Ome Southern Cross

With an eye on the rich heritage of American banjos, we have created a model inspired by the simple elegance and great tone of prewar Bluegrass banjos. We have chosen warm-sounding South American Mahogany with African Ebony and Indian Rosewood overlays to be the standard woods for this model, with optional American Walnut and Maple for those wanting a brighter, clearer tone. A radiused fingerboard can be added for those who prefer this ergonomic attribute for great playability up the neck. Our inlays are designed from diamonds of real Mother-of-Pearl accented with Abalone, and weêve carefully hand-rubbed a dark reddish-brown stain into the Mahogany to match the color of 5-string banjos made in the 1800_s.

In addition to the HG 50 tone ring, we elected to use a modern version of the banjo heads favored by Bluegrass players in the 1960_s, added a lighter Ome Presto tailpiece, and are setting-up the banjo with responsive hand-made bridges.
Other specs are unchanged from our standard Bluegrass banjos: 26.25_ scale length; 1.28_ nut width; our Bluegrass neck, resonator and 3-ply maple rim; Omeês zinc die-cast flange and solid brass parts with steel hooks; hand-sanded and buffed high gloss finishes; and our chenille-wrapped medium gauge strings.

When you use a standard capo on your banjo fretboard, fretting strings 1 through 4, you’ll need to capo the 5th string separately. The 5th string starts at the 5th fret. If your standard capo is on the 2nd fret, you also need to capo the 5th string two frets higher, at the 7th fret. We recommend installing railroad spike capos on frets 7 and 9 (A and B). We install them on the fretboard just under the 5th string, an idea that was developed and used by Earl Scruggs himself. We use them, and so do most of the professional players we know. When you’re playing, you don’t really notice the spikes because they’re out of the way, but they’re always there when you need them. Simply slide the 5th string under the spike. When you’re done, slide it out.

Includes Hard-Shell case