Posted May 27th, 2010 by Christan Griego in Uncategorized | No Comments »
We’ve received many inquiries about the coming Alessi line, so I decided to fill everyone in. Yes, we are working on the new mouthpieces and I’m really excited about our progress. Joe was just in Elkhorn for a couple of days of instrument and mouthpiece development. It went well — discoveries were made that should benefit us all.
After Joe went home, I went to New York City this past Tuesday for another round of mega mouthpiece testing. On my way into Lincoln Center, I saw Dave Taylor talking on his cell and went over to chat for a bit. It’s always great to see Dave.
Once the orchestra went on a lunch break, we started in on the mouthpieces. Amanda Stewart stuck around to lend us her ears. When rehearsal started back up, I headed out for lunch and ran into Weston Sprott. We had a great time talking shop/life/training.
After lunch it was back to the much improved Juilliard School for more mouthpiece work. This time, Dave Finlayson joined us and we quickly nailed down the winners and losers. After taking tons of notes, it was back to the airport for dinner and plane ride home.
We’re now moving on to other mouthpiece sizes. If all goes according to plan, we’ll be unveiling some new features that have never been offered in any mouthpiece line. It’s a ton of work, but very rewarding. Thanks for your patience!
Posted May 12th, 2010 by Christan Griego in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Just finished a good two days with Joseph Alessi in house. We made quite a few varieties of mouthpieces, tested and now it’s back to NYC for more testing.
We’re making progress and hope to launch in June (my hope anyways). I’m learning a lot as we go through the R&D and that’s always the fun of it.
Thanks for being patient, we’re working on it. The wait will be worth it.
Posted April 25th, 2010 by Christan Griego in Uncategorized | No Comments »
We’ve been working hard on a few projects, one of which is completing all models in Nouveau style. Now all large bore tenor and bass models are completed and available for purchase. Josh will be updating the site shortly.
If you need something more quickly feel free to give me a call at 262 949 1924 to place your order. Best time is 12-1 central time or 4:30-6pm central time due to my day job at Edwards. If I don’t pick up please leave a message and I’ll get back to you.
Next up is small bore mouthpieces. Tuba mouthpieces are done in Deco and Nouveau blanks. Call to order these. It’s gonna take some work to get all the content done for the website. Sorry for the inconvenience tuba guys.
Posted December 3rd, 2009 by Christan Griego in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
The Midwest band convention is the week of the 16th. I am hoping to have a few prototype Alessi/Griego models there for people to test.
Since I am going to be at Midwest, Beth Griego (my delivery specialist) is going home to visit family in New Mexico with our newest addition Ava.
Due to this schedule any order placed before December 11th will be shipped out before the 16th.
Any order placed after December 11th will not ship out until the week of December 28th.
I am traveling to see family in New Mexico after the Midwest Band Convention.
Have a great holiday season and I look forward to working with all of you in 2010.
Posted June 22nd, 2009 by Christan Griego in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Many people swear that gold plating sounds darker than silver plating. I am not sure that this is true, but I do know that gold is a lot softer on the chops. Not only is it softer but it is a bit more smooth and so many people find this comforting.
Personally I grew up playing on silver plate and so I continue to. I like the feeling it provides at the point of contact and know that gold plate leaves me feeling a bit insecure with the anchor point.
While I do not think that either plating changes the sound enough to quantify. I do think it is worth taking note of which surface your face prefers to come in contact with. It could be your changing mouthpieces due to the plating choice and not the mouthpiece itself. Maybe…
Posted June 9th, 2009 by Christan Griego in General | No Comments »
When we re-launched our site a few weeks ago, you undoubtedly noticed a new shopping cart. We decided a move away from our previous cart to PayPal would benefit both our customers and us. We’re saving money in server costs, payment gateways, etc., and our customers are still able to purchase our products using a completely safe and trusted shopping cart.
I wanted to mention that you don’t have to have a PayPal account in order to purchase from our site. Once you click the checkout button, you’ll be directed to a page where you can log in to PayPal (on the right) or pay by credit card. The latter option is much less obvious, so simply look for the following:
Use your credit card or bank account (where available). Continue
If you’d rather conduct your transaction over the phone, please call us at (262) 949-1924.
Posted May 20th, 2009 by Christan Griego in Company News | No Comments »
We’ve been pretty busy lately with the web site and shopping cart relaunch, new invoicing software, shopping for a new CNC, developing the Nouveau blanks, etc., but I wanted to take time to answer some common questions we’ve been receiving lately.
Nouveau Model
Right now we’re only offering a few mouthpieces in the Nouveau blank, but we will eventually offer every model in our newest design. It won’t be all at once, so please be patient with us.
Tuba Models
You’ll also notice a lack of tuba mouthpieces on the new site. We temporarily removed them as our inventory was really low. We’re also going to make a few modifications to the line before we re-release them. They should go back on sale sometime this summer.
I am excited about getting the new CNC machine set up so we can add to our existing line. Thanks for all the support over the years. I’m looking forward to continuing to make great mouthpieces for low brass musicians.
Posted May 15th, 2009 by Joshua Brown in Company News | 2 Comments »
Things were starting to look a little dated around here, so we decided a new design was in order. While we were at it, we ditched the Miva shopping cart and moved to Paypal. It will help us reign in some costs as we buy a new CNC and unveil some new models. Plus, Paypal is a better ecommerce solution for a small shop like ours. You can still pay with credit card, but Paypal members have some extra options.
You’ll also notice some new product shots in our gallery. Ron Knaflic has taken some great pics that better show off the leather accessories, in particular. Take a look around and let us know what you think.