Korg makes all sorts of keyboards, synths, effects, etc. To celebrate their 10th anniversary, every month through December 2012 they will be giving away one of their Micro-series products. You may enter once per day for each month’s prize drawing, at this page:
Category Archives: Music Gear
What Should That Used Instrument/Gear Cost?
You want a piece of music gear, but can’t/won’t pay for it new. You can look for it used on eBay, CraigsList, etc. – but how do you know what a fair price is for it?
- First, price it NEW online – I’ve seen used items advertised at a price for which you could get a new one!
- Check www.prepal.com, which lists the current going price for many brands of band gear (guitars/keyboards.amps/etc), and whether the price is trending up (as it may for something rare that folks desire) or down.
- Search for the item in completed listings on Ebay – to do this you must be logged in, then next to the Search button click “advanced”. On the Advanced Search page check the box for “completed listings” under Search including, then enter your search terms. This will show you both successful and failed auctions, whcih helps you to judge what price people consider to be too high.
- Use the knowledge gained above to bargain with a CraigsList seller (e.g., “these are going for $$$ less than your price on eBay”).
Buying Gear From Guitar Center
If Guitar Center is the only brick and mortar game in your town for buying music gear, keep in mind that their in-store prices tend to be significantly more expensive than many web stores. However, with a little effort you can work around that and still get a great price on gear you can physically check out.
This is because GC has a price-matching policy – any time within 30 days of your purchase if you find the same gear for less elsewhere they will refund the difference plus 10%. However, if you don’t want to make a 2nd trip back for that, do your research:
- If you know exactly what you want to buy, go first to the GC website and get their price, then search other sites for better (note that they only match legitimate authorized music gear sites, e.g. music123.com).
- Print out the web page showing the price including shipping (which they count for the total price) and URL.
- If you do not know exactly what you want to buy, GC usually has an in-store terminal where you can look up prices on websites and print them out once you decide on your gear. Alternately you can search on your smartphone and give the URL to the sales person.