So a problem that I was having with Linux Mint was the function multimedia keys on my keyboard not working with Banshee (even though they were being detected by the OS). So a quick and elegant fix to this is to simply assign the multimedia keys to the terminal commands for controlling banshee! I kicked myself when I didn't think of this.

1. Open up the Keyboard Shortcuts dialog from the Preferences menu in the main menu
2. Now click Add.
3. 
4. After Clicking add, type in:
5. 
6. Repeat the steps, replacing toggle-playing with --next or --previous or --stop
7. Finally, click on the created shortcut and assign it to your multimedia keys