Wally’s Music Shop

At certain times into the school year, the shop is very busy. Repair people are good people. Get repair appointments well in advance. The repair folks will treat you well. The front desk is separate folks. I recently bought a mouthpiece for top dollar which was old technology. They seemed oblivious and unapologetic. Don’t buy there.

Jeff S. again. As noted in an earlier post, Wallys really screwed up my flute. Well — they did even worse to my wife’s 1922 Buescher saxophone. She sent it to some saxophone specialists to repair Wallys repair. After examining the instrument, they wrote back and said (among other things): «The repair guy didn’t do you any favors. He used a hodgepodge of pads and materials throughout, nothing uniform. Some are quality parts, others aren’t even the right size pad. And even with the new pads, the sax has leaks and places where he didn’t do proper keys wedging or post alignment. For instance, a post on your high D key is bent, keeping that key open. I’m not surprised your sax isn’t playing.»
Bottom line — it will cost us $ 900 to fix Wally’s incredibly shoddy work. Next stop — small claims court.

AWESOME! Very helpful; informational.

My first Clarinet repair was 20yrs ago at Beaverton music. The technician at that time told me my Clarinet was not repairable. I was very sad and put my horn away. Now it’s 20 yrs later. Took my Clarinet in to Wally’s. The woodwind technician repaired it no problem. It works better than I ever remember it working. I can’t say enough about what an amazing repair service Wally’s has. It is the place to take your horn!

Horrible experience. We were told our only option was to buy a new trumpet when my son wanted to be in band because they had no used trumpet options. They had a program that you could pay 30 dollars a month until the instrument was paid off. 2 years later and now we are told that not all the money we paid actually went to the cost of the instrument and that we could have returned it at any time because it was really a rent to own program. To top it off they now say we could have saved 20% if we had just paid in full to start, which we would have done. When asked if they would buy it back they said they would consign it but take another 20% from that. Totally misinformed and completely unwilling to work with us now to make it right. I would never do business with them again. Buyer beware.

My son was part of the school band and unfortunately, the instrument that the school provided was low quality and beaten up. I wanted my son to enjoy band and felt that a better quality instrument would help him, so I opted to rent from Wally’s (which came highly recommended by his band tutor). I was impressed by the quality of the instrument (tenor sax). The rates were comparable to other places and over time they made several repairs (for free) even though it was obviously due to some rough handling by my son. I did have to pay for one repair when my son’s handling was a little too rough. The best thing about Wally’s though is that if you choose to buy the instrument at any point, all the money you spent on rental is applied to the purchase price. So, I guess it’s like a layaway plan. Now, just when we’ve reached that point where our rental fees have added up to the purchase price, my son tells me that he wants to switch to baritone sax!

I attended Oregon public schools when the middle and senior high schools art & band classes received more funding. Today I continue as a hobbyist on brass instruments. Wally’s Music is THE PLACE for competent brass instrument repair and cleaning. For the trumpet, Wally’s has two employees: Randy and Matt, who can rub shoulders with the excellent repair techs in the Midwest or in California. Brass players in the Portland and Willamette Valley areas are fortunate to have this resource. Wally’s also has an impressive selection of used trumpets. For students, it is much better to audition a professional quality instrument than to gamble on something from eBay, which you may or may not like.

The price of a public school education is higher than you’d think. I’m pleased to report that my local schools still have music and arts programs, although sometimes it feels like they are hanging on by a fraying thread.
What was a little surprise as a parent was the cost of participation. If you don’t have a trumpet or clarinet lying around, you need to rent one and the monthly fee is quite high. Our school recommends Wally’s in Oregon City and they visited our school for the rental process.
I made follow-​up trips to their store to pick up accessories. Unfortunately they didn’t have everything we needed in stock and I was looking for pretty basic items.
Wally’s qualifies as an O.C. institution since they’ve been in business since 1947. The building and interior are quite worn, but I loved the old time murals. I’ll probably be doing business with them for at least the next five or six years, so hopefully my rating will improve with time.