South Austin Guitar Repair

I play guitar for a hobby, and recently got a new Martin acoustic. The action on this guitar was terrible, making a great instrument difficult to play.
Knowing that it needed a full setup, but feeling a bit embarrassed to go to the pro shops, and be talked down to, I turned to Unilocal.Andrew had gotten good reviews on Unilocal for his speedy repairs and fair costs for his work.
Of course it seems a bit strange going to a house, but Andrew is very professional. He treats your gear with respect. My setup cost $ 40 plus tax, very fair. The guitar plays beautifully now. Highly recommended!

With all honesty I’m glad this was the closest repair place to my house. I had a faulty output jack and the guitar needed a set up. He had it done two days before deadline. And it cost a total of $ 70 to repair the output jack and a set up. Where can you find those prices? Nowhere! He’s a super friendly guy and super accessible and you can pretty much pick up your guitar anytime you need to when it’s ready. He does a great job and seems to really love to do what he’s doing. I have several guitars that I would trust in his hands, don’t even bother looking at the negative reviews. Go ahead and take your guitar to Guitar Center or Strait Music and get charged out the ass for a mediocre job or take it to South Austin guitar repair and get it done for cheap and you will not be disappointed. I’ve had many luthiers touch my guitars and so far he is the best by far.

With all honesty I’m glad this was the closest repair place to my house. I had a faulty output jack in the guitar needed to it qset up. He had it done two days before deadline. And it cost a total of $ 70 to repair the output jack and a set up. Where can you find those prices? Nowhere! He’s a super friendly guy and super accessible and you can pretty much pick up your guitar anytime you need to when it’s ready. He does a great job and seems to really love to do what he’s doing. I have several guitars that I would trust in his hands, don’t even bother looking at the negative reviews. Go ahead and take your guitar to guitarcenter or strait music and get charge out the ass for a mediocre job or take it to south austin guitar repair and get it done for cheap and you will not be disappointed. I’ve had many luthiers touch my guitars and so far he is the best by far.

I brought in a Jackson JS32 Warrior to upgrade. I asked him to switch a volume pot, put in a new set of Duncan’s, set up a FRS trem and intone. I was not specific about the action seeing as I would have to play it again and figure out how I want to set it for myself. The guitar was done in the time he said and his prices were more than fair. It would be cheaper to do it myself, but I lack the experience and tools and did not want to waste time or ruin my plan for this particular guitar. I saw some other guitars he was working on. He’s good at what he does and his prices are very fair. I plan on taking in a couple other guitars.

I wasn’t sure if I should review Andrew, but since I’ve been told that it is part of my consumer duty to report a poorly done job, I decided to do so…
Long story short, I brought my brand new guitar to Andrew to have a strap button installed and he caused the neck to crack. No need to say, I was heart broken and upset.
I am not going to bad mouth Andrew as he did apologize and offered to repair his mistake himself. Unfortunately it was too hard for me to trust him again. I asked for him to pay the repair bill from another shop which he did. On a side note, he was ready to get me a new guitar if I wanted to, but it was too late, I already established a relationship with my guitar…
All that said, Andrew is friendly and I am sure he is a professional worker. Perhaps this experience will make him be more cautious next time he works on a small basic job.
I am not sure what exactly caused the neck to crack, but according to many other opinions** I collected, the pilot hole was smaller than the screw. No comments…
I was concerned that in few years the crack would grow bigger but luckily it was running 45 degrees against the grain of the wood.
I did want to give him the benefit of doubt and an excuse on why he failed at installing the button. Perhaps I rushed him***?? Well that’s not an excuse. He said that he did drill a pilot hole before screwing the screw. Rush or no rush, a pilot hole is the way to do it. So I concluded that the hole was too small. Come on!!! Yes «cracks happen» (quote from Andrew), when the job is not well done! I would rather say: MISTAKES happen…
I will attach a picture of the neck of my Seagull.
The 2 stars are for the fact that he was friendly and good looking (lol — so irrelevant)…
**Within few days I visited and talked to many guitar repair businesses and professionals: South Austin Music, Austin Guitar House, Guitar Center, Strait Music, Nantel and Baron guitars in Montréal where I am from, Chris Primeau my guitar teacher, Musical Exchange. The last one is the business I decided to go with for my Seagull. Alex and Marshall at Musical Exchange were super friendly and helpful. They ended up covering the hole and polishing it. Now the scar is still showing, but it is contained. I am pleased with the service they offered. I also left my Gretsch there for a tune-​up.
***My kids were napping in the car so I stayed outside his apartment to be by the car. The job took less than 5 minutes.

Andrew was professional, courteous, and did a fantastic job. I brought my bass in because the pick up had collapsed. He replaced a spring in no time and cleaned up the electronics so it sounds nice and crisp again. AWESOME and he was nice to talk to, too. I definitely recommend him 100%.

Andrew was very professional, very cheap, and very prompt. This was my first experience getting my guitar repaired, and he has earned any future business I may require. What I most appreciated was his approachable demeanor. I’m still new to guitar and wasn’t always sure what my guitar needed, but he never made me feel dumb for asking questions or exploited my ignorance to make a cheap buck. Highly recommend!

I have only called them with questions and for a quote, but they are knowledgeable, friendly and reasonable.

Andrew is a great guy and very knowledgeable. He is also very fast and very reasonably priced. I was really skeptical about leaving my 100% customized LP with someone operating out of an apartment. However after talking to him a little and taking the reviews into consideration I decided what the hell.
He fixed the new graphite nut I installed and set the action up a little better than I could. When I picked it up the next day I was very happy and it was cheaper than I expected. The day after getting my guitar back my little brother called and said he was making a surprise visit to Austin and he had a project for me. He had picked up a ’99 LP from a pawn shop and it looked like it came from the mansion of a horror movie. I cleaned it up with my Dunlop cleaning kit and changed out the strings but knew exactly who I was going to take it to. Dropped it off at his place the same week I dropped mine off and after the weekend it was good to go. He fixed a wiring problem on the inside and did a set-​up that actually made me jealous. The action and playability on his was better than mine and I have a LP Custom. Lol.
Regardless I know who I’m going to for pick up installation, guitar set ups, wiring problems, and anything else that comes up.

Whoa. This dude is crazy fast, cheap, and professional. Seems to take a lot of pride in his work. He’s an independent who has a shop out of his home, which means (1) lower overhead that gets passed onto me, and (2) personalized attention.
Highly recommended all around, unless you’re the sort who thinks taking a guitar to an established shop where the guitar pro has a defeated look on his face from the neverending backlog of work so that you can pay up the a$$ is the way to go.

Any decent hearted musician will find Andrew to be a fast friend. A good guy who does great work. I took my Ibanez acoustic in and he diagnosed the problem before I told him (high action /​truss rod issues). He also hunted down a relatively obscure part to get the pickup working again. The shipment of the part is what took the longest — but he let me know about this ahead of time. Now the thing plays better than when I bought it — I’m bloodying the keyboard as I type this! Ha ha… Andrew, if you’re reading this, thanks again, man.

Had a great experience with Andrew. I will say it was a little awkward for me to go to someone’s apartment and then just leave my guitar there, but when I spoke with him in person and he humbly (but obviously) displayed his great knowledge of guitar work.
I came back the next day, the work was done, the setup was great, he explained to me what he did and answered any questions I had for him. Very kind, very friendly, and an awesome price compared to pretty much everywhere else. I am going to ask him to install some new tuning heads on my guitar as well soon, Great guy, great business. Very happy customer!

The stock plastic nut broke on my Epi les Paul, brought it to Andrew and he was helpful explaining the different nut material options. He runs his operation out of his apartment, but he was trained at a guitar shop he worked at a while back. He does great work. I’d never had my guitar set up either, and it was 6 years old, so I asked him if he’d do that as well. He was happy to explain what all needed done in my guitar. Luckily, despite its age, the les Paul didn’t need a whole lot of work. He had the nut fixed and the guitar set up the very next day. Andrew is great, and he has a pretty cool cat too, but careful not to let it out of the house. Escape artist.

Andrew is great. He definitely knows what he’s doing and is super friendly. I took my Schecter custom 4 and had to get completely new electronics and even replace a tuning peg. He bargained with another store to get the tuning peg for cheaper and even gave me a cheaper option of electronics replacement instead of going with the more expensive one I was going to buy. NO GIMMICKS, NO HIDDEN FEES, JUST HONEST and LOYAL business. I highly recommend going to him – he knows his stuff.

I discovered Andrew and SAG last month and he’s done setups on two of my guitars already. I can hardly tell you how immensely impressed with his work I am. I’ve had my ’63 Fender Jazzmaster for nearly 12 years and I can say in all complete and absolute honesty it’s NEVER played better. This is my main guitar I’m talking about here, I know every last subtlety and nuance about it, and Andrew made it play so incredibly well it’s almost like a new guitar in all the very best ways. He did the same for my Tele as well. On top of all that his prices are beyond reasonable. Customer for life here, and YOU should be too!

I recently dropped my Tele off for a quick tune-​up. Super quick turnaround and great work done by Andrew. He’s got my business in the future.

A buddy of mine has a Washburn guitar that he cherishes. Unfortunately for him, it fell and the neck cracked just below the headstock. He took it to a couple places to get it repaired, but eventually the headstock separated from the body completely. I told him to let me take it to Andrew at South Austin Guitar Repair and voila, the Washburn is back in business.
Andrew’s price was very fair (a little less than $ 60), and my buddy is happy as a clam with the results. If I have any problems with my Fender Marauder, I’ll no doubt be giving Andrew a call before looking anywhere else.

Thanks for contacting me, Andrew — will be in touch.

I did the research, I read the reviews. Could Andrew be that good? HELL YES! My vintage Epiphone hollow body electric from 1961 needed some delicate electronics work. In business they say speed, price, quality… pick any two. With Andrew there is no compromise; you get all three. He finished the work fast, at a reasonable price, with the highest quality. It’s been a long, long time since this guitar has sounded like I knew it could.
Also, Andrew transformed an old Japanese Stratocaster Squire into a guitar with a unique quality and awesome playability. He suggested and installed upgraded Seymour Duncan pickups, cleaned up the frets and pots, and adjusted the neck and bridge. And to think, I had considered smashing up this guitar on video and chucking it in a landfill.
As others have said, Andrew is a genuinely nice human being who loves what he does. It’s nice to see some people still have integrity.

My tele needed and upgrade… I wanted a humbucker in my neck and kill switch by the tone. Andrew did a great job on my telecaster. He explained exactly what he was going to do and how he was going to do it; giving me great piece of mind. There was one hiccup with the pick up, but he called me right away to let me know the situation. My telecaster turned out great, sounds phenomenal and I would definitely go back to Andrew for any future work on any of my guitars.
Also, I was shocked at how reasonable his pricing was, particularly for the quality of work he does.

Andrew is GREAT! He’s the oasis in the desert, a beacon of light in the cold dark night…
There are a lot of music shops in austin with repair centers and we have tried all of them. It is so relieving to find a place like South Austin Guitar Repair. As long as Andrew is around we will be sure to keep taking our business to him! Here’s why:
–He’s an all around nice dude! Doesn’t make you feel like an idiot.
–Super fast & efficient. He took 2 days to set up 3 guitars (jazzmaster, wilshire, mustang bass), the other places we used to take em to would take a month!
–Insanely affordable, moreso than anyone else in town. A third of the price.
–Competent. The intonation and action is superb. In addition, we had an issue with a jack on one of the guitars which was stripped by another repair shop in town that we continued to frequent. Every time we asked them to fix it, they’d just wiggle it in slightly and say they couldn’t, charge us $ 20 anyway in addition to their $ 60 set up charge. Andrew replaced the jack for $ 5. Set-​up charge? $ 25. Holy moly!!! Ima cry…
Overall, incredibly pleased. Do hit him up!!!

Andrew was exactly as advertised — prompt, professional and friendly.
I brought him a fire-​damaged vintage guitar, given to me after the death of one of my best friends who was a musician. It’s value to me is immeasurable, and once it got damaged in the devastating fire we experienced, I felt about as low as possible.
I found Andrew on Unilocal and called him. He was patient as I explained my problem, and positive that he could help.
After drop off, he called me back within a day to quote a price which was more than fair I thought. Within two more days he contacted me to come pick it up.
As I hold my 1968 Harmony Rocket in my hands today, it looks as good, if not better, than it did before the fire.
I told Andrew how much it meant to me to have this back and clean and working, and he seemed genuinely touched.
Five BIG stars for South Austin Guitar Repair — even if they’re really not in South Austin anymore.