Brooklyn Lutherie - BY APPT ONLY — Local services in New York

It is difficult to find quality shops who perform quality work especially if you own very high quality instruments, such as custom guitars from Collings, Fender, Gibson, Fodera, and small shops. Over the years, I've found myself having to turn to Brooklyn Lutherie who I've found to be mostly marginal, requiring close monitoring of work if it is to be anything close to what one hopes for.. Mamie, one of the proprietors of the shop, is capable of good work at times. But I've found the quality of her work uneven and more than once had to ask her to make adjustments to the work she had performed after having made it clear I wanted something else. She is headstrong and becomes defensive, which results in unprofessional and awkward interactions. As I've stated, she is capable of competent work, but don't expect consistent or exacting work from day to day. In a pinch, she is unlikely to wreak...

I truly would give this place a 5 star rating because of their friendliness and patience to explain the issue to their customers. However, they were only able to fix one of the issues of my semi-acoustic guitar(reduce the action on the guitar neck and even it out). The other issue was to get my pickup fixed on the guitar - the first time i received it I was assured that it was complete - however when i played it, the first string was completely off (the pickup was not amplifying the first string). To their credit -they said they would look into it and fix it again. However, while they were able to fix the amplification of the first string, all the other strings sound unequal now and it's left in a worse condition than when i sent it. I would still go to them for guitar setups but not guitar...

What a wonderful shop! They set up my Ome banjo back in August and I had a purely positive experience. The banjo sounded great and the work was done in a timely manner, with care taken to explain exactly how the action was lowered. The banjo now had terribly buzzing strings, and when I took it in this time, the luthier not only explained forward relief to me and showed me how to adjust the truss rod, she also correctly diagnosed that I needed a slightly higher bridge for the dry winter months. All free of charge. Brooklyn Lutherie is a long way from where I live on the UWS but I can't imagine going...