Hi. I have a very nice Oakwood short scale tenor tuned e a d g. I 've been playing for about six months. Have changed the strings a couple of times in that period for the same gauge as the originals but I have never been entirely happy with the G. Although the tuner shows it is in tune it always sounds a bit lifeless compared to the others.
Any tips would be appreciated.
Not that I know anything about banjos but …
… you’re pretty close to me, Norm. Do I know you? 
Short scale tenor banjos or octave mandolins have issues with clunky strings. It’s because the neck isn’t quite long enough for the a stable GDAE with standard strings (or least that was the case with standard octave mandolin strings on my short-scale octave). You might consider heavier gauge strings. Here’s a discussion on 17 fret banjo strings: https://thesession.org/discussions/30915. Last week I played a friend’s custom 17 fret banjo, and while the strings were definitely looser than on my 19 fret tenor, I wouldn’t have described the strings as clunky.
Post your question to the mandolin cafe tenor guitar/tenor banjo forum.
[Thread revival. - Mod]
Chat to a luthier about installing a bridge with mother of pearl slots on the bridge, can make a difference
I use a 40 gauge G on my short scale, and it is still a bit flabby. I’ve read of others going up to 44.
Most hollow body instruments have a natural resonance tone. If it happens to land square on a fretted note, that note will suffer.
I had to sell a really pretty guitar that had that problem. The only real fix was to have the body altered in some way, usually by changing the soundhole. It wasn’t something I was willing to do, so off to eBay it went.
I’ve gone as high as 46 by using octave mandolin strings. Another alternative is to tune it up to an A. I believe I read about someone well known doing this but can’t remember who.
Enda Scahill plays his tenor banjos tuned ADAE. Maybe other players do too.
Yep! Enda is indeed who I was trying to think of. I tried that tuning for a while but when back to G.
Too many tunes to learn alternate fingerings for, it makes that low C# inconvenient to play, and I like to hit that G as a drone for G tunes like Kesh.