I have been to Guildford!

EricTheWeary

280 mile round trip to take my youngest to a university open day. 
The University of Surrey has an amazing recording complex and a Moog room. Not a huge room ( maybe the size of a small domestic kitchen) but full of Moog stuff all wired up. I counted 27 of the wooden box pedals then all the synths,etc. 

We walked to Andertons. Bloody hell it was busy. Lot of stuff in there too although it screams ‘ we need bigger premises.’ There are demo rooms but hardly room to swing a cat/ try an instrument elsewhere. If I was contemplating a major purchase there I’d try to avoid a Saturday afternoon. 

The walk to the town centre was short but unpleasant ( get some bleach down that underpass!) but quite a posh centre. 
Anyway, never been before and no plans to go again ( I think he’s trying to go to Leeds in the end) so that was my little adventure and interesting to see Andertons as it is probably the best known instrument shop in the U.K. 

Stevepage

Andertons gets so many people in due to their YouTube videos. Ideally they'd have twice the square footage so you don't trip over Dads with their kids on the weekend/bank holidays.

Unfortunately that's why I skip there and go to guitarguitar instead. Which is prefer in every way really.

jdgm

I used to live and teach guitar there until 1997.  I worked for Andertons for a few weeks during the John Hulke years.

In 2001 I got a job on the Uni campus. The main music course is the Tonmeister engineering one and you need A-level Physics as well as music to get on it AFAIK.

But even Guildford is now looking a bit tatty due to the effect of the internet on High St traders; some of the shop rents used to be as expensive as Oxford St.

Andertons have been talking about bigger premises for at least 15 yrs now........

boogieman

I was surprised the first time I saw Andertons too. 20 minutes up the A3 would’ve got you to Epsom for Guitar Guitar, which is much bigger. Then you could’ve driven another 10 minutes up to my gaff for tea and biscuits. 

Good luck to your lad btw. 

EricTheWeary

Stevepage said:

Andertons gets so many people in due to their YouTube videos. Ideally they'd have twice the square footage so you don't trip over Dads with their kids on the weekend/bank holidays.

Unfortunately that's why I skip there and go to guitarguitar instead. Which is prefer in every way really.

Lots of middle aged men and lots of teenage boys so we did at least fit right in!  
All credit to them to get a music store that busy but I wasn't that keen on it as an experience. 

sev112

My housemate was on the tonmeister course when I was there in the 80s and he has gone on to be a very successful producer.  Don’t suppose he remembers recording me playing trumpet for one of his bits of coursework,  we also recorded some nursery rhymes for one of our housemates who was living away from his kids.  

Good university, not much grass left like there was in the 80s.  Lots of pubs for beer races etc 
nice countryside to run and cycle round 

EricTheWeary

sev112 said:

My housemate was on the tonmeister course when I was there in the 80s and he has gone on to be a very successful producer.  Don’t suppose he remembers recording me playing trumpet for one of his bits of coursework,  we also recorded some nursery rhymes for one of our housemates who was living away from his kids.  

Good university, not much grass left like there was in the 80s.  Lots of pubs for beer races etc 
nice countryside to run and cycle round 

Yes, amazing list of alumni for that course. Grammy winning studio engineers, the chap who does the sound for Love Island ( really, and a shed load of other TV shows), senior developers at Twitter, even the studio engineer for Coldplay. They have amazing work placements at places like Abbey Road. 
Unfortunately I don’t think my son has much chance of getting on the course. Quite high expectations around maths and he only started studying music technology because he failed his maths. 

DrJazzTap

In have to confess I've only been to Andertons twice. The first time I thought "is this it?"

prowla

I've been to Andertons a couple of times and Guildford town centre is OK.

Leeds is a lovely city; I lived there for a few years.

EricTheWeary

boogieman said:

I was surprised the first time I saw Andertons too. 20 minutes up the A3 would’ve got you to Epsom for Guitar Guitar, which is much bigger. Then you could’ve driven another 10 minutes up to my gaff for tea and biscuits. 

Good luck to your lad btw. 

I could have done with the break!

jdgm said:

I used to live and teach guitar there until 1997.  I worked for Andertons for a few weeks during the John Hulke years.

In 2001 I got a job on the Uni campus. The main music course is the Tonmeister engineering one and you need A-level Physics as well as music to get on it AFAIK.

But even Guildford is now looking a bit tatty due to the effect of the internet on High St traders; some of the shop rents used to be as expensive as Oxford St.

Andertons have been talking about bigger premises for at least 15 yrs now........

Yeh, the Tonmeister. Unique course in the U.K. related to courses in Germany started by Stockhausen.  Very maths and physics heavy but also you need to be musical. One of the year two students told us he struggled with the maths on the course as he only had grade B at A level and the other said he was the worst musician in his year as he only had grade 8 on saxophone. 
I think we’ve worked out that C at GCSE maths and knowing some Nirvana riffs isn’t going to get my son on the course. 

Phil_aka_Pip

Guildford looks nice but it isn't that good. Loads of wimmins clothes shops and other places selling tat that's of no practical value. One hifi shop with limited choice. Ben's Records is all right if you know what you're looking for. My mum lives there, she has to go out of town for a decent butchers, she can't buy artists oil paints in town any more and IIRC she can't get sewing threads in town either. There is a street market where you can get decent bread though.

I've been to Andertons and if they had what I wanted at the time I'd buy from them 

Kebabkid

Andertons during the week is much better and I like Guildford. In fact, I was also down there today as Andertons and Pearl Drums put on a Drum Addicts Clinic with a couple of session guys (Sasha Waack, Matty Brown), Gary Husband (Allan Holdsworth, Level 42) and the brilliant and my favourite drummer, Todd Sucherman of Styx. Great day.

Lestratcaster

I studied in Guildford at the ACM between 2007-2011. I also played a lot of gigs at the main venues, the Boileroom and The Star, and have bought 3 guitars from Andertons. It remains a big part of my musical education, I went back there recently and everytime I go I always see a few familiar faces. The place hasn't changed much from 11 or years ago. ACM's changed a lot but for the worse I think. Still, I do enjoy going back there.

Nitefly

Guildford?  Isn't that @Sporky central?

Sporky

Chateau Sporky is just on the Woking side of Guildford, yes. 

Dominic

You think Andertons is small ..............go to Coda ; even the mice are hunchback  !
As my wife says .......it's not the length it's the girth .......and both have a brevity of the best gear on the planet 
How much space do you need to play a guitar ? obviously you have never played as a 5 piece in the same pubs as me !

Guitar_Slinger

jdgm said:

But even Guildford is now looking a bit tatty due to the effect of the internet on High St traders; some of the shop rents used to be as expensive as Oxford St.

So many places are going like that.  I moved to London 30 years ago and thought Harrow was quite nice. I went to Uni there in the noughties and me and the missus liked shopping in the town centre. 

After not going near the place for 10 years, I noticed half the old office buildings have been replaced by new flats (good), but the high street looks really run down - some empty shops and what's left looks like like the poor part of another country.

EricTheWeary

Dominic said:

You think Andertons is small ..............go to Coda ; even the mice are hunchback  !
As my wife says .......it's not the length it's the girth .......and both have a brevity of the best gear on the planet 
How much space do you need to play a guitar ? obviously you have never played as a 5 piece in the same pubs as me !

I have played some pretty tiny places but I’m less concerned about turning around and wacking the bassist in the face than I am about knocking a custom shop strat off the wall. 

Stevepage

Dominic said:

You think Andertons is small ..............go to Coda ; even the mice are hunchback  !
As my wife says .......it's not the length it's the girth .......and both have a brevity of the best gear on the planet 
How much space do you need to play a guitar ? obviously you have never played as a 5 piece in the same pubs as me !

Coda doesn't seem to have as many people in there on a Saturday and they set it all up well. Their phone is always ringing for orders and they have a pretty decent website so I guess that's where a lot of their business is 

skunkwerx

EricTheWeary said:

280 mile round trip to take my youngest to a university open day. 
The University of Surrey has an amazing recording complex and a Moog room. Not a huge room ( maybe the size of a small domestic kitchen) but full of Moog stuff all wired up. I counted 27 of the wooden box pedals then all the synths,etc. 

We walked to Andertons. Bloody hell it was busy. Lot of stuff in there too although it screams ‘ we need bigger premises.’ There are demo rooms but hardly room to swing a cat/ try an instrument elsewhere. If I was contemplating a major purchase there I’d try to avoid a Saturday afternoon. 

The walk to the town centre was short but unpleasant ( get some bleach down that underpass!) but quite a posh centre. 
Anyway, never been before and no plans to go again ( I think he’s trying to go to Leeds in the end) so that was my little adventure and interesting to see Andertons as it is probably the best known instrument shop in the U.K. 

Ah I remember that underpass. I found the smell of stale piss quite nostalgic. 

Round here now they only ever smell of semen, and murder.