guitar tuning and get a banjo sound. Very loud.

My ukuleles. Greg Bennett baritone ukulele on the left and Mahalo soprano on the right. The soprano is a bit small for my large fingers, but I love playing the baritone.

Yamaha Pacifica. Bought in pieces, refinished and re-assembled my me. The striped "deckchair" look was an experiment with three different colour oil finishes and some tape! It's far from perfect but I quite like it. There is no tone control because I prefer it that way. (OK, truth be told, it fell off when I was removing the electrics from one broken pickguard to a second pickguard, and I couldn't be arsed re-soldering it on, but as I never use passive tone controls anyway this was no big deal). This guitar is actually a really nice player. It intones well and has a nice action. Perhaps it would benefit from some hotter pickups but they would cost me way more than the rest of the guitar. This is the guitar that I keep at my parents' house in Wales and which largely makes the travel guitars redundant. I also have the body and neck of another Pacifica which needs re-building. (An unfinished project - or perhaps that should say an unstarted project?)

Other guitars that I have owned and sold on include:

Vox Standard 25
Vox Clubman II guitar (later converted to fretless)
Westone Thunder I-A fretless bass
Eko Ranger XII 12-string acoustic
Eko mando-guitar
Aria Elecord FET-DLX electro-acoustic
Aria Legend Plexiglass Jazzmaster
Fender Japan Stratocaster pink paisley (circa 1988)
Fender Japan Telecaster pink paisley (early 1980s)
Fender Japan Stratocaster Antigua re-issue
Squier Stagemaster 7-string
Fernandes Revolver Pro with Sustainer
Fernandes Native Pro with Sustainer
Bass built with parts from Brandoni guitars
Sakai EB0-style shortscale bass
Avon EB0-style shortscale bass
Fender Jazz Bass Fretless (Made in Mexico)
Two or three Strat-a-likes self-built from spare parts
Top 20 (Woolworths) guitar complete with vibrato arm
Cheap but nice Telecaster copy
Tele-style guitar self-built from spare parts
Silvertone (Harmony?) Archtop acoustic
Unidentifiable Archtop acoustic
Washburn Idol WI64
Epiphone Les Paul Junior
Teisco MJ2
Danelectro Convertible
Danelectro 56'U2
Danelectro 12+6 doubleneck

...plus a couple of other cheapies that I didn't keep for very long.