Electric Banjo Prototype

This is a fun instrument to play! Surprisingly it sounds great clawyammer. Picking styles must be restrained, but you can get some beautiful, etherial effects that sound like fingerstyle guitar. Sound clips coming soon!

Sound clip 1: Amazing Grace, Mark on electric banjo and bass, Elan (my son) on synthesized flute. Elan applied reverb, compression and delay via computer software. 

Sound clip 2: Original Composition, Mark on electric clawhammer banjo played straight into the 1/4" input of a Fostex MR 16 digital recording studion. No effects. You can hear some clipping distortion. It sounds even better on my Fender Blues Jr. tube amp. :-)

This is a prototyple built from the gournd up. There are some funky things about the construction, but there are no structural problems. Overall it is a good loking instrument. Close inspection will reveal some cosmetic issues. The finish was not done to the highest standard, so it is semigloss on the body and gloss on the neck. I put the truss rod cover on slightly crooked (DOH!) a and there is a small gap that reveals the truss rod not slot.

The most noticable miscalculation is seen on the back. I did not give enough depth to the electroncis enclosure. Because of this I had to chop out a space for the jack lugs and the endblock.

Top rate materials were used in construction:

• AAA curly maple neck blank
• Solid walnut top with Toroise/White binding
• Bolt-on neck construction
• Two-way truss rod
• Brazillian rosewood fingerboard (yes really!)
• Leaves and bows hand inlay
• White neck binding with side dot position markers
• Ebony pegead overlay
• Geared fifth string peg (straigh non-capstan style)
• Bone nut
• Micarta fifth string nut
• Walnut/birdseye maple rim with herringbone side purfling

The guitar parts are decent-quality Korean-made parts

• Single Humbucker pickup
• Metal knurled knobs (Volume and Tone contrtol)
• Adjustable bridge
• Geared tuners
• 1/4" jack and plate

Pictures: