Jameson Guitars 5-String Banjo 24 Bracket with Closed Solid Back and Geared 5th Tuner By

Banjo is great! Sounds good, and for the price it couldn't be better. I've tried other low budget banjos and had to return them for such low quality. Had almost given up until I saw this one. Great first banjo!

I have to add my voice to the others praising this banjo. Of course, this is just a first impression. Things like instruments will either live up to the initial rush or not. This banjo arrived pretty much set up perfectly except for tuning, which I did not expect anyway. Out of the box it took about five minutes to tune (using a Snark, which I recommend) and since I am not a beginner (or a professional) I was able to pick out a tune almost immediately. All strings will take a while to settle in, and this is no exception. But after an initial "break in" period, it seems to hold tune well. Intonation up the neck is good as well. This has been a bane of my experience with inexpensive banjos. Glad to see it doesn't seem to be an issue here. I would recommend this banjo to anyone just starting out, or who wants to add a banjo "voice" to an existing repertoire without having to invest in a five hundred and up banjo. The geared fifth string works well and I am glad to have it, having dealt with friction tuners in the past. I'll be back to update this as I experience this instrument more. UPDATE: It's eight months or so later. I still like this banjo and I'm learning a lot. I'm also learning that better banjos ARE worth the money. I played a really pricey banjo (an ODE) and wow, is there ever a difference. So, this one is good to learn on, but if you have a chance to play a really good banjo, that may spoil ya. UPDATE: I still think this banjo is excellent, although I wouldn't put light gauge strings on it. I did put some LGS on it and it changed the tone completely. Light gauge also tended to buzz as well. I'll be going back to medium gauge, which is what I'm sure the banjo came with, they just felt more substantial. Of course LGS will be easier to "choke" and bend, but you'll pay in terms of tone and that buzzing. Anyway, the banjo is fine. But I'm getting the itch for a more upscale one already. UPDATE: As I expected I have outgrown this (I was guitar player for many years, finger-picking so the rolls came more easily it seems. I'm no prodigy by any means, but I've advanced to intermediate more quickly than some) and am buying a Huber Workhorse or equivalent soon. I will relegate this banjo to the "clawhammer" style that I'm going to tackle next. Oh, one thing. This banjo DOES NOT have a tone ring so it will NEVER sound as good as a banjo with one, unless you like a duller sound. (Some people do, for clawhammer and the like.) FURTHER UPDATE: Forget what I said about a duller sound for clawhammer. That was foolish. Get a decent banjo for both. I still stand by this as a good beginner banjo, but if you have a real love for the banjo you'll quickly outgrow it.

I had no experience playing a banjo and was looking for something inexpensive to give it a go, in the hopes that I could eventually play some old-time mountain music with my wife. I had gone to my local music stores and played around with some of the inexpensive banjos ($200 or less) and just wasn't impressed with the sound or the quality of any of them. I found this banjo on Amazon, read the reviews, and decided to take a chance. I've had the banjo for a few months now, and I couldn't be happier. (This review will be in the context of a $150 instrument. Obviously if you compare this banjo to a $750 Deering, this banjo might not be quite as impressive. Or maybe it would. It's awesome.)The banjo arrived undamaged and packed safely. I had to tighten up the arm guard, and also file down a sharp bur on the arm guard before playing, but other than that the instrument was strung up with the bridge placed correctly and completely ready to play after some tuning.As far as looks go, the banjo is beautiful. It may lack some of the frilly details of pricier banjos, but honestly, who cares? My wife is a professional musician and we own a large array of stringed instruments (guitars, mandolins, violins) ranging from cheapies to professional grade. We were completely impressed with the construction quality of this thing. If you've ever purchased a cheap guitar you know they usually have several annoying qualities; common ones being insanely high action and terrible finish where the frets meet the neck of the instrument. I had noticed those same flaws on the cheap banjos I tried in the stores and expected that this banjo would be no different. I'm happy to report that's not the case.The action is nice and low, but not so low that the strings buzz when you aren't fretting a string. There is also an adjustable truss-rod that allows you to adjust the action to your liking. The frets themselves are absolutely flush with the neck of the banjo as well, so you don't feel the frets protruding from the edge of the fretboard as you slide your hand up and down the neck. The tuner pegs are geared and have plastic pearlescent knobs. The knobs look somewhat cheap, but you can apparently replace those if you are so inclined (I think they look fine). The geared tuners are attached to the head of the banjo by hardware that has some pretty scrolling on the metal, which looks really nice. The fretboard itself has pearl-inlay dots, which aren't as fancy as more expensive banjos, but again, no big deal.The head is Remo Weatherking, and not some bush-league brand, so that's cool. The pot of the banjo is made completely of wood, not plastic, and is generally free of superficial defects and looks very pretty. The resonator also looks great, and seems to be a wood veneer over a wood composite, and as a result feels pretty light (perhaps a minus for some). The resonator is also removable and can be taken off and replaced quickly using some thumb screws, or more permanently removed by removing the hardware that the thumb-screws attach to. The rest of the hardware, like the hooks, the strap rings, and the arm guard, are shiny chrome and look great.Okay, so the banjo looks awesome but how does it sound? It sounds great! It's nice and loud, with a really bright banjo tone. I chose to remove the resonator because I am learning clawhammer/frailing style playing; traditionally played on an open-back banjo. That said, my buddy plays Scruggs/bluegrass style banjo, and he made this thing sing with his finger picks andh the resonator on. So either way, clawhammer or bluegrass style, this banjo sounds great.So there it is. This banjo is simply great for the price. I'll post some pictures to illustrate some of the points I made in the review.

I was in the market for a beginner banjo, and really didn't know where to start. In the interests of full disclosure, I am a veteran guitar player. I used to play banjo many, many years ago, but I played it like a guitarist. This time around, I wanted to learn to play it as a banjoist, as it should be played, so for all intents and purposes I am a beginner. I don't know anyone who plays banjo, so I couldn't get any recommendations from friends or family. After considerable Internet research - a lot of which involved checking out Amazon reviews - I settled on this Jameson instrument.Many of the "name" brands in the music stores seem to start in the $250 range and go right up to the $700s and $800s, and I even saw some over $1,000. Even the $250 range was beyond my budget. In Amazon (rather than the music stores) there were instruments within my budget in the $150 - $200 range, but none of the names was familiar to me. Then again, I admit, I don't know enough about the banjo world to really know the names.Anyway, to make a long story short, I am really glad I decided on this instrument. It is a beautiful piece of workmanship, really attractive and nicely put together, and it sounds great. During my research, I had seen several reviews of other brands where people had said not to expect your banjo to arrive ready to play. You would have to install the bridge, the strings and so on. Not so with this Jameson - it arrived nicely packed and ready to play. It only needed minor tuning, which is of course understandable (for which I recommend the  Snark SN-5 Tuner for Guitar, Bass and Violin , which works fine for banjo even though they don't mention that). It even included a tuning and chord chart.Note that this instrument has a (removable) resonator back, which is a bonus in this price range, since a resonator back usually hikes up the price. Another nice bonus is that Jameson provides free basic lessons on their website ([...], which links to [...]).I noticed that in the questions above, one answer said it was made in USA. However, mine was made in China. This is not an issue for me and shouldn't be for you (unless you are of the "buy-only-American" persuasion); it's a beautiful instrument regardless of where it was made.All in all, I highly recommend this banjo, especially (but not only) for beginners. It is an excellent value for a really fine instrument. Five stars without any reservations! Snark SN-5 Tuner for Guitar, Bass and Violin

The banjo arrived way ahead of its predicted delivery date. I took it out of its wrapping and tuned the strings. I quickly found out that it had a few problems that the promised setup at MDW Support should've caught. The strings being out of tune was not an issue, because brand-new strings need breaking in anyway, before they'll more or less stay in tune. Intonation was not even close to accurate--further inspection of the neck showed that it was attached crookedly to the rim, throwing everything off in the process. It was only about 1-3 degrees off true, but that's enough to mess up intonation.Using pictures and videos that MDW Support had on their website, I was able to figure out how to remove the resonator, loosen the neck enough to twist it around and up, and the fasten everything back into place.The neck itself was flat, with no discernible bow, so there was no need to adjust the truss rod. Since I had the strings removed, I cleaned and oiled the fretboard, which looked starved for moisture.I had noticed during my first out-of-the-box play that the tuning machines for strings 1-4 were a bit loose, with the 3rd being the worst of the bunch. I bought inexpensive replacement guitar-style tuners and put them on in place of the factory's choice. The metal loops that hold the factory tuning keys and their wormscrew shafts only went 3/4 of the way around, while my replacements had no gaps for the shafts to get knocked slightly out of alignment and loose. They were nice and tight, which helped tuning immensely.I then installed new (lighter) strings, but accidentally broke the first (D) string. I ordered another and put it on a day or two later, then adjusted the bridge to center the strings and then lowered the back plate so it would hold the strings taut behind the bridge and keep their loops snug against their anchors. After a day or so, the strings stay close to in tune, only requiring slight adjustments.I did notice that the dry air where I live was making the fret ends stick out a bit, so I used a fret end file to remove the worst of their effects and haven't had much problems with them since then.The reason I knew what to look for and how to remedy those issues, is because I have done setup and minor repairs and replacements of equipment on guitars (acoustic and electric), electric basses and even a banjo a long time ago. I have a few luthier tools, but I'm not a professional by any stretch of the imagination. As I mentioned earlier, MDW Support has several pages and even a few videos that help explain how to do much of what I did, step by step.In summary, I now have a working banjo that plays well. I'm still very much a beginner and it'll take time to learn how to play bluegrass-style. I'm constantly tempted to use all five of my right-hand fingers to play, but that's a different style entirely. Maybe later. I figure this banjo will last me for several years. I might decide to upgrade to a better instrument at that time, but we'll see.I recommend that when you've bought a new musical instrument, it's best to take it to a trained professional to do the setup for you, unless you feel confident you can handle it on your own. There's still a few minor tweaks I want to run by a luthier I've been to before. After that, my banjo will be 100% ready; right now, it's around 97%, good enough to begin learning how to play.