Winners For

Best Place To Buy A Musical Instrument

There's a special place in every musician's heart for the local music store where they got their start. At their best, these stores double as supportive communities, where future bandmates meet and beginners learn their first bar chords and rock beats. Their employees act as nonprofit accountants, teachers, psychiatrists, and business managers. ...

So you've just moved to Williamsburg, you've seen all the cool kids carrying their instruments to band practice, and you wonder to yourself: Maybe I could be in a band! What's your next move? A trip to Main Drag Music, of course. Here, the friendly and knowledgeable staff (which includes co-owner and drum specialist John Fell, formerly of bands ...

Stepping into Geoffrey J. Seitz's south St. Louis shop feels like an antique woodcut come to life. The violin maker and his assistants sit hunched over high workbenches and peer through magnifiers at the abalone inlay, the ebony purfling, a rosewood tuning peg. Using handcrafted knives, they shave down fingerboards, adjust soundposts and bridges...

Open since October 2011 in the Music Garage and run by industry veteran Victor Salazar, former general manager of the Drum Pad in Palatine, Vic's Drum Shop seems determined to make up for all the years the city didn't have a dedicated drum store—and in grand style. The shop's eight rooms (a ninth, for drum hardware, should be open by the time th...

We're more than just a great music store. We've been active friends in the Valley's music scene for a quarter century. From Skip's small, one-man operation in the '70s (when it was commonplace to see Skip himself providing on call service at his customers' gigs) to three full-service locations, Sacramento, Elk Grove & Modesto. Skip's Music has g...

The charm of this place is that it’s not a giant conglomerate that commands top dollar for its wares. The pickins’, however, are select and high-quality. The staff’s vast knowledge adds to the value, along with the number and variety of available guitars— Fender, Gibson, Marshall, Gretsch, and more. They also buy guitars, so if you’ve got to unl...

Bass players are pretty much the most under-appreciated musicians on the planet, yet they hold down the low end for every band – except for annoying hipster bands without them (we’re looking at you Black Keys). And one of the best shops for helping you hold down the bottom end is Bass Emporium. So few musical instrument retailers have a decent s...