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The Worlds Biggest Playable Banjo made by Gibson
- Thread starter Oscar Stern
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- banjozilla
According to the records, Gibson made only 10 of them, in the late 1920's. Only 2 are known to still exist today. The one in your picture is one of them. They were one of the references I looked at carefully when I was designing my Banjozilla.
By the way, the name Banjozilla is mine, for my upright bass banjo, which you've seen pictures of. I don't have any trademark on the name, but it's been appearing in national magazines and online since about 1994.
The irony of the thread title paired with the warning on the banjo itself…
It may be the largest bass banjo made by Gibson. It is not the largest bass banjo made.
View attachment upload_2024-3-12_0-0-31.webp
Ah, Bruce! There is no escaping my librarian sleuthing skills.
Bass Banjo
View attachment upload_2024-3-12_0-0-31.webp
Ah, Bruce! There is no escaping my librarian sleuthing skills.
Bass Banjo
All this talk about banjo and I want to paddle a canoe faster. 
These are Bass Banjos, tuned and played like upright Double Basses. They are, indeed, Basses. They just look funny and have some twang in their sound.
I like a little twang*, and I might look funny to some....
*probably not that much twang, though...
I’ll bet that Bwango doesn’t fail to deliver some serious bwang even muted for coffee house gigs, Bwana.
Bela Fleck and Abigail Washburn have one, or one like it - they used it in their set when I saw them live in 2018. Made for a fun sight gag when played alongside a banjo uke. 
JeezyMcNuggles
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I love how they have a very petite woman playing that beast in the picture
Reminds me of when I had my wife pose with the Octobass at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix “for scale” (no pun intended, but I’ll accept the groans):
(They also have an empty display case with a wall text describing the “air guitar” it contains. Gotta love a museum with a sense of humor.)
To be fair all banjos should have that sign.
Yes, the Gibson Bass Banjo isn't that big. I believe it's 6' tall and the head is 30" diameter. The pretty gal in the picture is probably 4'10". My Banjozilla is 6'5", the head is 24" and the rim is 25 1/2". Those are the proportions I settled on when I designed it.
The world's biggest Bass Banjo is that Fairbanks Whyte Laydie from around 1905. That's the one that Bela Fleck owns and Abigail plays it sometimes with him in concert. It's about 60" scale length, 6.7' tall.
The world's biggest Bass Banjo is that Fairbanks Whyte Laydie from around 1905. That's the one that Bela Fleck owns and Abigail plays it sometimes with him in concert. It's about 60" scale length, 6.7' tall.
An old buddy of mine made a "bass-jo" out of a kick drum and upright bass parts. It was playable, but sounded pretty awful.
In the early 1900's when ragtime and the big Sousa-style brass bands were on the wane in the days leading up to the explosion of jazz and swing with the Roaring 20's, bands made up of banjos and mandolins in the same four divisions as the viol-family instruments were a thing.
So you had mandolins, mandolas, mandocellos and bass mandolins, and banjos divided the same way, just as you see violins, violas, cellos, and bass viols.
As well, Gibson began to market guit-jos, a common session player's tool with the banjo body and head buttoned up to a guitar neck, tuned and played as any guitar..
In an acoustic-only world before amplification, a lot of instruments (mandolins and arch top guitars particularly) were influenced and adopted violin-based designs, both in construction and the concept of the various sized versions to.mimic four part harmony: Soprano, alto, baritone, and bass, as seen in these two families of instruments from that time frame, something Gibson's legendary designer Lloyd Loar labored to encompass.
So you had mandolins, mandolas, mandocellos and bass mandolins, and banjos divided the same way, just as you see violins, violas, cellos, and bass viols.
As well, Gibson began to market guit-jos, a common session player's tool with the banjo body and head buttoned up to a guitar neck, tuned and played as any guitar..
In an acoustic-only world before amplification, a lot of instruments (mandolins and arch top guitars particularly) were influenced and adopted violin-based designs, both in construction and the concept of the various sized versions to.mimic four part harmony: Soprano, alto, baritone, and bass, as seen in these two families of instruments from that time frame, something Gibson's legendary designer Lloyd Loar labored to encompass.
Oh yes, many people have built those, usually out of a kick drum shell with a Fender bass neck attached. A friend of mine built one and I played around with it for a month or so. That was my inspiration for designing and building Banjozilla.
To be fair, we are bass players - most anything sounds better in the bass range to us.
