Think about tuners that clip onto the peg-head of banjos, guitars, or mandolins. When a string is picked the tuner picks up the vibrations of the string that are carried through the peg-head. In fact, every piece of the banjo vibrates when a string in picked. Some pieces have a big effect on the sound of a particular banjo and some don't. Some pieces are easy and relatively cheap to upgrade and can cause big changes without much cost, time, or effort. By understanding the role of some of the pieces that are easy to change we can improve almost every banjo with a little knowledge, time, and money.

Some things are hard or impossible to change on a banjo. The parts that are made of wood, the neck, rim, and resonator, are usually not options for change, but they do contribute a great deal to the sound of a banjo. Let's look at 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 wood 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. It is helpful all the same to understand a little about how the choice of woods affects the sound of the banjo.

Banjos with maple necks tend to have a brighter sound than banjos with mahogany necks. They can sometimes seem louder as well. 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: how dense it is, it's dimensions, how it was dried, and how old it is. Ebony fingerboards tend to produce a brighter sound regardless of the material in the rest of the neck. Before trying to setup your banjo to get a certain tone quality you need to take into account whether the wood in the your instrument is can produce that type of sound. A lot of changes can be made but we reach a point where the banjo itself controls the end product. It's a good idea to have some idea when this point has been reached.