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sounds good but !

Just completed a drum to banjo conversion, looks good, sounds ok but after constant retuning I realise that the bridge is pushing into the drum membrane. Firstly, this is not a high quality drum that I have used as it was picked up off the side of the road (big garbage day). I was wondering if regular banjos suffered the same problem, and do you relieve the string tension when not in use? May be the bridge is too high and putting excessive pressure on the drum skin? Maybe there is a reason why drums are not banjos?

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Permalink Reply by jeff Cadzow on January 2, 2017 at 11:21pm

Hi Ron
To be honest I was afraid to leave the strings tensioned over night in case the bridge pressed a permanent dent in the skin. But I feel a little more comfortable with it now so will leave it tensioned and see what happens.
You may have noticed that l kept the wire Spring things (I don't know what they are called) on the underside of the drum skin. Initially I didn't think they added anything to the overall sound of the instrument but after playing around for a while, with and without amp, there are some possibilities. The device is retractable anyway.

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Permalink Reply by Timothy Hunter on January 3, 2017 at 12:02am

thats the snare..its what makes it sound different from a tomtom....no not the GPS...lol

when i was a drummer in a pipe band the skins we used were kevlar.... pipe band drums have really high tension to get that distinctive crack when you hit them...

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Permalink Reply by JL on January 4, 2017 at 4:06am

Looking at the pictures I can make 1 suggestion, you might have too severe of a break angle over the bridge

Commercial produced banjos have an adjustment screw that raises/lowers the height of the tail-piece so that the break-angle over the bridge can be fine-tuned to an appropriate pressure that transfers the sound without the bridge either flopping out at the first pluck or being driven down into the skin like an embossing die on a sheet-metal press.

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Permalink Reply by jeff Cadzow on January 4, 2017 at 1:23pm

Hi JL, I was wondering about that. I have done a little research on bridges for banjos and it seems like there is quite a bit in it. The weight and bulk, curved bases, positioning forward and backward as well as left and right all can hav a dranatic effect on sound.
Regards my tuning issues, I have had it tensioned and tuned for over 24 hrs and it seems to be holding tune quite well.

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on January 4, 2017 at 7:47pm

Jeff,
Don't futz with it. Play on.

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Permalink Reply by LongJohn on January 5, 2017 at 6:09pm

Jeff -

When I needed to replace the head on my banjo many years ago I was steered toward a "Fiberskyn' head. Looks vaguely like animal skin and it has proven to be very stable. Also has a bit more mellow and old-timey tone than the standard banjo head.

A quick search suggests that Remo also offers Fiberskyn drum heads...

You might also try a larger base under your bridge to help distribute the load. That and flattening out the break angle to reduce downward pressure.

- John

P.S. Nice looking build.