Standard 5-String Banjo Tuning is Still Wrong

The standard 5-string banjo tuning is open G - The notes from the 5th string to the 1st are G4, D3, G3, B3, D4. Two and a half years ago, I emailed ND support, because I noticed that the 5-string banjo "open G” tuning in Neck Diagrams was incorrect; it had had D4 for the 5th string, instead of G4.

The response I received from Neck Diagrams in April 2018, indicated that this would be corrected...

On Apr 5, 2018, at 4:24 PM, support@neckdiagrams.com wrote:

"Going forward we can enhance, introduce and support many new things
In fact, Moveable fretboard markers, Banjo G string to the 5th fret, markers over the Fretwire for slide/lap steel players to name a few."

It is now Jan 20, 2021, and after multiple updates, including the latest version 2.2, which I downloaded today, the standard 5-string banjo tuning still has not been fixed. The 5th string is still incorrectly tuned to D4 instead of G4. As a 5-string banjo player, I find it odd that so many irregular, modal, and infrequently-used 5-string banjo tunings are available in the program, yet the standard one still doesn’t exist. How many more years will it take to correct this? Am I the only one who noticed this?

Hi whydavewhy,

The standard 5-string banjo tuning is set that way to compensate for the fact that the string begins at the 5th fret in the real world.

So when you use it in ND the notes placed on the 5th string actually show correctly. If the tuning was set to G4 then the notes will come out wrong.

If you want such a tuning you can actually create one yourself in the Instrument Library View - if you're not sure how to create custom tunings then please take a look at this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxhZNI_LtME

I do still plan to provide a realistic 5-string banjo representation but this is no trivial task due to the issue of the 5th string start location.

Unfortunately I don't have the resources of a mega-corporation like Apple, Google etc! To give you an idea of the scale of work in ND2, I started on it in 2012 and the first 2.0 release wasn't until nearly 7 years later..

Obviously with the situation of the pandemic working practices are very different - I have 2 young children at home as schools are again closed here in England - I have to keep the youngest "entertained" whilst my wife home schools the elder, so the amount of hours I can work on ND are unfortunately somewhat reduced..

If things start to return to normal and the schools reopen then this banjo improvement is actually already something I'm hoping to now look into sooner rather than later. You patience is appreciated - I wish I could clone myself!

Hello. I just downloaded the trial version of neck diagrams, hoping that there would be a realistic representation of a 5-string banjo neck. I've read through the other posts and see that others have been raising this issue since 2014. I understand your difficulties with time to spend on this application, but wanted to put in another request, just so you would know that there is more demand out there. I noticed that the dot markers are not symmetrical about the fingerboard. For example, a standard Gibson dot inlay pattern would have the dots centered on the middle string (G). Having movable fretboard dot markers would be great. Being able to choose between the classic 5-string banjo inlay patterns would be even better ("Flying Eagle" "Heart's and Flowers" and "Bowtie" are probably the most common, though there are a few other traditional patterns). This would be very helpful, as the fingerboard could be made to more closely resemble what we actually see when we look down at our instruments. Thanks for any further consideration you can give to the banjo's peculiarities. Hoping for the 5-string neck soon. -- Frank

Hi Frank,

Thanks for your thoughts on this :)

I'm hopeful work on this can get underway this year with a little luck!

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I noticed that the dot markers are not symmetrical about the fingerboard.

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This is actually a bug in the currently release where there's an odd number of strings - it's fixed for the next update, v2.3, which might be out this week but more likely next.

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Being able to choose between the classic 5-string banjo inlay patterns would be even better ("Flying Eagle" "Heart's and Flowers" and "Bowtie" are probably the most common, though there are a few other traditional patterns)

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I do also have a dev ticket to provide more fret inlay shapes, so this would come under that. I'm not familiar with those inlay patter names - if you could provide some links that'd be helpful! I'd need to find SVG files for the shapes also, ideally..