Deering Goodtime Banjo Openback

The Goodtime banjo openback produces a vibrant ringing tone from its natural finished violin grade maple rim. At only 4 pounds, the weight makes it ideal for both children and adults to play and to travel with conveniently. The Deering Goodtime open back banjo is  warm, woody and full sounding – it’s a great sounding clawhammer banjo for advanced players.

Fully US made, Deering Goodtime Banjos have a lovely warm and mellow tone yet full and clear highs. These are certainly the sweetest sounding entry level banjos in this price range.  The Deering Goodtime rim is “wood tone ring” style. The head rests directly on the wood rim which is machined to a contoured bevel, similar to the classic flathead tone ring. This creates a warmer, less edgy or brash tone, when compared to a low grade metal tone ring.

This wood tone ring style of construction lends itself very well to low priced banjos. The cheap metal tone rings used in many low priced instruments arguably don’t actually improve the banjo, often enhancing only the harsh and undesirable overtones. This makes the wood tone ring a very nice alternative.

A Deering Goodtime banjo purchased from us is completely setup with standard action at 5/64 and head tension tuned to G#.  Fret level is carefully checked on each instrument and all of our banjos will leave our shop in fully playable condition.

FEATURES

1. DEERING GOODTIME SMILE: The responsive sensitivity of the maple, with the hard, dense ebony top contributes to the Goodtime banjos clear, resonant responsiveness.
2. QUIET TAILPIECE :  Specially selected metal is used to prevent the tailpiece from making “its own sound” and muddying up the banjo’s tone. The violin maple rim is supposed to sing, not your tailpiece.
3. STABILITY ENHANCING J-HOOKS: The proprietary Deering J-hooks are wider at the top to prevent twisting off the tension hoop when tightening the banjo head.
4. 3-PLY VIOLIN GRADE MAPLE RIM:  The maple in the Goodtime rim is the exact wood used in the finest violins in the world. Only Deering puts this professional grade 3-ply maple rim in a banjo in this price
5. SEALED GEARED TUNERS : Five high quality geared tuning machines make tuning the Goodtime banjo easy, accurate and fun. Too many student banjos are cursed with poor quality tuners, so the students blame themselves for an out of tune banjo when it’s the tuner that is at fault.
6. ROCK MAPLE NECK:   This fine grained, dense, extremely hard, wood creates a stable neck, and imparts a bright, crisp quality to the Goodtime banjo tone.

BANJO SPECS

Deering Goodtime Banjo with Gut String Conversion:

Converting a fretted banjo to gut-string offers that old-time, Civil War era tone and plunkiness without the tuning grief of playing fretless banjo. It’s perfect for players looking for a classic 19th century tone, and for finger-stylists who require the intonation that one expects in a modern banjo.

The nut is shimmed to raise action in the first position; soft nylon strings need higher action to clear the first fret. The slots are re-cut to accommodate the thicker nylon strings. A bone 5th string nut is fabricated and installed to get adequate open-string height on the 5th string. We restring with nylon strings and setup at action appropriate for gut strings. Our results are with Aquila Nylgut classical Banjo strings.

Deering Goodtime Options:

No charge for Tenor, Plectrum and left handed versions.