Music Manufacturing
Don Loeffler combined his love of music with his engineering skills to make several modifications to the percussion instruments he used throughout his career. He made his own vibraphones from PVC pipes and the clever square drum kit in which each drum fits inside each other for easier carrying. His...
Wendal Jones began playing double reed instruments as a child in grade school. He switched to saxophone for a time to play in a number of dance bands in the Colorado area. After college, where he studied music, Wendal became a band director. While working in Arizona, he started to make his own...
Amy Mao teamed with Dr. Paul Shelden in 2004 to create a new line of band instruments. With the growing technology available in China, Amy and Paul set out to produce the finest musical instrument possible within the setting of a manufacturing factory. With an eye for detail, Amy produced the...
Crazy Pete Newport began working at Breedlove Guitars in 1999 with the goal to help promote and market the product line. Over the years he spent many hours working with and learning from Kim Breedlove, the founder. Kim’s unique luthier approach to guitar design helped usher in a new era of handmade...
Bruce Zinky loves playing guitar, but even at a young age he realized he enjoyed modifying instruments for himself and his friends. The Fender custom shop hired him in the early 1990s to work on guitar amplifiers. With a few design ideas of his own, Bruce set out to create his own company, which...
Paul Shelden was a Professor Emeritus in Music for Brooklyn College and both studied and taught music at Juilliard, beginning on clarinet and saxophone, but branching into electronic music on which he focused his doctorate. While teaching, Paul was introduced to the idea of improving on the sound...
John Nady first began working on a wireless system for guitar in 1968 and debuted his Nasty Cordless product eight years later. Although it was not the first such product on the market, it had many unique features that helped establish the product as a standard in the industry. After top performers...
Bob Sperzel’s grandfather and father were both mechanical engineers working in their own shops creating machine parts for several industries. As Bob learned from them he discovered on his own a real need for machined parts to be improved for turning keys for guitars. Bob witnessed first hand how...
Hisatake Shibuya takes great pride in developing music education opportunities for students wishing to bring music into their lives. By forming music schools in Japan and later opening the Musicians Institute in Hollywood, CA, Hisatake-san has created a model for extended musical education programs...
Yoshitada Hoshino is the president of Hoshino Gakki Company, a music company that has remained in his family since first opening in 1908 to sell sheet music in Japan. The distribution segment of the business began to grow throughout the next hundred years. Along the way the company developed the...