Karaoke Forums

Does anyone know if they are the same company, just using different names? For example, if you look at the return policy on progearsound, it's the exact same page as sweetwater with the same pictures as well. Most of the pages of their policies are clones of each other. The difference is progearsound is a lot cheaper than sweetwater.

_________________
Electro-Voice Evolve 50... Taking Sound To The Next Level.

Sweetwater is based in Indiana, the other is in Florida. Many web sites might use the same pics as far as equipment as that is what manufacturers send them and depending on who made the site - many things might coincide between the two.

_________________
LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

Doubt this is affiliated with Sweetwater. At least it isn't another GC company. I went to purchase a new mouthpiece the other day from Woodwind and Brasswind only to discover that GC owns them along with Musician's Friend and and a few other e-stores. I usually buy from Sweetwater whenever possible but they don't carry a lot of woodwind stuff.

Guitar Center bought Musicians Friend in 2000 but still use the name for their mail order and internet sales

_________________
LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

hope you weren't going for a Giardinelli mouthpiece... they own that company too.

_________________
Paradigm Karaoke, The New Standard.......Shift Happens

No not Giardinelli. I think they only make student/intermediate models and band instrument stuff (and maybe chocolate bars? ). I don't know anyone who plays one and I tend to keep my distance from products you can also purchase at WalMart.
I don't know how familiar you are with mouthpieces but I'm looking to purchase a Vandoren V16 small chamber 6* alto mouthpiece. I know GC doesn't own Vandoren but I don't know where I can buy a Vandoren from a store that isn't owned by GC. I could probably order it from my local music store but they won't let me return it once I've tried it out. Woodwind and Brasswind (GC owned) lets you order up to 4 mouthpieces and they only charge you for the most expensive one. As long as you use a mouthpiece patch and sterilize them when you're done testing them out, you can return which ever ones you don't want to keep. These are relatively inexpensive (about $130) otherwise if it were a $500 plus mouthpiece I would drive to wherever they were carried and test them out in the store.

i know the Vandorens, that is a really common mouthpiece. i spent a few years while with GC helpng add P.A. and guitars to the Music & Arts division so i had a chance to learn more about B&O than i had before. definitely a different world than guitars and P.A.

_________________
Paradigm Karaoke, The New Standard.......Shift Happens

I'm guessing you know the Vandorens through GC? Do they speak any English or do you speak French? Of course they're most famous for their reeds (which I've bee playing for years) but they do make a fairly popular mouthpiece. I'm not sure I would consider any mouthpiece as common except for maybe a Yamaha 4C or Selmer 4C that they ship with their horns, but I get the point. I'm currently playing a Dukoff D7 metal mouthpiece which I've been playing for the last 10 years or so that has a wide open chamber and is starting to squeak a bit here and there so I need to send it out to be refaced and a couple of other things that I've been wanting to have done since I bought it but never got around to sending it out. I can't find the stock Selmer mouthpiece that came with the horn which is probably too small of an opening anyway so I'll need to buy something to play while the Dukoff is out being reworked. Not that I'm playing out much anymore but I still practice between 3 to 5 hours per day so I need something for the time being. I'm getting older now so I don't have as much wind (contrary to some people's opinion ) as when I was in my 40s and 50s so I want to try something with a smaller chamber and less resistance. The new Vandoren V16 S+ seems like a good fit, and at $130, at that price it's worth keeping around just as a spare even if it isn't my cup of tea.

sorry, i meant the mouthpieces, not the family themselves (though that would be cool).
those were the ones i seemed to get the most requests for (outside of the normal Selmer C*'s) until they wanted to just get loud and go for a Meyer or Otto Link. but then again most of my clientèle there was high school and college bands so a lot of intermediate classical or beginning Jazz in most cases.
i wonder if the difficulty in finding them at non GC locations has anything to do with their D'Addario ownership. i know D'Addario and GC had a few exclusive deals on guitar items (but mostly special guage strings, or re-branded capos etc).

_________________
Paradigm Karaoke, The New Standard.......Shift Happens

Sadly, another "Brick And Mortar" store in trouble..
Perhaps they over extended?

Would love to get a vintage Meyer but they're hard to come by and if you can find one that hasn't been bitten through you might have to mortgage your home to get one. The new ones (except for the Richie Cole model about $160) are in the same price range as the Vandorens but for some reason people who have owned both the vintage Meyer and the new Meyer don't seem to care as much for the newer ones. However I might opt for the Richie Cole model if I don't end up liking the Vandoren. I had an Otto Link but it didn't do anything for me. Wasn't bad but nothing special either, not that any of them are really all that special anyway.

As far as loud goes, it's really not so much about the brand as it is the design such as chamber style, baffle design and tip opening. My Dukoff is about as loud as it gets or as my peers like to say that my mouthpiece is a canon. That's basically because the chamber is wide open whereas on a classic Meyer 5 for example it has a medium chamber which projects pretty good and is great for bebop gigs with acoustic instruments, but I was playing in a lot of R&B/funk situations so I needed something that would cut through when playing with electronic instruments (i.e. guitars, bass, etc.). Going forward I intend to stay mostly with bebop gigs, and stay away from anything that requires a moderately significant PA system or complicated stage setup. As it is I usually bring an alto, a soprano and a flute and that's more than enough setup than I care to do.

I used to bring a tenor sax as well and sent all of the horns to a Digitech Vocalist. Also brought a Yamaha WX5 hooked up to a Roland XV-3080 and ran everything through a Roland VM-3100Pro mixer and a pair of small JBL Eon 10s with one sub just for me, because most bands that I played with were running their PA in mono but I needed the stereo for the harmonizers and other FX. Nevertheless I'm done with that kind of thing. It was very cool being able to get some horn section sounds and David Sanborn type effects but now I prefer things that are less aggressive and wanting to get back to basics. Talk about going off on a tangent! Guess this got a bit off course with the Sweetwater question. Sorry if I've bored anyone, but knowing you used to sell PA equipment I thought you might appreciate my setup as I don't know of any other horn players that went to that extreme in a live situation. BTW ... I ordered the mouthpiece from Woodwind and Brasswind. It was a pre-order that was supposed to ship on the 23rd but I just received notice that it shipped today! I also got $13 off from an app called Honey so I ended up paying $117 ... not too shabby!!!