The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #66368   Message #1102236
Posted By: DonMeixner
27-Jan-04 - 12:12 AM
Thread Name: open backed banjos
Subject: RE: open backed banjos
I have a Longneck 5 Ode open back. Very plain, very well made. I leave it in G and never retune for different keys. I just add another capo to keep the finger patterns as I move around the neck.
Bst $250.00 I ever spent, but I woould trade for a regular length 5 of equal quality. The Long neck is too hard to use in bars in an active band.

I strongly recommend the Shubb sliding 5th string capo. $ 30.00 very well spent. The hardest part of the longneck experience is finding acceptable strings. Vega Long scale was perfect. They quit making them for some reason and every other set I have tried are awful with one exception. The Addamas five string mediums with loop ends. They more cloesely resemble the Vega gauge mix nd they keep the sound for some time, but they die all at once.

I bought a dozen sets of Deering strings and found them to be utterly useless, the opposite in quality of their banjos. The strings would break with no reason, often 3 a nite. The Addamas hae lasted for months while the Deering lasted for hours. The plus side of that purchase is I can restring my old Dennis Darogi dulcimer for the rest of my life with what is left over.

Don