What is Antique Sound Workshop?
- For forty years, we have dedicated ourselves to improving the standard of recorder playing, one instrument at a time. This link will tell you everything (and quite possibly more than) you ever wanted to know about who we are and what we offer, as well as some information about our history, our publications, and our sales policies. If you can't find the answer here, there is always E-mail, telephone, fax, or [shudder] snail mail for the hopelessly retro.
Antique Sound Workshop Catalogue
- Our extensive on-line catalogue offers more than 800 different models of recorders and an equal number of other historical woodwind, brass, string, keyboard, and percussion instruments. Our sheet music catalogue contains more than 15,000 titles the last time we counted. Feel free to download and print out any specific catalogue pages in which you are interested. However, if you're looking for something specific or want advice or guidance, it might just be quicker if you call up and ask.
ASW Information Bulletins
- These bulletins will provide you with concise, detailed, and authoritative information on various aspects of the recorder and its playing technique. If you need a crash course in some specific subject, this is a good place to start. Beginners will want to read the first five bulletins in the order listed. If you have questions not answered here, feel free to call us, but do bear in mind H. L. Mencken's dictum: "For every complex question, there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." To which we would add the corollary: "For every simple question, the only correct answer is long, complex, and detailed."
Special Notices to Our Customers
There will be a general price increase on July 1st for all Yamaha products, including plastic and wooden recorders, tuners, metronomes, and accessories. Our current prices will be in effect only through the end of this month, and we urge our customers to act now and purchase Yamaha products before the price increase takes effect.
We have just received a few Huber Model II tenor recorders made from haldu, a yellow-brown hardwood from India similar to boxwood. These were made as a special one-time limited edition series of instruments. They are available for the same price as the Huber Model II tenors in pearwood. We urge customers interested in having one of these fine instruments to act quickly while they are still available.
The German workshop of Conrad Mollenhauer has announced a number of new recorder models for 2013: a plumwood Dream bass recorder, two Modern alto recorders in g', and an all-new custom-made Elody alto recorder with an integrated electronic pickup in the headjoint. Please see What's New at Antique Sound Workshop? for our detailed comments on these new items.
We have recently changed credit card processors and are now able to accept a complete selection of credit cards for payment: in addition to VISA and MasterCard, we now also accept payment by Discover, Diners Club, JCB, and American Express. Please also note that we no longer are required to submit the three-digit CCV code for VISA transactions. Our ASW Order Form has been updated to accommodate these additional possibilities for payment. As always, we ask that customers please submit their orders using our on-line order form, so that we may fill your order as expeditiously as possible.
UPS has increased its ground shipping rates 4.9% and air shipping prices 4.5% for 2013. We will continue to pay the UPS Ground Shipping costs for all domestic orders over $100, but orders totaling less than that amount will be billed for shipping at the new prices, which became effective December 31st, 2012.
We ask that all orders for plastic recorders, accessories, and/or sheet music be placed using our ASW Order Form. This will enable us to process and fill your order much more quickly and efficiently. Credit card information may be safely left on our office answering machine outside of our regular business hours if desired; please include your name and your credit card's number and expiration date. Because of the great volume of orders for our custom-serviced plastic recorders, we are not able to accept telephone orders for these items and ask for your cooperation and consideration of our other customers in this regard.
We have just posted our new 2013 pricelist for Gerhard Huber Recorders from Switzerland. The good news is that prices for the extremely popular Huber Model II instruments remain unchanged, with the exception of a slight increase for the soprano. The even better news is that we have been able to achieve appreciably lower prices on all Huber Model III instruments for 2013, including the outstanding straight and bentneck bass recorders. We have also uploaded new photos of all models.
For the first time in several years we have posted new prices for Josef Dotzauer rotary valve trumpets and flügelhorns, low brass, and hunting horns. We have been able to achieve modestly lower prices on some models, due mainly to savings in shipping costs, but some other models are unavoidably slightly higher in price for 2013. Prices for rotary valve tenor and baritone horns and tubas are substantially lower, however. Due to the greatly increased demand for these instruments among our customers, we are unable to keep as many models regularly in stock as in the past. We ask for your patience in awaiting delivery of these fine professional quality brass instruments, and hope that our brass-playing customers will find them well worth the increased wait time.
Stephan Blezinger has announced moderate price increases for 2013 on all of his recorders, and we have had to increase our prices for his instruments as well. ASW has been the sole U. S. agent for his extremely popular and relatively inexpensive Bressan by Blezinger models, and we have been fortunate in keeping the price increases on those instruments, including the new Bressan baroque tenor recorder, to an absolute minimum.
For several decades we were able to offer the fine cornetts and serpents made by Christopher Monk and, after his death, by Jeremy West. We are now closing out the few remaining Christopher Monk cornetts and mouthpieces that we have left in stock. Please see the listings for these instruments in Carlton's Clearance Corner. This will be the last opportunity for our customers to acquire one of these fine instruments from us, and at a discounted bargain price as well.
At the request of many of our customers, we have revised and expanded our list of recommendations for Beginning Recorder Ensemble Music and separated them from the intermediate and advanced level ensemble literature. These inexpensive anthologies of elementary duets and trios will provide an excellent source of materials to develop ensemble skills and basic musicianship while simultaneously learning to play the instrument.
We are pleased to announce a major enhancement to our ordering and shipping procedures. Customers placing orders via our on-line ASW Order Form and requesting shipping via UPS Ground, Air, or International services will automatically receive detailed shipping, tracking, and delivery information via E-mail. Any delivery delays caused by adverse weather conditions or other problems will also be rescheduled and reported. If you wish to have us send this information to multiple E-mail addresses, simply provide the additional addresses in the information box at the bottom of the order form.
We answer all orders and inquiries promptly. A few customers have reported that they did not receive our order confirmations or shipping notifications, apparently due to overly-aggressive spam filtration by their Internet Service Provider or E-mail client. Please be certain that aswltd.com and ups.com are trusted domains in your server and personal E-mail security settings if you wish to insure that you will receive our communications.
ASW Staff E-Mail Addresses
- In order to serve you more efficiently, each member of our staff now has his or her own E-mail address. Our ASW staff directory provides you with quick and easy-to-use E-mail reply forms.
How to Place Your Order
- If you want to "cut to the chase" and place an order now, go to our ASW Order Form. If you want to send us an order by E-mail, please contact our Sales Department at sales@aswltd.com. You may also call, fax, or write us.
What's New at Antique Sound Workshop?
- You will find here direct links to the newest items in stock at Antique Sound Workshop. All items are in reverse chronological order, so the most recent items are listed first.
Carlton's Clearance Corner
- This link will take you directly to our current inventory of pre-owned, demonstration, imperfect, discontinued, overstocked, and closeout recorders and other historical instruments.
ASW Web Site Search Engine
- If you are looking for something very specific, rather than just browsing, our new and powerful site-wide search engine will find every mention of it for you in just a few seconds.
Chrestologia Archives
- We have listed the contents of all back issues of our customer newsmagazine for the past ten years. Copies of most back issues are still available.
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Copyright, Antique Sound Workshop, Ltd., 2013. All rights reserved.