The top 20 music shops in Costa Mesa, United States

These people are The Finest in the business. Its truly magical there & you do not want anyone else to do repairs on your boxes, they are Exceptional, knowledgeable, Precise and everything else needed to do what they do.

Among the best in the business. The Weisshaars are highly skilled luthiers who operate with great integrity. They’ve been around for a long time and provide the best service and instruments for professionals and amateurs alike.

Every interaction I’ve had with this shop has been superb. They put me in touch with a violin teacher for myself and my daughter that we both love, have rented me a violin, and have sold me my daughter’s violin. They are always kind, incredibly knowledgable, well-priced, and point me in the best direction, whether or not it is in their best interest. It is a gift to have in-person violin experts in our neighborhood and they will always have our business!

The best, they are professional, knowledgeable and generous.

Wonderful family owned business. Very kind and helpful. Highly recommend for all violin needs.

This place is extremely over-priced. There are far better options around if you are willing to drive a short distance to save hundreds of dollars. Save yourself big bucks and shop around!

Awful experience. Quote “I am already loosing money talking to you” was the second sentence I received during a phone conversation! Rude and obviously
no customer service skills ! It’s all about the money! Stag away .

I had hoped to have a good experience, but sadly, this was not the case. After setting an appointment and driving for nearly two hours from San Diego, I was greeted with a less-than-friendly, “Do you have an appointment?”. It went downhill from there. I was corrected as to how I opened the violin case (“we won’t fix it if you break the zipper”). I asked what repairs needed to be done to bring the violin up to top-notch playing condition and was not given an answer other than to be told that the the previous repair person’s work was “amateurish”, and that a violin is only as good as its last repair. I politely asked again, what he would recommend by way of a repair and was told that he wouldn’t do anything for me. He said that repairs could be “1,000, $5,000, $10,000 or even $15,000” but that he wouldn’t do it. The impression I had was that my beautiful old instrument wasn’t worth his time, and he wanted me to leave as soon as possible — which I did. I felt belittled, and treated in a condescending manner as well (I’m a white, American woman). What an unpleasant, and unprofessional experience!

The response to my review is entirely inaccurate, and misses the main point — I was treated unprofessionally. My husband accompanied me on this visit and commented later that “they were condescending and rude”.

Great pricing, great 80’s post punk, goth, industrial and new wave/dark wave stuff

Always a treasure here!

The legendary NoiseNoiseNoise in a different spot! Great finds every time!

Kind of empty inside. They are supposedly restocking

It’s a small place (>200 sqft), but packed with records. They are reasonably well organized for the type of place, but you still have to dig a bit. The prices vary from $~4 for poor quality to $~20 for good and on up.

You can definately walk out of here with a handful of records for under 30 bucks.

Small shop killer rock records. Clean well organized. They buy and sell

It’s a neat little hidden record store

Good record shop, way to over priced in my opinion for decent quality records.

Great place

So my 11 year old daughter & I just drove 35-40 mins to Factory. Upon arrival, I ask the employee sitting in front of the opened door restroom if I could use the restroom and the conversation goes as follows:
Me: “Hello good sir, may I please use your restroom?”
Employee: “Restroom is for customers only.”
Me: “Um, I am a customer.”
Employee: “Chuckles” try next door at the bar.
Me: Straight face. My daughter is 11 sir. There’s a sign on the bar that says over 21 only.
Employee: “Sorry, I don’t even let my employees use the restroom.”
Me: huh!? “Oh-kay, is there another close besides the bar?”
Employee: “Is it for you or her?”
Me: in my head I’m thinking does it make a difference? But I say “sure it’s for her, I’ll hold it”
At this point my daughter is uneasy and says nevermind but I still need to go.
Employee: “OK, you guys can use it.”
Me: “Thank you sir.”
We both use the restroom and I pick out my $110 purchase.
After paying for my records,
Employee: “Oh I didn’t know you guys were customers or I would have let you use the restroom.”
Me: I’m thinking “is this guy high or were we just discriminated against?” I say “I just told you we were customers as soon as I asked to used the restroom.
Employee: silent and befuddled
We left with our records in tote and I had to give my daughter a lesson on discrimination on the ride home.

Poor customer service today and that’s never the case when I come here. I left in complete shock and embarrassed. I’ve spent hundreds if dollars here and it’s sad that today’s trip has lead me to decide to never visit again.

You never know who your customers are so treat them with respect and good service. I happen to be a documentarian who specializes in documentary films about record stores and this place was on my prospect list to potentially film and highlight soon. Can’t say that’s the case anymore. Spent about $200 here this week and left completely bummed about the service and such today. Would I recommend Factory? Sure. Will I ever go back, unfortunately not and I really liked this place but that left such a bad impression on myself and my daughter. Hopefully management see this and fixes it. Peace.

The breadth and depth of music instruction and insight available at AFG Music is amazing. Whatever genre you want to learn, and whatever level you are at – absolute rank beginner to seasoned professional – they are ready to work with you. Especially good with kids, and with adults who are young at heart. It would be a mistake to not give AFG Music a look when you want music lessons or instrument repair.

I started taking weekly guitar lessons from Fred at AFG Music a little less than a year ago. My music lessons are my favorite time of the week! Fred’s vast musical knowledge and guitar expertise have facilitated my steady improvement. I’m always excited for my next music lesson!

AFG Music is a terrific place to learn music for all ages. Check them out!

Simply put, this shop provided some of the most classy, stand-out customer service I have ever experienced as a consumer in my adult life.

Let me start with a story – for the past year, I’ve been excitedly saving and planning to buy a guitar on Prime Day 2019 through Amazon. When it finally rolled around, I was excited to see that D’Angelico was going to be discounting one of my favorite guitar models by a BIG margin from their MSRP. However, I saw that they only had 2 left in stock, and Prime had only a few hours left to go. So I ordered it and began the painful waiting process while my new guitar made its way to me through the postal service. Five days later, I got home from work to see a large D’Angelico-branded box sitting on our porch. I could not be more excited. I grabbed it, took it into my office, and began opening it. As I unzipped the case, however, I was stunned.. I’d be sent the wrong model….my stomach dropped. I immediately hopped on to Amazon to see if I could see where things went wrong – I looked at my order, and saw that it had been shipped and sold by Amazon, but saw that the last remaining Premier Bedford was being sold by Cottonwood – so I assumed they had accidentally sent me the wrong model.

I researched their number, called and left a message explaining the situation. Within an hour, I received a text back that they hadn’t been the ones to send me the guitar – and that Amazon pulls stock to ship from various shops around the country to fulfill orders if they don’t have them themselves. That totally made sense! Amazon said they’d refund my purchase once I returned it, but that they wouldn’t have the guitar in stock for the foreseeable future…I was mortified.

This is where Cottonwood stepped in and blew my mind.
I got a follow-up text from the shop saying that – although they didn’t have any involvement in my order or any responsibility for the snafu – they would be happy to match my Prime Day discount and ship me their last Premier Bedford with free shipping!!

I still can’t believe it. In no way were they responsible for the initial mistake – yet they went out of their way to rectify the situation for me even though they had no reason to! I am so impressed with their OUTSTANDING CUSTOMER SERVICE. They have just guaranteed my customer loyalty for life. Wow. 10/10 experience. Still a bit mind-boggling. What a classy, unexpected act. They are impressive and deserve more attention as a shop. Especially in this day and age of big-box corporate music stores, I am so happy to advocate for this shop!

TL;DR: Make this your go-to boutique music provider, guitar / amp / pedal provider. 10/10 customer service. Polite, prompt communication, and professional experience.

Jim runs an outstanding shop. I’ve always known his shop as a super friendly place to hang out and try a huge selection of boutique pedals.
Recently he had a Gibson LP Standard in with a gorgeous top. I played it for a few hours but the setup was a bit off, the fretboard quite dry and the pickup selector switch was messed up. I ended up buying the guitar and Jim through in a free service and setup from his pro tech.
When I got the guitar a few days later, I was blown away: new strings, reconditioned fretboard, a full setup, switch repaired and the body had been buffed (!!)
Talk about going the extra mile, I was blown away by the customer service and attention to detail from Jim. Thanks again!

Jim the owner is awesome! Love this place and their staff is awesome. Visit this spot if you’re in town and like music!

My music holder arrived quickly and fits perfectly for my older Casio.

I have been taking vocal lessons here for about a year now. I wish I had done this much earlier. My instructor Janelle, has corrected numerous problems with my vocals. My range and pitch control has improved greatly. I highly endorse her and Molly’s

We love Molly’s Music! We’ve used a couple other places and they don’t compare. The employees are very courteous and accommodating. Vocal coach Janelle has helped boost my daughter’s confidence in her auditions and we really appreciate her thorough progress reports. We highly recommend Molly’s Music.

We absolutely love Molly’s Music!!! They have been amazing to us. My son started with them about a year ago taking voice, guitar and piano. After the obvious huge improvement that we witnessed with him, we signed up our daughter to take voice. She loves it!!! They take from two different teachers at the studio, Ben Wachman and Michael Gasparro, which is a testament to the high quality teachers across the board. We love the administration as well. They work patiently with our crazy schedules and make it happen for us!! Thank you Molly’s Music for investing in our kids!!!!!

I have always really wanted to sing but have never been brave enough to take the plunge into taking lessons. Janelle Finamore has really helped me gain a little confidence, learn a bit about singing, and have fun!

We have been working with Janelle Finamore over at Molly’s Music for about 6 months. When I was looking for a singing coach- I needed someone who could work with my daughter who is very shy. I spoke with Sarah who helped me identify the right match. Janelle has not only helped Jordan with her singing and her confidence- but my daughter asked to go now and wanted to take piano as well. Personally, I like listening to the recording of the session so I can hear the progress and hear how Janelle helps Jordan find her voice. We just finished her first recital and both my husband and I commented the amount of talent at this concert.

Manufacturer of the best build quality and finest sounding guitar amp on the planet!!

I just called bad cat and spoke to John about a used Tone Cat I just acquired. He picked up the phone and was happy to answer any and all questions I had!
What great customer service!!!!!! Wow I’m amazed how polite and friendly you guys are!
Merry Christmas

John, the owner here, is a guitarist and that’s nice if you’re going to have an amp company. But his truly extraordinary trait is his amp and guitar savvy. You see, he’s also a collector. He KNOWS amps, guitars and tone – PLUS he’s a nice guy. If you call, he’ll help you figure out what you want or need. If you set up a visit to the shop, he’ll let you plug in and see if you like his stuff. These very articulate amps are some of the nicest, most reliable equipment around. Highly recommended.

Nick was knowledgeable, very welcoming and extremely accommodating. The gear was top notch and Nick was there to help operate everything whilst making sure to only help where necessary. The space itself is beautiful and the sound in the live room is fantastic. My experience was with audiobooks but the music recording I’ve heard come out of here is extremely high quality. 10/10 would recommend!

The Best studio. The Best People!

Best studio I have ever worked with. Nick is super cool and was willing to work out a price because I was on a really tight budget for my project. I brought in a mix that needed mastering I loved it so much I booked another session the next day. Worth every penny. Seriously awesome experience, there’s no way I’ll go anywhere else in OC

Friendly place. Good instructors.

We had multiple children participating in individual lessons and the band program for 2 years. I am an ex-pro musician with a degree in music from USC and was looking for a school operated by like-minded professionals to help me with the music education of my kids that would provide the kids with an opportunity to collaborate with other talented young musicians and learn performance skills. The Music Factory was convenient because it’s quite close to where I live, but it didn’t work out and the primary reason is school owner Danny Thompson.

We tried hard to make it work. We showed up on time for everything, made sure our kids practiced, participated in every performance opportunity, and always paid our bill. But there were shortcomings in the program.

The individual lessons were Ok. Good individual instruction is widely available elsewhere. It was the band program that attracted us to TMF in the 1st place, but that program turned out to be a mess. We had 3 different band instructors during 3 rotations in a row, and none of them really knew what they were doing. They really didn’t know how to teach a band class or even how to architect a band to play music. Plus they were flaky. One of them missed 2 rehearsals in a row with zero advance warning and had no reasonable explanation. A scheduled performance was imminent so we reacted by running some rehearsals ourselves but school owner Danny Thompson didn’t like that. He also didn’t like it if we tried to help the kids pick songs to learn, communicate with other parents, or help our daughter use her own little keyboard instead of the school’s dinosaur. We didn’t feel welcome at the school. Danny seemed to just want us to drop our kids there and leave. I think that’s because we wanted to know what was going on and sometimes asked questions. But we never demanded anything from Danny or the school. We showed up on time for everything, participated in everything, and always paid our bill. We did try to discuss our concerns about the band program with Danny and I even offered to volunteer at the school to help out.

But Danny wasn’t open to hearing our concerns and repaid our loyalty with a tantrum about “his way or the highway” and told us “no parent input allowed”. Then without warning he just deleted my kids’ accounts in the school’s online system sending THEM a message that they were “out”! He didn’t discuss options with us, give us the opportunity to withdraw from the school, or care about the effect his actions would have on our kids or other kids at TMF. He just deleted their accounts and notified them that they were out without even giving us a chance to tell them what was happening. They’re just kids they didn’t deserve that!

Danny Thompson is an insecure, unprofessional, over-controlling individual who only really seems to understand one style of music. He brags about his “world tours” playing drums for an obscure punk rock band and apparently thinks that gives him the skill to dictate the nuances of providing a music education for children. Apparently it doesn’t. He certainly can’t keep band instructors around there very long and it’s easy to see why.

Danny is too petty, volatile, and musically limited to be allowed to be responsible for your child’s musical education let alone their wellbeing. Hurting a child by establishing a permanent memory for them that they were “kicked out” of a school even though the child did nothing to deserve that doesn’t faze Danny because he is a narcissist who lacks the compassion to understand that his actions and behavior will affect them, maybe permanently.

If you are a parent who cares about what your child will learn and who they will learn it from look elsewhere. There are other music schools with better professional governance and a more flexible and competent approach for educating your child.

Good selection. Staff was helpful.

Great place!! a huge selection at honest prices.

A very impressive collection, found practically any band off the top of my mind within my non underground catalog. That being said, I would find myself constantly surprised finding albums and artists you wouldn’t otherwise find at hole in the wall record places, or even the basic pop vinyl outlests such as barnes&noble. I guess you could say its library is what makes it so impressive. If your looking for a specific record theres a solid chance this place has it.

Good selection of records, ver chill place.

Pretty amazing please

Great selection, can be a bit pricey. The used section isn’t navigable, you have to search one by one, but there are some random gems.

Unfortunately, Port of Sound Records is just old, dirty records in not very good shape. I wish it were otherwise, but it’s not. Sigh.

Walked in here, only to hear F words and S words being repeated aloud by the employee (short guy with patchy beard) standing right along with who is probably the owner I assume (older man with gray hair) allowing this disgusting language in his place of business…He was lauging at the inappropriate language and conversation, keep that in mind.

This was my third and final visit here. Only went here because they carried a certain single released for RSD 2018. They played the customer service part that night since I purchased 2 copies of the record.

But this language being used by your own staff in front of clients/potential clients has zero excuses! What if I decided to stop by that day with my minor child? Yes, I would have told you and your staff off, but that is not the point.

You are running a business, not a sailor bar. With the 40-50 percent upcharge you are asking for records, Act accordingly. Due to this gross behavior, you lost a customer, gaining nothing but negative feedback that will be spread on many social media sites. Make sure you let that guy with the patchy beard know how great he sounded to a client who really appreciated his language. This is the kind of people you employ?

NOT TO MENTION WHEN YOU WALK IN HERE YOU ARE NOT GREETED BECAUSE THE EMPLOYEES ARE IN A DEEP UNPROFESSIONAL CONVERSATION WITH EACHOTHER.

If I could give them a-10 star rating I would. Disgusting.

Very dissatisfied with their customer service.

Placed an online order through Port of Sound’s website which clearly and prominently displays “FREE SHIPPING ON ALL DOMESTIC ORDERS OVER $50” in the top banner of their homepage.

My order was over $50 and I was still charged shipping at the time of checkout. At the time of purchase, I decided I was willing to pay the shipping fee because the store had all three (3) items I wanted. Two days later I received a refund notification stating my order would only be partially fulfilled.

I called the shop and kindly asked the store to refund the shipping costs because (A) My order was over $50 and did not receive the “free shipping discount” as prominently displayed on their website at the time of sale and (B) Port of Sound only partially fulfilled my order.

I was told they would not be issuing me a refund because (A) “If I refund the shipping for you then I would have to refund it for everyone”, (B) They “tried” to notify everyone the free shipping threshold prominently displayed on the website was wrong and they were “working” with their IT person to get it fixed, and (C) We are just a small business.

I understand malfunctions with online inventories and the website; however, their callous and indifferent response to a reasonable request to “fix” an online order that was objectively botched is off putting. The Indemnification section of their T&C web page best sums up what they think about their customers.

I can only hope their in-store experience is more pleasant.

Edit based on response from owner:

1. You told me the free shipping threshold was changed to $100 because “we receive so many orders for Record Store Day.” If shipping is so “expensive,” why offer free shipping for orders over $50 in the first place? Why did you tell me that in a couple of weeks the shop would again be honoring the free shipping for orders > $50?

2. I did not say “I would go to a competitor.” I said “I would not be doing any future business with your shop.”

3. I requested a refund for shipping only after you partially fulfilled my order and still charged me shipping which conflicted with the promotional banner prominently displayed on your website.

4. I hope my order is not like “everyone else” where you only ship some of the items and then charge customers full price for shipping.

Bottom Line – If you had simply fulfilled my order correctly with the extra shipping costs or made a reasonable accommodation to provide a refund for shipping on the partially fulfilled order, you would have someone who would consider future repeat business with your shop. Instead, you chose a “kind” response that signaled that my business and customer experience did not matter to you.

Rich is great! He does all of our instruments! He’s also a highly skilled repairman for anything electronic. Highly recommended

Rich has been winding custom pickups for my guitars and I get comments all the time about them. If you want something nobody else has and sounds better than what everyone else has, try these!

Rich is the best! We gave him 3 guitars to set up and he did it so fast with a great price. Now my guitars play amazing. I will use Rich whenever I have issues with my equipment. He’s very knowledgeable and responsive.

dig this little secret jewel of OC. HELLA GOOD PEEPS

Good service

boom tek

To say that the best food offering was the ice cream is far-fetched. Unfortunately, it was. We tried four different places: the pasta place, the sandwich place and the bar food. The pasta was way too thick and the sauces were pretty tasteless (just full of garlic), the sandwich was slathered in pesto sauce and not a lot of meat and the bar food was very greasy. It is a great concept, but I could have had better food at Red Robin.