What piece of equipment do you have to show us today?
We have a Gold Tone GT-750, 6-string Ganjo that I purchased in the States in 2015. Some people call them ‘Banjitars’ or simply 6-string banjos.
How did you come across this particular item?
I’ve actually wanted a Ganjo for many, many years, as I love how versatile they are, both live and in the studio.
Once we had locked in the fact that we were going to record in Los Angeles, I contacted Gold Tone directly and amazingly, somehow conned them into building me a left-handed one. They even made sure it was finished, setup and delivered to my hotel door while I was over there. From the moment it was out of the box, I was in love!
What is that you like so much about it?
The main positive of the instrument is that you can play it like a guitar and you don’t have to re-learn all the chords and techniques that you would need to if you played a traditional style banjo. It can therefore be used for so many different styles of music and you can play a lot more various techniques on it: from strumming, finger picking, shredding to power chords! It has a built-in pickup so it’s really versatile for playing live too and doesn’t have all the issues of micing it up and having feedback and volume problems.
Any other interesting points/stories about it?
The Gold Tone came in handy for us during the process of recording our latest album. There was one particular track that we were struggling with when trying to get the right arrangement. No matter what we tried it just didn’t work, and, as a result we almost scrapped the song. I came up with a part on the Ganjo that really helped drive the whole song along, as I basically doubled up what the guitar parts was doing but it sounded completely different. As a result I think it has made the track one of the standouts on the album.
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