Discover the top 7 music shops in Carlsbad

Carlsbad Village Music is a wonderful place. I studied guitar there for almost three years, and it was both an essential and incredibly fun part of resuming my music studies. It’s a very supportive environment where people of all ages are discovering the joys of music. The staff was also very helpful regarding guitar accessories and repairs. My teacher Rik always kept me engaged and progressing regardless of how much I had practiced. He knew how to foster my individual musical expression while at the same time answering my endless music theory questions. Thank you!

Incredible service and atmosphere, wide arrange of instrumentinstruments, and the staff is super friendly! Highly reccomend

Carlsbad village music is probably the best music store I’ve been to in a while. Super helpful, answered all my questions and very nice. The vibe was so cool and felt like family deffenetly coming back thank you so much!!

A nice little shop with friendly service and a smallish, but respectable selection of budget to pro instruments/amplifiers, as well as convenient store parking. Some guitars needed a setup or new strings, but many were unique, vibey choices, which I appreciated. I had fun talking shop with the manager and will be back, when in town.

Notice to drummers:DO NOT buy the “Carlsbad Village Music” brand stick! Just did, in an “emergency”. They couldn’t handle 15 minutes of playing. Ok on a pad, definitely not good on a kit!

More like Carlsbad Village IDIOTS!

I wanted to purchase something for my bass. Completely ignored me when I walked in, by two of the staff. Am I invisible? There were no other customers. Ignored me when I walked out as well. Will not be purchasing here in the future.

Great location and services for students of all ages

I came to CMS with intentions of signing up my children for singing lessons. I was greeted by a very knowledgeable staff that was able to pair me, on the spot, with a teacher and location suitable to my needs. I highly recommend CMS to students of all ages!

Great company and staff! My kids love it!

This place is a business machine in favor of themselves. They cancel lessons with minutes notification but if you have to cancel a lesson well in advance for justified reasons, they charge you regardless.

They took on new lessons in our contractually agreed spot and tried to make us change. They did this with zero notification then tried to stick us with a random new teacher.

Horrible experience and very expensive for that treatment too!

Very unhappy with their customer service. They are not accommodating their clients. Hopefully they learn and understand the importance of having good customer service. Meanwhile stay away from CML. There are a lot more options out there. Google them!

I sold several guitars and amps at AMX and I’m glad I chose this store. The owner was extremely patient with me as I hauled in one instrument after another for him to appraise. He also told me about the resources he uses to gauge each item’s value so that I could check if I was getting a fair deal (which I was). He took a good chunk of time out of his day just to give me a set of prices without the assumption that I would sell to him, which I thought was incredibly generous.

There is no one like Bud and staff with better knowledge of guitars in North County.

Better than Guitar Center..

The shop leaves a lot to be desired. I’ve only dealt with the repair side of the shop, and after the last incident, I won’t be returning. The greying owner is of little to no value. Unhelpful. I brought a piece of gear to get fixed back in September or October of 2020. After about 4 weeks, I called the repair guy and he hadn’t yet looked at it. Understandable as he said they were busy. Another 4 weeks go by and I still hadn’t heard anything back, so I decide to call. The repairman had taken a look, couldn’t quite figure out the problem and said he’d be able to drop it off in a week as he just did a drop off and told me he tried to call me. When? I received no calls from him, no missed calls, nothing! I called this shop multiple times. Showed up 3 times between December 2020 and February 2021 during hours posted and nothing. Lights out. No sign. Nothing. Finally, after roughly 6 months of waiting to pick up my still broken gear, I called and finally got through to someone. He stated they were open till 6 and I told him I could be there by 545 and he said, “Well, I have things to do later” as if he wasn’t planning on even staying open that late.

Would’ve appreciated any sort of updates on the status of my gear instead of having to jump through hoops to figure out what was going on. Poor communication, rude service.

The owner of this store is the worst I’ve ever seen at any music store I’ve been to. I asked him to setup my guitar specifically to a lower tuning which he had no problem with and a full setup. The thing was, I was considering selling this guitar and possibly trading in for another one. So this guy gives me the offer that if I don’t like his setup, and it’s not perfect, I could trade mine for one of his on the wall. I said that’s a good idea because I barely had any money at the time. After the job the guitar had horrible tuning stability, dead frets, and a notch in one of the frets he told me that made the guitar unsellable and he wouldn’t touch it. Unbelievable I try to take it over and over again to get him to do the job right and he says the guitar isn’t meant for lower tunings. Maybe it would’ve been better to mention that at first. Pathetic. Waste your money elsewhere if you’re a sensible person

Place is cluttered with old equipment and guitars being worked on to the point where it feels unsafe to walk around to look at guitars on display. As for the guitars on display their all out of tune, dusty and not setup so they don’t feel playable. The man working the front seemed knowledgeable but reluctant to try and sell anything or help find guitars that weren’t up on display. Selection of gear seems limited/ used and or ill-maintained. Amps could not be tested because guitar lessons were taken place in the other room that must not have been sound proofed. I can’t speak for how good the guitar lessons are but as for the rest of the shop it seemed neglected and appeared to have no interest in selling any gear.