When I am playing I notice at the start of playing the banjo sounds good and everything is going well but as I play it starts to sound off. Not as crisp and often duller sounding. Doesn’t seem to sound as nice as did when I sat down. If the banjo checks out I can only conclude that perhaps my hearing begins to fail me. As I get more into my practice time my ears become tired from the banjo overload of noise. Anyone else experience this? I could be wrong. Seems solid in theory.
The Banjo or My Ears
It could also be that your hearing is becoming more attenuated to what it really sounds like as you play.
I haven’t experienced that to my knowledge. Maybe you could record yourself playing and then play it back to see if the sound is really changing. If it is, post it up here and let us have a look at it.
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I’ve experienced this and I attribute it to the picks and resonator warming up…you know, because my body is hot 
Seriously, I think that’s what it is. You might try switching to fresh picks when you notice this happening and see if you get the crispy goodies back. FYI, when I went to higher quality picks, I don’t notice this as much.
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Good to know I’m not alone @BanjoBen. What I have done that I forgot to mention is I will get up and change rooms or sometimes walk to a corner to make the banjo reverberate back more. Usually at this point the bright sound comes back.
I was having all kinds of trouble with my banjo seemed to change as i was playing, i went over my set up a number of times, new strings adjusted head tension coordinator rods you name it … here my tuner nuts were loose i snugged um up and that was my problem anyway, and i for some reason over looked a simple problem …
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Good idea. I’ll check those.
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