The Eternal Quest

Maybe it´s not a problem for you, my dear reader, but since I´m playing my Saga I was looking for improving it´s sound.

Changed the top (now it´s a fiberskyn head), changed the strings from steel to nylon and back to steel again, looked around for another banjo: This beautiful baby made by Neil, or one of Karsten´s great instruments (but definitely not one of those 10.000 bucks pieces you can find here).

Always I am insecure if I need another banjo to achieve this plunky old time sound I like most – or is it just my way of hitting the strings? Softer is better? But softer is harder to do for me.

Just now I came upon a totally new problem concerning the sound.

I used to go to a nail shop to get some acryl on the finger nails because that makes them stronger and it´s easier to do some finger picking on the guitar with acrylic nails (t.m.h.o). So I got a strong frailing nail too. A while ago I decided to stop tuning my nails because I tend to play more plectrum guitar now. Now the acryl is totally gone and left a very thin nail on my frailing (middle) finger. In a few weeks it will grow stronger again, but just now the sound of my frailing changed a lot. It sounds week on the low D string and isn´t really satisfying on the high strings. It seems that the finger-tip hits the string immediatly after the nail hits. That´s why there is some "extra sound" which I would like to avoid. For example: soft nail´s joy.

So the never ending quest continues…