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Welcome to Antique Sound Workshop, Ltd.

America's leading source for historical musical instruments
celebrating 37 years of service to early music performers
1973-2010

Telephone: +1 (508) 833-3979 • Fax: +1 (508) 833-3760
Business Hours: Monday-Friday 10 AM-6 PM EST/EDT




What is Antique Sound Workshop?

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

New for 2010 from the workshop of Stephen Blezinger in Germany are budget-priced baroque reproduction soprano and alto recorders after P. I. Bressan at a'=440 Hz., each instrument available in a choice of either stained Brazilian boxwood or grenadilla. Antique Sound Workshop has accepted Mr. Blezinger's kind invitation to be the sole American agent for these fine recorders, and we are delighted to be able to offer these instruments at prices that are less than half those of his other baroque reproduction recorders.

The initial demand from our customers for these fine instruments has exceeded all expectations; the first three shipments have already been delivered to those customers who had the foresight to preorder their instruments back in February. We currently have a few additional boxwood instruments in stock for immediate delivery and hope to have the grenadilla model available shortly as well. We are also now accepting preorders for the companion Blezinger Bressan soprano recorders, which should be available in August. As with the altos, it will be first come, first served, so we urge our customers to order their instruments promptly in order to insure timely delivery.

We are pleased to announce a major enhancement to our ordering and shipping procedures. Effective January 11th, 2010, 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 delayed deliveries caused by inclement weather or other such 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 E-mail messages, apparently due to overly-aggressive spam filtration by their Internet Service Provider or E-mail client. Please be certain that aswltd.com is a trusted domain in your server and E-mail security settings if you wish to insure that you will receive our communications.

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, card number, expiration date, and CCV code. 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.


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.

Shortcuts to Frequently Updated Pages

These links will take you to those pages on our web site that are regularly updated with current information about historical musical instruments available from our workshop.

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., 2010. All rights reserved.