The Guitar Hospital

Had my guitar setup a few months back.Great service, did a wonderful job on my ibanez guitar, made it sound great. Cleaned and polished with new strings and the turn around was really quick.Highly recommend taking your instrument here for a multitude skilled repairs available.I will be taking future guitars here and recommending to fellow musicians.

I brought my 90s Ibanez rg here for repairs to the bridge and pots. I could not be happier with the result!John is a true specialist who knows his stuff. He has worked with some of the biggest names and it shows in the knowledge and passion he has. I am truly happy to have my gem of a guitar back in such a good state, and I won't hesitate to use his service again for any of my guitars!The price of the repair was very fair and i highly recommend this place for your guitar repairs.

Fantastic service! Would recommend to anyone who has an issue with his/her guitar.

This man ruined my Taylor. The bridge was coming up and instead of resetting it, he just shoved a load of glue in, called it a day, and charged me for £80.Of course it's coming up again, and now I need to pay someone competent £200 to fix it properly.Do not trust them with your instruments.

John, the guitar technician, was not only knowledgeable but also witty, making for a good chat as he efficiently replaced my guitar's output jack. His approach, combined with his engaging personality, made the experience both educational and enjoyable. I highly recommend him to any guitarist looking for a skilled, personable, and reliable technician!

John is a professional craftsman and a true gentleman. Thank you, an honour and pleasure .I am so pleased to have found him to look after my guitar.

Indescribably poor. I recently bought a Stonebridge G23CR-C acoustic but the action was unusually high and parts of the hardware were a little dull, so I decided to splash out on a full setup and clean.I settled on the Guitar Hospital (the trading name of a tech called John Armitage) because he advertised a full setup at a good price (£45) and seemed to have a good attitude in the way he spoke about repairs on his site ('No work will be done on the instrument without details being agreed with you in advance', for example.)I asked for a full setup and for the action to be lowered. When I picked up the guitar, the action had been lowered to the point that the guitar was unplayable. One of the pictures attached shows the strings lying flat across the frets with moderate pressure applied at the second. The high E was deadened by contact with the frets even when plucked open (more than simple fret buzz). How any tech could thing that's what an open string is supposed to sound like is beyond me. Another picture shows how ridiculously low the saddle had been cut (and much lower on one side than the other).A countersink had also been used to carve out the string inlets to allow the bridge pins to sit snug. Given that this is irreversible, I thought this was an odd thing to do without confirming with me first, particularly given the pledge quoted above. But what's more, the work was again crudely done, the inlets had been unevenly cut, and specks of sawdust had been left plainly visible on the bridge and body of the guitar.You should also be able to see the bridge pins sticking out quite far and marks/ scratches left by tools on the bridge. These are obviously small things in and of themselves, but they are not indicative of careful work having been carried out.John wasn't there when I dropped off or picked up the guitar, but I complained to him by e-mail and he sounded surprised that I wasn't happy.I refused to pay and have now taken the guitar elsewhere. The other tech immediately said the neck was visibly too straight (the one part of a setup you'd hope would be gotten right). They were able to smooth out the string inlets and cut a replacement saddle (at a cost of £25).It's now playing beautifully, so a happy ending, but one that should have been reached sooner, at a lower cost, and with less angst. Go elsewhere.