Some things are hard to change on a banjo. The wooden parts, the neck, rim, and resonator, are very important factors in creating a banjo's ound. They're also not easy or inexpensive to change. It's good to be familiar with these differences before purchasing a banjo. Let's start with how different types of wood affect a banjo's sound.

Banjo necks, fingerboards, and resonators can be made from several different woods. The most common woods for necks are mahogany, maple, and walnut. Fingerboards are usually either rosewood or ebony. Resonators are frequently made of more that one wood with the outside surfaces laminated to match the wood used for the neck. The choice we make of woods on a banjo is often based on looks. Highly figured maple or walnut with a beautiful sunburst finish is hard to resist. For most people this is as important as anything in choosing a new instrument. This is fine, but it's still helpful to understand how the choice of woods affects a banjo's sound.

Banjos with maple necks tend to have a brighter sound than banjos with mahogany necks. They can sometimes seem to have more sustain or “ring”. In general we can say that maple necks tend to produce a fairly bright sound with good volume and sustain. By contrast, mahogany necks tend to produce notes that are less bright, fatter, and more well defined. They also tend to be a bit louder in the higher frets. Walnut necks produce a sound somewhere in between with a bright attack followed by a warm, loud finish. All of this can vary considerably depending on the characteristics of the wood in a particular banjo as well as its design. Some of the factors that matter are how dense the wood is, it's dimensions, grain patterns, how it was dried, and how old it is. Always remember that these descriptions are pretty general and that each banjo will sound different, even from one made by the same builder out of the same woods.

Ebony fingerboards tend to produce a brighter sound regardless of the material in the rest of the neck while rosewood finger boards usually produce a somewhat more mellow tone. Before trying to set up your banjo to get a certain tone quality you need to take into account whether the wood in the your instrument can produce that type of sound. A lot of changes can be made but we reach a point where the banjo itself has the final say. It's a good idea to have some idea when this point has been reached.

While it's usually impractical to change the wood a banjo is made from, we can change many of the individual pieces on the banjo. These include the head, bridge, tailpiece, tone ring, and strings. Let's look at how these pieces works to create the sound of a banjo.

Any sound produced on a banjo starts with the strings. When we pick a string it vibrates. These vibrations are picked up by the banjo's bridge and transmitted to the head. The head, rim, tone ring, resonator and flange combine to create the tone chamber of the banjo. The vibrations in the head move the air inside the tone chamber. The resonator directs sound out through the holes in the flange and towards the listener. The size, shape, and materials used to create this space have a lot to do with the final sound produced when we pick the strings. Let's start by talking about banjo heads.