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El Frijolito -> RE: In Case You Need A Break (Mar. 1 2016 18:37:41)
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The banjo tuners you refer to are probably called "Keith tuners." They were devised by banjo and pedal steel player Bill Keith, also famous for promoting the "melodic" style of banjo playing (before the jokes start, this is like arpa technique on guitar, and facilitated playing the streams of diatonic eighth-notes found in many fiddle tune melodies).
The idea may actually go back to Earl Scruggs, who earlier had a different mechanism for accomplishing the same kind of thing (it looked like a box that fit over the back of the head of the banjo), and used that to change string pitches in several iconic instrumental tunes. Later Keith figured out how to fit a simple mechanism into individual tuning pegs to drop or raise the string's pitch to pre-determined discrete notes. I think they may be limited to a half- or a whole-step difference.
In the bass world I gather that 'Hipshot' tuners will more or less accomplish the same thing - although I gather they may be less limited in range. They are/were frequently used by Michael Manring.
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