I've been playing banjo for about 10 years now. Not well, not in public, but I play clawhammer, just like Kermit. I also have a son who's expressed interest in following me down this old road, so I thought this might be right for him. I think I was right. Out of the box, this instrument looks really nice. No bells, no whistles, nothing fancy, but it's a really clean maple build throughout. I don't see any flaws in the woodwork at all. The tuners all feel solid and hold well. In the video I posted, I hadn't touched the tuners in 5 days. Tuning seemed pretty solid after 2 days, but then I had to loosen all the strings and redo everything (I'll come back to that), but after I tuned it that time, I haven't adjusted it since. It came strung but loose, with the bridge packed separately, and a nice cardboard template to mark the bridge location. I know better than to trust that, though, so I used it to measure to the 12th fret, then to the bridge, and marked the head. Then, just to check, I put the template against the nut and ... It's spot on! It's got a nice straight bridge, ready to go, and it sounds fine. But that's when I heard THE BUZZ. Every time the high D string rang, there was a vicious buzz which I realized was coming from the tailpiece. Upon inspection, I found a little ding in the tailpiece, which was correspondingly bent in on that corner. So, after fiddling with it for a while, I finally freed the bridge and strings, and removed the tailpiece. It was easy to bend it back flat, but that had nothing to do with the buzz! On the back of the tailpiece there's a little piece of threaded rod, on which floated a totally loose nut, that was singing its little metal heart out to the high D. I tightened it down, put everything back together, tuned it back up, and all I hear now is pure 5 string goodness. It all sounds pretty nice, with a great, clean tone. The action is just right, and the strings fret beautifully. The rest of the hardware is solid, and has a beautiful chrome shine. For the accessories, everything is fairly basic, but good quality. Even though I play clawhammer, I was impressed with the set of 3 fingerpicks (stacked inside one another). I have several sets that I paid good money for, but these 3 are the most comfortable I've tried. Everything fits in a little cotton bag, and then you have the very well padded nylon case. I haven't taken advantage of the free lessons yet, but I could use all the help I can get, so I appreciate the offer. If it weren't for the dinged tailpiece with the loose nut, this would be a solid 5 star instrument, an amazing value for a starter or a second. If my son doesn't end up taking to it, I'll be keeping it tuned to C so I can just switch banjos. Read more