Review: 2006 Dean Six String Banjo
The six-string banjo has been around for quite a while. It was an obvious development in our eternal quest to play the banjo without learning how.
The only problem, of course, is that a banjo is played differently than a guitar, and thus the strings on a six-string banjo are in the wrong place. A banjo player uses a high string as a twangy sort of drone, much as a guitar picker will use the bass strings to move the rhythm, and both use the thumb to do that.
As a result, a six-string banjo sounds like a guitar that happens to sound a bit like a banjo but has too much sustain to play like one. This has always been true, even though countless players have tried to make a go at it with the six-string.
That's the reason why Dean seems to be the only major player in this category, and why the thing is so cheap. Its real purpose is to serve as a second or third instrument for a guitar player and it's priced at the sweet spot for such instruments. There was a time when even a cheap banjo would still set you back 250.00 to 350.00, wouldn't stay in tune, and wasn't an intuitive experience for your average guitarist.
The Dean gives you the ability to add banjo lines to your arrangements, without needing to learn a new instrument (at least superficially). It's also an ideal instrument to simulate a tenor banjo for jazz or Celtic if your skill set is primarily with the flat pick. In that case, your knowledge of chords would translate easily to the Dean.
The use of a guitar-style neck and headstock makes it an even easier tool for the guitarist. For most types of banjo riffs, you don't need traditional banjo pegs anyway. The problem is that its tone isn't really at the pro level, so it's mainly a specialty axe for live gigs. It wouldn't cut it in the studio, except maybe in a tenor banjo role. If you got one that was made of top-quality materials with top-flight workmanship, that would be a question worth trying to answer.
So how is the Dean as a playing experience from a banjo player's perspective? It's OK, but it's not a true quality instrument for pure solo playing. The tone is only good enough for someone who only wants to use it occasionally. It does have a full sound, but a bit muddy and it has a “slow” tone. In other words, you could play fast on it, and it would still sound a bit draggy.
No banjo can be like that. There is a way for a banjo player to use this Dean. Substitute high strings for the two bass strings, and you'd have a banjo that would play like one that had a capo for its drone string. Or, just capo it off at the 5th fret and above, and you could have a hybrid of banjo and finger-style guitar (if you know both).
Its real purpose, however, is as I've described earlier. It's a good enough substitute for a banjo, for guitar players who don't want or have the time to learn to play the banjo.
I wouldn't tell you not to try it though. It's not an expensive gamble, it's cheaper than most Squires for example, and I've noticed that you can always sell one. There's always a used one for sale. I guess there's always some guitar player out there looking for a shortcut to banjo proficiency. Hope springs eternal...
- Al Handa
2006
Note: This review first appeared on the ePinions.com site in 2013. This and other reviews were short takes that accompanied the link to a business that sold the guitar. As a rule, the guitar had to be at least examined and played by the reviewer (and ideally owned). In my case, a severe case of GAS made it possible to have at least owned the reviewed instrument for a short while. I'm reprinting these as having another source on a guitar never hurts, even if the reviews aren't definitive. Other than minor corrections, these short takes are unchanged from the original text. I figure that it might be helpful to keep the older perspective.
