banjo head tension?
So I finally put a new head (Remo Renaissance) on my strange-sized banjo (11 1/8″ medium crown, a 11 3/16″ would probably have fit slightly better). I put the bridge and strings on and tuned it up and it sounds pretty good. It’s not all that loud though and the bridge looks like it’s sagging in the middle a bit. I’m thinking I haven’t tensioned the head enough. How do I know how much to tension the head? Tarky? Andy? Jesse? Anyone else? Also, is it safe to just tune the strings down a bunch and then tension the head more or should I take the strings and bridge off first?