The one I liked the most is no longer in production, but the company has another model which works under the same principle.
http://www.kksound.com/banjotwin.html

One of these and a good solid state acoustic amp like the Acoustisonic should do you pretty well. At very high volumes, you might have to be careful with amp location to prevent feedback, or keep your hand on the banjo head to keep it from resonating between songs, but any piezo-electric style pickup will put you miles ahead of any of the magnetic or microphone pickups you usually see.

Yeah, I'm sure many would prefer not to ever think about banjos at all. But they don't have to read this.

I can only relate my experience - I haven't found any acoustic banjo pickup that does what you're asking, although I've never tried the Banjo Twin system John mentioned. The Fishman and Schertler pickups sound fine, but could not keep up with loud electric guitar, bass, and drums when I tried them. I have a Fishman now on my Granada - sounds great in a bluegrass context, but not in an electric band. I had a Deering Crossfire - it cut through, but didn't sound like a banjo, to me. Then I found the Goldtone EBM Electric Banjo:

I realize that a new electric banjo may not be the answer you're looking for, but it's the only thing I have found that does the job. Is the amplified sound as good as a real good acoustic banjo? Not at all. But the humbucking bridge pickup is good and twangy, sounds quite banjoey even into a Fender tube amp, and definitely keeps up with a pretty loud band. I recommend that, if you want to think about this, try one out and crank it up using just the pickup under the bridge - see if you like it. The Goldtone website http://www.goldtone.com has lots of details, including a dealer search function. They also make the EBT model that looks more like a Telecaster. One of my buddies is a Goldtone dealer - I'm fairly sure he could put you onto a reasonable price if you like them.

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Dave O'Brien, Okeechobee
ZumSteel D-10 8&7. Walker Stereo steel
www.banjobubba.com

(This thread has been up for about 7 hours and I can't beleive b0b hasn't closed it yet!)

[This message was edited by Garry Vanderlinde on 16 February 2006 at 03:53 PM.]

Edited to add: Yeah, I imagine an old DeArmond magnetic pickup might work fine. I need to keep my eyes peeled. They used to turn up now and then, but I haven't seen one for sale in a long time.

[This message was edited by Dave Mudgett on 16 February 2006 at 04:48 PM.]

I go direct to the PA, so to get a good signal to the board, I need to use a floor pedal preamp. I used to use a Fishman Model G, but it wasn't powerful enough. Now I use a Danelectro graphic e.q. pedal as a boost (because I had it already), but there are better clean boost pedals out there. The signal then goes to an mxr microamp for solo boosts, a Boss CE-5 chorus, then a Whirlwind IMP2 direct box.

I get a very realistic sound and have not had feedback problems in years, even at high volume with drums and electric instruments.

I put a Fishman coil pick up on my Ode banjo, the kind that mounts to the co-ordinator rods just under the head at the bridge, about 1/16" clearance. A tiny sliver of steel goes under the center foot of the bridge. The coil pick up is magnetic so you get good gain but it picks up the bridge motion, not just the strings like an electric guitar pickup. There is a large amount of "banjo physics" (bridge sound, head flex, etc.) involved int the total sound. I run it thru a five band eq Fishman preamp to dial in the tone for the room.

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“Big John”
a.k.a. {Keoni Nui}
’05 D–10 Derby
’65 Re-Issue Fender Twin–Reverb Custom™ 15”
Current Equipment

In south west Florida, the best option would be Waste Management...