Music Store's In New York??

EJ22

hi everyone,
does anyone know any good music stores in new york as i am going over in Autumn and am looking to buy myself a Gibson Les Paul. If anyone has any url's please link as it would be much appreciated.

thanks all.

unclebill98

google.....

Music Stores New York....

Johnny Storm

Manny's
Rudy's
Sam Ash
Guitar Center
http://www.30thstreetguitars.com/home.html
I havent been in that last one but I have read good things about it.

Fad

The guitar center in manhattan is really good,
I got my PRS there
Friendly staff. Non outrageous prices, a really welcome change from ireland:)

Johnny Storm

It's on 14th St near Union Square. Huge range of stuff.
FWIW I posted some pics which I took there in early Feb in this thread:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055244760

Eoin Madsen

Went to Guitar Centre and Sam Ash (and one or two small shops I forget the names and locations of) while I was over in December. Prices for guitars weren't really that great tbh. And anything vaguely vintage was well overpriced.

Rustar

Prices are generally the same as on Musiciansfriend.com (their sister company), except for special sale items.

Guitar Center facts:

1.) Takes me a half hour to get home from work.
2.) There's a Guitar Center exactly at the midpoint.
3.) I always seem to stay broke, for some reason.

Doctor_Socks

Guitar center is the best place for value and choice but there are a lot of smaller shops around as well where there are very experienced musicians behind the counter that can help you with any questions you have in comparison to the workers in guitar center. That was my thoughts anyway when I was in new york. Don't know what everyone else thinks.

EJ22

Hey all

Thanks for all your comments

You've been very helpful. Any more suggestions would be helpful as well.

Think i'll invest in either of these two guitars:

http://www.guitarcenter.com/Gibson-Les-Paul-Special-New-Century-Electric-Guitar-517381-i1149358.gc

http://www.guitarcenter.com/Gibson-Les-Paul-Vintage-Mahogany-Electric-Guitar-103371357-i1149476.gc

Johnny Storm

Are you kiddin' about the first one ? :eek:

Seriously though, have a look at second-hand too for even better value.

Vim Fuego

Sorry to be digging up a thread from a few pages back but I just got back from New York yesterday and the chap says he's going in Autumn so.....

I had Saturday set as my guitar shopping day but unfortunately, it was pissing rain all day and I didn't go to some of the more out-of-the way places (the ones that were a fair walk away from the subway that is) like Orchard Music on Orchard St. But I knew I was in the market for some G&Ls anyway so I knew where I needed to go.

I picked up 2 G&L Legacy strats (one with a rosewood board and the other has a maple board) in the end for the grand total of €1,300. Not too bad for a pair of handmade USA strats so i'm chuffed with that :-) I thought the Gibsons were still very over-priced, even in dollars, for what you get so I didn't realy pay that much attention to them.

This post on harmony central is probably the most useful resource I found (read the second post):

http://acapella.harmony-central.com/archive/index.php/t-1269629.html

Anyway, my impressions of the stores I visited:

Rudy's: Despite people on HC saying that they're complete dickheads, I thought that they were absolutely grand. Really friendly, let me get on with trying out guitars and coming back to me every 10 mins or so to see if I needed anything. When I first went in, there was a mother there with her son asking all the silly mother questions that you would expect ("what makes this a les paul?") and they treated her with all the professional courtesy you would expect so I'm thinking that a lot of the complaints are coming from time-wasting teens.

Ended up buying my strats there, got a good deal, would go back again. I don't really know much about vintage but they have a lot of vintage guitars on display and it's more of a boutique shop compared to the musical supermarkets like Guitar Centre. Lots of Gibson, Fenders, PRS, G&Ls to be had here. I was also waiting for my credit card to be processed and overheard Rudy talking to his mate about buying guitars for 10k and selling them for 100k, damn them. Lots of collector types seem to frequent the place.

Guitar Centre: I now realise that going there on a Saturday when the kids are out of school was my mistake. It was basically a lot of people BLASTING amps out of it over the loud music that the shop was already piping in there. I don't have a clue how people could stand to work there. After about 10 minutes, I had to leave, the volume cacophany was just too much. Otherwise, they do have a lot of guitars like the usual Fenders, Gibbos etc along with some nice stuff like Music Man Petrucci models and the like. Would be worth a visit on a quiet weekday morning. There's also a decent sized vintage area but whether the gear is any cop or not, I don't know.

Sam Ash: Not bad, a lot of the standard stuff. Nothing really caught my eye. Staff seemed friendly enough though and there was a good selection so if you're going for one of the 'usuals', you could do worse.

Mannys: Owned by Sam Ash so it had the same gear really but it's on the same street as Rudy's and Sam Ash (48th st) so definitely worth a visit.

If I went again, I would definitely take a trip to Mandolin Brothers on Staten Island and try to lose an afternoon in there as it sounds absolutely fantastic (see HC thread) but schedule/weather/girlfriend-consideration didn't allow for this. Overall, I thought it was great but I've been to better places in the states (Florida has always been good for gear if you can drive around from store-to-store) and I believe if you take the trip to New Jersey, you can get a lower rate of tax.

Enjoy your trip anyway, I would go back now if I could.

colm_r

I picked up a guitar in Umanov's guitars (http://www.umanovguitars.com/) when I was there. It's smallish, but the staff are really friendly & they had a nice selection of fenders.

I went to most of the guitar shops mentioned above & Sam Ash is the only one that sticks out as not being worth the visit. The guitars seemed in poor condition(some chips & all out of tune) and the staff were none too friendly. Maybe I visited on a bad day...

My name is Todd

Fad wrote: »

The guitar center in manhattan is really good,
I got my PRS there
Friendly staff. Non outrageous prices, a really welcome change from ireland:)

Did you carry the guitar on the plane with you on the way home or did you check it in?
Heading to new york in a couple of weeks and would prefer to carry on if I can get away with it.

Vim Fuego

I've seen people carry on acoustics in hard cases so you should be grand. I've put guitars in hard cases through a number of times without incident though it was a nervous wait each time. If you have to put a guitar through as luggage, I recommend securing it in the hard case with rolled-up t-shirts filling the empty space and putting the hard case in a shipping box which you should ask for when you buy the guitar.

the magician

30th street guitars ftw. Bought my PRS McCarthy there a few years ago. Really cool shop with a great selection. They had a seperate amp room where they let you in with the guitar and try it out with different amps as much as you want. which i thought was really cool.

Discounted the guitar by the $400 sale tax for paying cash(most of the shops the sticker price is without tax) and gave me plenty of free plecs, strings and a t-shirt(i'm easily bought lol).

adox

My sister bought a Taylor acoustic in Rudys when we were in NY last year.

By far the best guitar shop we found, both price wise and knowledge wise.