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:
Tag Archives: music
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”).
Web Classes for Sibelius 7 and Finale 2012
I’ve been using the music notation software Sibelius for 4+ years (after initially using an inexpensive app, Noteworthy Composer, which surprisingly is still available!), with occasional forays into Finale since my bandmate uses that. All this time I’ve been “winging it” with Sib… which if you know me means I intuit a lot of it, and Google for info on more arcane functions if I can’t find it in the 500-page not always well indexed pdf manual.
I’ve felt that there are probably more efficient methods to accomplish time-consuming tasks (e.g., inputting notes) than how I do it. But the only accessible source I found for that was Berklee’s online courses, which cost $1,200 (non-credit; more if credit) for a 12-week session. So I was excited to see the Sibelius Blog mention another online course, which costs $199 for a 10-week session!
Granted, it will cost me a bit more than that, because the course specifically covers Sibelius 7, and I only finally upgraded to version 6 in January (while I’m on the cutting edge of a lot of things, I avoid software upgrades like the plague as long as my current version does what I need, since there’s always some “gotcha” requiring hours of tweaking to remediate). But thankfully my educational discount from B&H comes through again, pricing the upgrade at $45 less than retail.
AND… here’s another way to discount that you can use: the course’s website platform WizIQ.com offers new users a 20% discount coupon. Just go to their course listing page and fill out your contact info in offer box to be emailed a code for 20% off one course. NOTE: don’t do this until you find a course you want to take, as the coupon expires in 15 days.
The Sibelius 7 course, and also a Finale 2012 course from the same instructor, start June 18th. But they will apparently be run again in the fall. Also FYI this is not a “live” class – all the materials are presented in view-on-demand videos, so you can view and do the exercises on your own schedule.
Check out the other music courses presented though this site, too – besides standard stuff like music theory and guitar lessons, there are some interesting non-Western courses, such as lessons in Indian classical music and Carnatic violin and vocals!
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.