Exclusive selection: The top 6 music shops of Merritt Island

Great place for music lessons.

Bought a guitar here and it was exactly what I needed. Great place!

Great place for lessons!

My son took lessons with Lauts. He loved playing the guitar. He has always received praises from every teacher in school that he’s ever had that he is kind, respectful and a rule follower, and he took lessons where we used to live with an instructor that loved working with him. However, when we moved to Merritt Island, he started taking lessons here with one of their instructors. One night, when we came to bring him in for a lesson, his instructor told us that he refused to teach him any more and gave us our check back. When we asked why, he just told us that he was difficult. We asked what he had done so that we could parent him or teach him what to do differently, but the instructor couldn’t tell us any one thing. No notice. Never indicating a problem ever before. He left the lessons in tears and didn’t touch a guitar again for 2 years. We’ve finally gotten him interested in a guitar again but it has been a struggle and we still have no idea what he supposedly did to have his lessons cut off and be humiliated.

Take lessons here at your own risk.

Mr. Jacobs rebuilds and customizes electric guitars also sells a variety of good quality guitars at good prices also the Jacobs will make you feel at home they are a great couple of old Americana with a deep roots feeling’s my experience was great being at that store treat you fair and a lot better than the others that I visited throughout the years. So if you need work on your guitars check them out first you won’t go wrong with them. .

This guy is the “real deal!” A true luthier. If you have a stringed instrument and need it set-up or adjusted, this is the place to go. I have taken a guitar and a mandolin here, and I plan to get all of my instruments “fine-tuned” here eventually. I know I will bring any problem-guitars here for repair. Also, although his for-sale instrument selection is not huge, it is still pretty impressive. Playing any of the instruments hanging on his racks, you will also instantly get a feel for what he can do with this set-ups. The action and intonation on those instruments is absolutely perfect!

“the midas touch” and super reasonable pricing. very nice guitars for sale as well

Good store and to set up your guitar but not more than that

Overpriced shoddy workmanship. I took a Fender Strat in for a setup and nut replacement. The nut was filed unevenly so that the strings were not evenly spaced. Both the e and E hung off the fretboard so bad it was unplayable. He also used an ungodly amount of glue on the nut and let it ooze down on my headstock and into the truss rod adjustment hole.
As far as the setup? He didn’t correct the string alignment or intonate the guitar. All of this buffoonery cost $190.
I took it to a real master luthier, the kind with a diploma to show, and he fixed these errors, put on a new nut set the guitar up to play like a dream for $100!
I would never take an instrument to this store again. I didn’t even want to confront him about it because I didn’t want him to touch my instrument again!

Do not trust this place to work on any valuable or vintage instruments!!!…would give 0 stars if able…Several years ago I had them do a basic setup on a Larrivee lv3 acoustic guitar that had light fret buzz on two notes so it didn’t need much to get it right…work was acceptable but final bill was higher than quoted price…..appx a couple of years ago I brought them a vintage 1978 musicman stingray bass to adjust the neck and basic setup…when I picked it up I mentioned that the action was still too high as if the neck had barely been moved and he said that he would lower it next time I came back if I wanted him to…when I brought it back while dropping off another guitar to work on he acted like it was a huge deal to work on it again and had a bad attitude about doing it…he finally did lower the action to a decently acceptable level…final work was acceptable but not great and bill ended up being quite a bit higher than originally quoted price…The last guitar I brought to them was an unmolested vintage 1966 Martin 00-21 acoustic guitar that needed the bridge reglued…I only asked for the bridge to be fixed and nothing else and was quoted $120 for that and possibly a little more if they needed to make a new saddle…when I went into the store to pick it up not only was the final bill $400 but I was horrified to see that it had been heavily buffed with white compound residue still stuck in all the crevices and stinking like tanning lotion not like fragrant wood anymore…also they had filled multiple dings/pick wear/small cracks with epoxy making them darker and much more obvious…the guitar was previously unmolested for it’s entire life and filling dings etc and buffing it severely decreased it’s value and collectibility…to make it worse I was charged $100 for the buffing which I did not ask for and did not want done…nobody in their right mind would buff a highly valuable vintage instrument ruining the beautiful golden glow patina that it had aquired over decades of being untouched and drastically reducing it’s value and collectibility…I told the guy at the register that I was originally quoted $120 plus a possible new saddle and never asked for it to be buffed which he seemed shocked about at first but then told me they installed new bone pins and charged for a setup too…then he asked if I was able to pay the bill…I told him that the point is I didn’t ask for extra work to be done and especially didn’t ask for buffing thinking he would at least adjust the bill which he did not do…I was about to lose my temper so I paid the bill and left…after getting back home and inspecting it further I could see the bridge was already beginning to lift again and could see the glue pulling away along the back edge…within a week the bridge had already lifted so high that it was unplayable and had to take all tension off the strings to avoid the bridge pulling off completely…I also noticed that there was a mark where glue had been allowed to run while regluing the bridge and realized at that point why they had gone on to epoxy dings and heavily buff it…they let glue run and dry and decided to sand it off then buff the entire guitar to cover up for their mistake and then charged me for it…easily cutting the guitars collector value in half and ruining future collectibility increase…that’s currently an appx $2,000.00 reduction in value by my estimate and more considering it’s now limited for future increase in collector value…the only thing I asked for was for the bridge to be fixed and that repair failed within a week…I was so upset from the entire event that I put the guitar back in it’s case and haven’t even looked at it since so I could put it out of my mind…they could have admitted to their mistake and agreed to compensate me fairly for it but they chose to attempt to cover it up by buffing and further ruining my vintage instrument then charging me several hundred dollars more than the quoted price…they don’t deserve your patronage…your valuable instruments deserve better…beware!!!

I wish I could give 0 stars. I brought a partscaster in for a setup. The guitar had a Floyd Rose trem. He said he didn’t want to take on a Floyd Rose. Fair enough. Then as I was leaving, he said “If you want to build guitars then learn to build them.” What an arrogant comment.

Great selection of instruments and great people to work with. Bought my bach strad here.

I decided to get back into playing my flute after a 40 year hiatus. The instrument I have was in poor shape, and being a student grade instrument had to weigh the cost of repair versus getting a new instrument of similar value. (It needed complete repadding, head cork, foot joint work and adjustments of the keys.)

Charlie worked on it and brought it back to life. He completed the work earlier than his estimate and at a very reasonable cost. He returned calls promptly and met me at his shop within 15 minutes if he happened to be out.

I highly recommend Charlie at Brass & Reed for your instrument work.

I bought an old cornet at a thrift shop and it needed a valve straightened and some other minor fixes. I found this little shop and Charles is full of experience, knowledge, and, when prompted, stories about musical instruments. The cornet is in performance shape and I have a new friend. Highly recommended.

Excellent repair work on my Alto Sax and also on the custom key-work required to repair my Lyricon. He works quickly and is an affable, knowledgeable source of information for musicians.

Well knowledgeable and helpful