of woodstock new york was founded in january 1964 by banjo player bill keith and his college friend dan bump to manufacture and market their new d tuners now commonly called keith tuners . . with these tuners banjo players can change pitches accurately while playing . 1 history edit their inspiration for going into the banjo business was earl scruggs s creation of homemade cam tuners which he developed after recording earl s breakdown in 1951 . scruggs had sought to refine the way he played this tune by finding a way to re tune more accurately during the piece . keith was inspired by the four banjo tunes earl s breakdown foggy mountain chimes flint hill special and randy lynn rag on the 1957 flatt and scruggs album foggy mountain jamboree which all used scruggs s cam tuning machines . 2 in about four hours one day in 1963 keith and bump drew the prototype for a more streamlined version of scruggs s tuners . in 1964 after showing the tuners to scruggs keith and bump went into business with a couple of thousand dollars and began assembling the tuners which they had made locally in bump s garage . 3 the beacon banjo company expanded the banjo s abilities by making these specialized tuners able to install on all four long strings instead of as with the cam tuning machines only on the 2nd and 3rd strings . other people contributed to the creation of these tuners walt pittman and keith s friend loring hall . hall is credited with making the first prototypes while pitman created better looking nuts washers and thumbscrews to replace the off the shelf hardware that loring and dan had . earl scruggs also partnered with keith and bump as a co owner until around 1970 and his endorsement greatly helped to market these tuning machines . 4 currently several companies make d tuners similar to keith s. gotoh and schaller are among the top selling copies . according to the company s website they currently supply gibson stelling fender deering ome and ... other makers and luthiers . throughout the years these tuners have had many names stamped on them including scruggs keith bump keith bump and keith . to date the company has sold over 30 000 pairs . 5 references edit evans bill . banjo for dummies . hoboken nj wiley 2007 . p. 293 keith bill . the story . the beacon banjo company . 2001 . http www.beaconbanjo.com story.cfm keith bill . the story . the beacon banjo company . 2001 . http www.beaconbanjo.com story.cfm ; trischka tony and pete wernick . masters of the 5 string banjo in their own words and music . new york oak publications 1988 . p. 191 keith bill . the story . the beacon banjo company . 2001 . http www.beaconbanjo.com story.cfm keith bill . the story . the beacon banjo company . 2001 . http www.beaconbanjo.com story.cfm external links edit official website retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title beacon banjo company & oldid 586568825 categories companies based in new yorkcompanies established in 1964banjo makershidden categories articles created via the article wizard navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 18 december 2013 at 00 04 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view