Mastertone™ “Bluegrass Heart” Béla Fleck Signature Banjo with Case

Noam: Let’s talk this Gold Tone banjo a bit, the Gold Tone Béla. You showed me the prototype. Neck dimensions the same as your classic Monteleone neck on your 75?

Béla: Essentially, yeah. Marc Horowitz came to me with the idea; Marc’s my old banjo teacher and a real banjo lover, a banjo nerd of the highest order—in the best possible sense. And he said, “You should check out this banjo.” I said, “Okay.” But I’m not gonna do a Gold Tone model—I mean… I play flatheads. And I love Gold Tone, you know, I love the folks that make the instruments. They did a wonderful job on the cello banjo, and on the baritone banjo, which has been a real boom for me. And I like their ukuleles and piccolo banjos. But I always considered them the guys that I go to for the things that no one else makes.

But would I have them make a flathead banjo? I didn’t think so. But they sent me their Twanger and I checked it out, and my first thought was, “I don’t think so.” But then I went back and played it again and thought, “You know, this is really a lot of fun to play.” I don’t know why it’s so much fun to play. It doesn’t sound like my banjo. It doesn’t sound like a flathead. But Marc was loving it, and I love Marc. So I gave it a little time and I started—even though I didn’t really have the time, I started setting it up, trying different things, different tail pieces, different setups, getting the action up to where I need it, to see what the banjo can do, trying different bridges. And I thought, you know, there really is something here. And I talked to Wayne Rogers, and said, “I’m probably not gonna do this.” And he said, “I know. I’m not expecting you to. We’re just throwing out ideas here.”

So I said, “Do you wanna spend a little more time messing around with it to see where we can get?” And he said, “Yes, we’ll learn a lot of things doing it with you.” So we continued messing with it. And I sent him this Gibson prototype neck that they had made when we were talking about doing a Béla model at Gibson. But that all fell apart, though they had made a prototype, I didn’t like the sound, but the neck was great. It was an almost perfect copy of my Monteleone neck. I sent this banjo to Wayne, and he copied it. It was essentially a copy of a copy of my neck. And one that I was willing to send, you know, out of town in a box.

I had a few more suggestions. And they sent me back a new version with the new neck, and it was a Quantum Leap forward. It was way more happening. And gradually I started to do more of the things that I normally do to my banjo. And one of the goals of this banjo is that anything we used had to be available. No old hard to find parts.

So we tried the Prucha tailpiece, which sounded real good. I was surprised that I liked it as well as I did. It was better than anything new I tried, and it was something we could get. And I like this Little Mountain armrest which attaches with two separate hooks. To me, it lets the banjo resonate more. I’ve noticed this before. Do you remember when I came to Telluride with no arm rests, and I was wearing an arm band to keep my arm from going numb… because I said, “This banjo sounds so much better without the armrest.” And you were like, “Yeah, I don’t think so.” I kept it like that for a few months before deciding it was impractical and I put the arm rest back on. And I think I took it off because I had a wooden arm rest which I loved the aesthetics of it, but one day I realized it was actually sitting on the head and killing sound. So I took it off immediately. So, instead of just putting it on a sander and taking off the part touching the head, I just decided I didn’t like arm rests anymore. It was very reactionary and stupid. But at any rate, one day someone sent Abby these Little Mountain arm rests, and I tried one and thought, “Wow, that’s a little more like the no-arm-rest sound.”

Also, I’ve liked having Keith tuners on all four strings as I’m quite certain that the extra mass from these heavier tuners on the headstock improve my tone. But the new Rickard Cyclones have a ten to one ratio (compared to 4-1) and I was interested in this better ratio, so we used the Cyclones and added heavier solid brass knobs instead of the standard plastic ones. Now, the tuner mass is equal to the four Keith tuners and the tone is much to my liking. Wayne and Marc Horowitz came up with this innovative solution, and I don’t know of anyone ever doing this before.

So, little things like that. And the thing about the end of the fingerboard not touching the stretcher band is a picky thing for me. I just noticed that the banjos that I like tend to be like that. So we did that. And an inlay pattern that I really liked, and mahogany, and a finish I really liked. Very little finish, a cool wood look.

Noam: When will it be available?

Béla: We’re shooting for the end of the year. They’re still coming up with things to try. And we’re still looking at bridges—but we found a few good options now, that can work just fine. So, I’m into it. And when I play it, after playing my flathead, I go, “Oh, this is nice.” And that’s a big deal, because typically when I pick up anything, even another flathead after playing my old banjo, I go, “Yuck.” So I think it’s getting pretty good. And some people have played it now, like Greg Liszt, and he quite liked it. Pete Wernick played it. Jayme Stone. And, everyone’s a bit surprised. And it’s not gonna be crazy expensive. Gabe Hirshfeld said, about the Twanger, ”This is not an old flathead, but it’ll keep you satisfied until you can get one.” This will be a Béla version of that.

Noam: There you go. That’s exciting. I figure for a lot of people it’d be the first time they ever get to put their hands on something with a setup similar to yours.

Béla: Quite possible. And another thing I’ve been thinking about, and you and I always talk about how hard it is to come up with a neck to put on an old instrument. And the idea that these necks could be available. Of course they’ll say Flecktone or whatever we end up calling it, Béla or whatever. And it’ll have a certain inlay pattern, but it could be an option that people could buy… probably for not that much money, to try on other instruments, and get an arched fingerboard banjo that tunes well and is mahogany. And with the right profile. So it can serve a few different purposes. And I’ll be happy to get a few extra necks to stick on some flatheads I have in the closet that I’ve never played because its so hard to get the necks made. So hopefully, that’ll work out that way too.

Read full interview here.