Rickenbacker Banjoline 6006 COPY – electric dual course tenor guitar

If you’ve not seen Eddie Peabody play before then go and check him out on Youtube- we’ll wait for you.

…There, isn’t he great?! As well as being a fantastic entertainer, Eddie also designed Rickenbacker’s unusual Banjoline 6006 model, which sat somewhere between mandolin and electric guitar and was released in the mid 50s. The original Banjolines are now incredibly rare and can be bought for around £6,000. If, however you haven’t got that kind of cash handy then for a tenth of the price you could have a really well built copy! This instrument’s provenance isn’t known, but the build quality is great! Everything is very nicely finished and the cool looking “toaster top” single coil pickups sound great with a pleasantly jangly tone. The “Chigsby” tremolo tailpiece has a nice, smooth action and good tuning stability and although the bridge is made from a six string electric guitar bridge, it’s been neatly modified to accommodate the unusual string configuration.

Playing wise, this instrument has six strings which are tuned Cc GG B D. This player-friendly configuration means that you have easy access to all the chords in the keys of C and G and can fairly quickly work out D major too, covering all the most popular keys. If you’re familiar with mandolin, bouzouki or tenor banjo you could also alter the top two strings for thinner gauges in order to get to standard CGDA tenor banjo tuning, or alter the whole set for thicker gauges to enable you to play in “Irish” GDAE tuning (we would be happy to do this for you if needed). The action is nice and low and the mahogany neck is dead straight and feels great under the hands thanks to its rounded profile. The pickups have standard Les Paul style controls with a volume and tone pot apiece and a three way pickup selector. The extra knob at the bottom sort of works as a blend knob, but actually attenuates the volume of the neck pickup. This is because the neck pup is naturally slightly louder than the bridge and can drown it out when the two are combined, so turning this knob up (yes, up, not down- it’s deliberately wired back to front) lets you duck the volume up to half way to give a nicer blend.

This attractive and utterly unique instrument is in excellent condition with next to no visible signs of wear and tear. The frets are virtually unmarked and there are very few marks to the body other than some very minor scratches here and there. All in all if you’re looking for a great sounding and looking instrument which will open up a whole new realm of creative possibilities then you could have a lot of fun with this brilliantly bizarre Banjoline clone!

Call in to Finale Guitar between 10-5 any day except Wednesday to try it out or check out now to arrange affordable postage anywhere in the UK.