Aquila 6 B 5 str.Banjo Nylgut Light

I bought these strings to replace my steel ones because I wanted to make my banjo more silent. I figured nylon strings would sound softer by themselves, and also allow me to play with bare fingers (without fingerpicks). My main goal was to have an instrument I could practice in my apartment without disturbing my family or my neighbours, the sound quality was not a big concern.

Still, I was pleasantly surprised to hear that even these nylon strings delivered the usual crisp, high-heavy sound as one would expect from the banjo. They felt very comfortable when played without fingerpicks and gave a better response to the picking dynamics than the steel ones.

As there are no loop ends on the strings, the mounting wasn't very straightforward. The internet suggests tying tiny nooses yourself, but that wouldn't fit through the narrow holes of my bridge. In the end, what worked for me was tying tiny plastic beads at the end of the strings.

The high D and G strings broke a couple of times when first stringing, and also later on (when the banjo was resting). Fortunately, the strings are long enough to compensate for such cases, at least if they break at the bridge. So, don't cut off the excess string after you've mounted them.

Also, the strings take a long time to stretch out (I had to re-tune the banjo regularly for weeks after the string change), and require many turns of the peg. Make sure that they wind towards the headstock, otherwise you might run out of tuning peg space.

The strings are significantly thicker than the steel ones, too. They kept jumping out of the string slots on the bridge, so I bought an extra bridge and widened the slots. Since then, haven't had any more issues with them.