Testimonials

Brooks, I wanted to wait till I played with some other folks to write. I took my new banjo to the jam last night….....Short answer…..Sheeeee itttttttt it’s nice.

I have yearned for this since my Kyle Creed (with the same fretless/fretted combo) was stolen 23 years ago. I had always been afraid to ask someone to make one for me because, what if I didn’t like it? I had heard of you from some of my friends and got to play a few of your fretted models over the past couple years. I felt you were so popular that if I didn’t like it I could sell it fast. Afterall, I have been so totally spoiled by my 1926 Tubaphone that I didn’t think I would ever play a second banjo. That Tubaphone may feel a little neglect or jealousy now. But it better get used to living with another banjo…...for 23 years I have only had that Tubaphone.

The sound of my new Brooks is “round” and thumpy, but sustains well. Theeeee greatest thing about my Tubaphone is the range of tones I can pull from it. The sound from it is extremely versitile. This characteristic is what I have come to need/demand from an instrument that I will keep and play. This character would make or break any decision I would make over keeping your banjo….....

THEY’RE GOING TO HAVE TO PRY IT FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS.

I’ve lived with #112, the cherry and rosewood slothead, now for almost three months and that is enough time for me to have formed an opinion of it. In a nutshell, it has been really great! The wide fingerboard has been wonderful and the 25.5 inch scale works great for G, A, Gm, Am, C, and D tunes. It still amazes me to look at the thing. The cherry is simply beautiful and the rosewood veneers and fingerboard make for a stunning instrument. The slothead and slotted fifth string have really drawn very positive comments.

My fellow banjo players at the Nashville Old-time Stringband get-togethers all have wanted to play it and I’ve enjoyed getting the chance to sit in front of it and really hear what it sounds like. The goatskin head, which I’ve found works best a little on the loose side, is my favorite skin head. I liked the bridge you sent with it but I think the Sampson walnut and ebony bridge (11/16ths with Crowe spacing) that I added really gives it old-time plunk and tames some of the overtones.

So, I just wanted to let you know how pleased I have been with my Brooks banjo.

Dear Brooks…last weekend my travels took me to Rochester, and the musician friends we were staying with took us to Bernunzio’s, which I’ve always wanted to visit. When you walk in and look to the right, you are faced with s mind-boggling line of the MOST incredible banjos imaginable.

I played bluegrass sine 1962, and have a great old Mastertone. I still do that occasionally, but since 3 years ago at Banjo Camp North, where my wife and I were bluegrass faculty members , a convergence of Dan Gellert, my old buddy Reed Martin and a few others send my banjo vehicle literally screaming off the clawhammer exit, where I’ve mostly stayed. So my first love now is old-time, and that ALWAYS leads me to the open backs.

Well, right smack dab in the middle of the row was one of your new Bacon tone ring Spartans, with flush frets, 14 hooks and a slotted paddle head. (I knew it was yours right off from the penny!!). It was probably the most elegantly simple banjo in the row, but if it had had a long arm, it probably would have grabbed me by the neck!! I ignored all the Tubaphones , Whyte Laydies and Stewarts and went right for the Spartan. I picked it up, sat on the stool in the middle of the room, and in 30 seconds, despite NOT having gone in there expecting to spend what I can barely afford for another instrument, I knew there was no way I could leave without it…so I didn’t.

I sat there, planning what to sell when I got home, and I was so overcome, I thought for a moment that I would have to ask my wife to bring me a brown paper bag to breathe into!!  I’ve had it a week now, and it has seriously opened a new world of playing for me. It is the best banjo I have played, hands down (although I love our Enoch Tradesman and a great old rolled-rim banjo Stewart-ish I found not long ago in a shop right here in Saratoga Springs, New York, where we live).

I expect that very soon it will be the only banjo I will WANT to play!! Congratulations of creating crack in 5-string form!! And seriously, THANK YOU most of all for having created that masterpiece that fate brought me to….Best to you…

Hey Brooks! Remember me? I bought one of your banjos about a year ago, I’m a librarian in North Carolina.

Man, I just wanted to tell you how much I freakin’ love my banjo. Like if the house was in flames, that’d be the thing I grabbed. The sound has settled in over the year and it just warm and plonky and sparkly and I’m honored to play it.

Anyhoo, hope Portland is treating you nice and that work is just the right amount of busy.

I just got my new Brooks banjo in the mail, and I LOVE this banjo!

This year I decided it was about time I had a banjo custom made to my exact specifications. Just let Brooks know what you’ve always dreamed about, and he’ll make it for you. My Brooks banjo is fretless, black walnut, with a Whyte Laydie tone ring and skin head. This banjo is beautiful to look upon and sounds great—a sweet tone on the slower tunes, but plenty of “pop” for fast, punchy clawhammer. My friends here in Kentucky can’t seem to put it down.

Brooks banjos have my highest recommendation. Thanks, Brooks!

One wonderful thing is that the bridge you made works very nicely with this banjo (normally I have to mess around with different bridges I have built until I find one whose resonance works optimally with the banjo). As with the silverspun, your craftsmanship remains continually excellent and the banjo looks just beautiful.

What I’ve always liked about your work is that it feels like you put a little of yourself into each banjo you make. Every one of em that I’ve ever held or played seemed like it was special and unique, like you were present when building it and really care about what you’re doing—artistry, I guess. They don’t ever feel like they were pumped through an assembly line process or rushed to get out the door.

That’s why I want to own another one of your banjos, so please take as much time as you need to make another special banjo, know what I mean?

What’s to be said of a craftsman who unintentionally pins both thumbs to the shell of a cabin he is building with a pneumatic framing stapler, and alone on the job site in the remote border country of the southern Rockies, remains patiently for his companion on the project to return from a trip into the village to free him with a wonder bar. Clearly this would make that person one hellacious, uniquely qualified, double thumb banjo player. For my money, and I am not naming names, that person could be Brooks Masten, a craftsman above reproach, and, thumbs down, my choice for the finest traditional banjo fabricator working today; also my favorite musician on said instrument as well. Unwilling to thumb his nose at apprenticing with the great mid-generation luthiers, this person has distinguished himself as someone incapable of resting under the thumb of convention by producing the Spartan, part instrument and part weapon.

My first Brooks banjo is #07, a calfskin over a White Lady tone ring with an internal resonator, the latter pushes the low and mid back through the skin for a perfect warm and tubby voice. The ring handles the high with a clarity that still amazes me after many years of faithful service. There are several other unorthodox features to this instrument which have turned a few heads and caused many more to exclaim I want a banjo configured exactly like this.

My #22 is equally unique in all respects. This calfskin 13 5/8’’ fretless minstrel with a 27 plus inch scale and fitted with heavy gauge gut, speaks with boss authority tuned to low A. Twenty-two continues to make me arrive late at the office.

It bears mentioning that I am guilty, perhaps as others have (in the old days), to demand special features on a banjo that departed from what Brooks holds as tradition and faithful reproduction of period instruments. Old Number Seven is such a departure. From the beginning I have referred to this guy, my favorite banjo, as “the Hybrid,” while Brooks prefers “the Mutant.” Instruments in the current catalog appear unique as well, exotic and traditional at the same time. I know from first hand experience that Brooks will continue to make great leaps with every instrument he crafts, that the most recent I have played are truly his best work, and by god, I have thumbed through all the catalogs and web sites and banjo pest holes out there. Brooks, I have two words for you, be have.