Kagan & Gaines Music Co., Inc — Local services in Proviso Township

I hate to agree with the user below who complained of a dishonest experience, but we are going through the same. I’ve read all of the other 5 star reviews and notice a pattern: it seems that for violin and stringed instruments, this is a great place. For renting brass/woodwind instruments via their monopoly with the school districts, they are subpar and dishonest. We should have just purchase a used instrument which would have resulted in us obtaining a superior instrument at, I am not exaggerating, 1/4 the total cost. We just had to call them to stop processing our credit card when we noticed we had been paying an abnormally long time on my daughter’s VERY USED, VERY DENTED saxophone (4 years!). We were “reassured” that, coincidentally, they were just going to call us as well as our payments happened to be completed. Yet they have no records of all the payments that we made, and are asking us to provide payment records going back to 2017 to “prove” how much we have paid in total. Luckily for us, we can easily provide them as they have all been made on the same credit card for years. We are also disputing the amount owed as our daughter’s original “nicer” model saxophone broke, was taken in for repairs, and she was given a loaner, student-model, older and dented sax. Her other one was never repaired and instead she’s just had this one forever. We were told at the time it would be “worked out.” Now they want us to pay the same amount as they were going to charge for the initial instrument to keep this replacement instrument permanently, as they also claim to have NO record that any switch was ever made or that the original saxophone was ever brought in for repairs. Typically, I endeavor to support neighborhood shops, but not when their record keeping is straight out of Mayberry. This is taking a lot of our time and energy to sort out, and we’ve ultimately laid out over $2300 to own an instrument that I have found at multiple music stores online for around $600 and under. We understand that renting the own is typically more expensive, but this feels like being swindled in every way. Extremely disappointed. My husband has been playing music for over 40 years - he also used to play saxophone - and his mother is a professional classical musician. He is used to dealing with all sorts of music shops and has never had an experience...

The place to go in the area as an upright bass player, or really any musician in general. It's very clear that they genuinely care about their customers and will go out of their way to make sure you are happy. I was on a tight budget for a midrange bass and they went out of their way to make sure I was getting exactly what I wanted at an extremely fair price, including setting up multiple basses with my preferred string and letting me keep one at home for awhile before paying. They also let me take it back a few times to make adjustments to make sure the setup perfectly tailored my needs. I expected to just get a decent plywood but ended up with a caved top romanian bass I love due to their helpfulness and flexibility.

Don’t go to Guitar Center or play russian roulette buying online, go support this local shop. I’m 45 minutes out and it’s...

Was quoted 25$ to replace the pickup switch on my bass guitar, came back once, switch installed, but volume pot loose and not working when it worked before. Sent it back, specifically asking for all electrical issues to be resolved, quoted 75$ 5/27/25. Bass came back today and now the tone knob is no longer working and is $110. Had to argue for the original 75$ quote, and was over estimated to install a new tone pot and wiring would be 60$ more. The tone knob WORKED BEFORE I BROUGHT IT HERE! I specifically asked for Everything electrical to be sound. I would have gladly payed 75$ to have a working tone knob. Like it did before I sent it to this awful place. No onsite luthier, No accountability. STEER CLEAR. Should have gone to third coast IN THE FIRST...