Whats your favore music store

Whats your favorite music store

So guys, whats your favorite music store? Mines my local one where i get lessons bachmans.
 
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Might sound silly, but I judge a drum shop on the price of their sticks. I've seen some of the bigger stores charge between 10-14 bucks for a pair of pro-marks. My favorite little shop: "The Starving Musician" charges a respectable 8 dollars per pair. All the other prices are great as well, the sticks are just my benchmark, somewhat because they are so consumable.

I don't have to haggle down to a reasonable price there... I can just buy stuff I need. I enjoy that.
 
Huber & Breese Music in Fraser, MI. Great store, great owners and awesome staff who knows their stuff.
I've been going there for 35 + years.

The stores 40th anniversary is next week.
 
Cascio's Interstate Music, New Berlin, WI. http://www.interstatemusic.com/
30,000 square feet of floor space. That's just the retail store. Clean. Courteous. Perfectly lit. Lessons. Separate rooms for cymbals, acoustic guitars, high end guitars, brass, pianos, strings, and a basic library of music of all kinds. Separate departments for drums, guitars, processing and Mic equipment, keyboards etc. Super impressive, and no, I don't work there. Lol
 
The days of the specialty shops are all but gone. I remember the Epilito Drum Shop in NYC and it was magical. You'd see Tony, or Elvin or Cobham walk in at any time. It was the place to go.

These days, I just go to Guitar Center. Sure, it's Walmart, but they have lots of stuff -- more than the small specialty shops. In Sam Ash, the guitars are locked up until a salesman releases it. The drum department is limited. GC wins in Manhattan at least.
 
I have driven to the building where the music store used to be in my home town.

Now it promises to lease me quality appliances at reasonable monthy rates.

That's my favorite music store...caught in my memory...recalled in the florecent glow of a seedy rental dive.
 
These days, I just go to Guitar Center. Sure, it's Walmart, but they have lots of stuff -- more than the small specialty shops.

That's it in a nut shell for me as well. No local shops around me for miles and I mean miles. So I am left with GC and ordering online from Amazon.com or other music instrument sites.

I actually have two or three GC's in range but only go to two. One is alright, sort of messy and only has one or two sets up at a time. The other, the one I ordered my PDP from is nice and I wish I could go there every day lol. The employee's are cool as hell, it's in VERY nice condition with like three or four good sets up at a time and niether have let me down when ordering or interacting with the employee's. Niether has Amazon.com for that matter. I ordered my Super L-Rods from Amazon and couldn't be happier! I just wish I had a better camera, maybe I'll post up some shots soon for the hell of it. Not bad but not great.
 
I have need for very little at this point so my shopping is limited to basically maintenance stuff - heads, sticks, brushes, etc.... I have one local drum shop who for the most part stocks what I need for this stuff.

When I was in the market for cymbals and drums, I can't shop local since what I want (Gretsch / Bosphorus) is not really available.

For cymbals, it's Cymbalsonly.com - It's the only place with incredible service and selection for what I'm after.

For drums, I've tried a couple - Midwest Percussion and Maxwells - and to me both are mediocre for ordering stuff. If they have it in stock - it's no issue though. Fortunately my needs for purchasing drums I think are over for the next few decades if not forever.
 
My favorite by far is Steve Maxwells in NYC .Just an amazing place,thats not just a store,and a staff second to none.There is just not another drum shop like it,except his Chicago store.My second fav,would be the Long Island Drum Center.

Steve B
 
We're lucky here in Austin, with lots of great music stores. But I got to throw my vote for Tommy's Drum Shop in Austin, Texas. Always, always great and knowledgeable service.
 
+1 . Rumor says that PDS chose the location just so they could be close to local 47, the musicians union, which is across the street. I don't know if it is true, but it sounds good.


not sure if Bob Yeager and Chuck Molinari planned it that way or that building just happened to be available at the time ....but it sure got them a lot of business in the early days
 
I like guitar center... while they sometimes run the small guys out of business, they usually have huge selections, people who can give great advice, and (pretty) good prices
 
damn, I HATE guitar canter, i refuse to buy from them. used to work for them, absolutely hated it… i order stuff online from other places who match them as well or come very close, and there are plenty of them. i even know a few places who sell brand new gear much less than GC, B&H audio in NYC being the first that comes to mind. GC was selling the alesis videotrack for around $120 bucks, i got mine from B&H for $30, brand new!!! there's the percussion center in houston that i looooove! 5 star drum shop, and man do they rule. not very big, but great place. interstate music, steve maxwell's drum shops, forks, sam ash, memphis drum shop, and drum center of portsmouth, NH are all fantastic as well.
 
damn, I HATE guitar canter, i refuse to buy from them. used to work for them, absolutely hated it… i order stuff online from other places who match them as well or come very close, and there are plenty of them. i even know a few places who sell brand new gear much less than GC, B&H audio in NYC being the first that comes to mind. GC was selling the alesis videotrack for around $120 bucks, i got mine from B&H for $30, brand new!!! there's the percussion center in houston that i looooove! 5 star drum shop, and man do they rule. not very big, but great place. interstate music, steve maxwell's drum shops, forks, sam ash, memphis drum shop, and drum center of portsmouth, NH are all fantastic as well.
I dont hate guitar center i just HATE how they put all the local music stores put of buisness. It pisses me off and there everywhereee. I always wanted to go to memphis drum shop and drum center of portsmouth. Seen there vids online and they both seem like great drum stores
 
Two come to mind: DrumcenterNH for both the amazing customer service and an incredible selection of snare drums. Mycymbal.com (Memphis TN) for their vast assortment of Paiste cymbals.
 
On Kauai we have two music stores, both with a very limited selection of drum stuff. I had to fly to Oahu yesterday and stopped by Drummer's Warehouse in Honolulu. http://www.drummerswarehouse.net/ Great deals (compared to Kauai) and lots of stuff, including three shelves of 'gee I wish I could afford that' snares.
 
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