Request for some help....for the deployed troops (music gear related)

  • Thread starter Thread starter vicenzajay
  • Start date Start date
Great....

mshilarious said:
OK, I checked with my friend, he thinks he still has the amp, and he already donated his guitar (a nice '80s USA Tele, I don't think I could do that!) so he doesn't need the amp, and he's still at Belvoir. I'll have him check out connections there, and I'll ship some cables & junk this week.
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Belvoir should be easy to work as they do LOTS of moves both in and out of country, and they have a strong MWR effort in the capitol area.

Wow - donated an 80's Tele!...don't think I could do that either.

Jay
 
Who thinks a Vox AD50VT is a good choice? I don't have one, but if anyone wants to chip in, I'll order one and get it sent to an MWR office at a base (guess I'll call the MWR folks first).

I guess my first concern would be quality control - pretty hard to do a warranty claim :) -- I have the AD15VT, and mine always worked fine. MF has refurbished AD50VTs -- would those be more likely to work than new ones? Maybe not even a concern, just want to think about it. The reason I'm thinking about this amp is because it can do so many different sounds pretty well.
 
The Vox...

Looks great....I can donate as well....if we could 10 or so people in on this, it would be a very inexpensive way to get a very quality (and fairly) rugged piece of gear that could be used for the rock stuff at the MWR events as well.

If anyone else is interested - let's see about putting this together.

One more thing - I don't think (if we pitch in and buy it new) that we'll have any problem sending it directly out there as long as we call the vendor and have him ship to the FPO address....while some online stores balk at the military addresses, most will give in once they're given an explanation....and many don't mind shipping to FPO as regular business. It's a US address, and shipping should be fairly inexpensive in this case.

Jay
 
vicenzajay said:
One more thing - I don't think (if we pitch in and buy it new) that we'll have any problem sending it directly out there as long as we call the vendor and have him ship to the FPO address....while some online stores balk at the military addresses, most will give in once they're given an explanation....and many don't mind shipping to FPO as regular business. It's a US address, and shipping should be fairly inexpensive in this case.
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The FPO ("fleet post office", according to Wikipedia) is the Falujah address you posted below, right? Just to make sure I'm clear - you're saying that the Falujah address, by virtue of being a FPO, is actually a US address, and shipping there might not cost much different from shipping to a geographically-US base?
 
antichef said:
The FPO ("fleet post office", according to Wikipedia) is the Falujah address you posted below, right? Just to make sure I'm clear - you're saying that the Falujah address, by virtue of being a FPO, is actually a US address, and shipping there might not cost much different from shipping to a geographically-US base?
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That's correct. Using USPS, it should be the same as shipping to NY. Other carriers, I don't know.
 
OK -- I may have to call. The amp is the same price at the three online vendors I looked at (Sweetwater, Zzsounds, and MusiciansFriend), but the treatment of shipping varies - using the zip-code looking number 96426 tends to tip off the web shopping cart that the package wouldn't be headed for the continental US, and therefore that their free shipping offers wouldn't apply. Zzsounds is the exception - looks like they won't tell me anything about shipping costs until I've provided more info than I want to at this point. To be fair, the others are "estimates" of course.

MF also has a refurb for about $80 less -- thinking that QA/QC might be better addressed with a refurb, I tried putting it in the cart, but, they want almost $100 for shipping it via USPS to that 96426 zip -- weird, because they only want about $65 to ship the new unit the same way (USPS).

Sweetwater originally put about $35 for shipping, but now the cart says "please call" - must have been some human intervention there, and probably for good reason :)

I'll probably give Sweetwater a ring, because everyone here says such good things about their customer service, and that's seems like it would be key in this case. When I get a total amount (including shipping), I'll post.

If it winds up looking like it'll save $60, I may go ahead and try and get in touch with the US base folks to have it shipped there.
 
heh, you can't just pick up the phone and call those MWR folks :o (at least that's my initial impression)

Sweetwater doesn't normally deal with USPS, and the other carriers don't have authorization to go on a military base (but we're not sure whether that applies only to APO/FPO or all of them (or if APO/FPO *is* all of them)). The service at sweetwater is indeed good -- they're researching ways to get it done.

Boy do I feel like a civilian right now :D -- more to come.
 
I really like...

The folks at Sweetwater...

Actually - carriers are not "supposed" to be able to refuse delivering to FPO or APO military addresses as they are legitimate US addresses and support mail/packages/etc. going to our deployed troops. It costs the carrier no more than normal postage to send the package to that address (as mshilarious mentioned).

However, the rub sometimes is "customs" and how that is handled by the US deployed post office...really shouldn't be a problem going that way, tbh - but mailing certain things back to the states can get tricky.

Thanks for pushing it with Sweetwater - I like their customer service ethic and they always do a great job with packaging (and candy, ha).

Jay
 
My friend at Belvoir says he goes through MWR every day, so as soon as he finds his amp, he'll send it along with some cables. My package of cables & junk will go out by the end of the week.

If that goes smoothly I'll get my monitors up there when I can . . .
 
So yesterday I called the local recruiter office and played phone tag until I got hold of an air force officer just outside of Boston. He listened with care about the project and thought it was interesting, and he took over the legwork.

He called me back today with a woman's name and phone number who does Public Relations work for the Army, and is a liaison for different charity groups (people sending other supplies to the troops, batteries, etc.). She said as long as we have this fellow's address... Trey... that everything will be good to go and they will take care of shipping.

I'm gonna send them the Dual 31-Band EQ and a bunch of guitar cables, other assorted stuff they might need. Maybe a couple of boom stands and clips? And I'm sure I've got a couple of Shure PGs laying around from the old days they can make use of. I'm also heading down to my local shop and getting some guitar and bass strings

Anyone else in the Boston area want to get down on this? I thought if anyone else was interested we could put together a whole little package and throw in some of our CDs and shit. Something like that will probably cheer the old boys up a little bit.

It's felt like a shitty, shitty world lately. Spreading a bit of music to anyone caught up in that godawful mess is one of the more decent ideas I've heard in 2008, this foul year of our lord.

Feel free to PM if you want to help. I'll probably get out to meet this woman next week.
 
Jon...

mshilarious said:
My friend at Belvoir says he goes through MWR every day, so as soon as he finds his amp, he'll send it along with some cables. My package of cables & junk will go out by the end of the week.

If that goes smoothly I'll get my monitors up there when I can . . .
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You are amazing...really appreciate this effort...by the way, once I get settled over there, I need to email you some .mp3 renders of some live drum mixes....your old MSH-1k version serves as the rack tom mic (mounted between rack toms)....and does a phenomenal job of capturing the toms and ambiance of the kit in a live setting. I think you'd like hearing how that mic performs in a loud, raucous, classic rock setting.

In addition - the acoustic (when used) goes through an MDI into my A&H board....sounds fabulous and very controlled. I'll try to get some of that as well for you.

Jay
 
Awesome...

starbuck26 said:
So yesterday I called the local recruiter office and played phone tag until I got hold of an air force officer just outside of Boston. He listened with care about the project and thought it was interesting, and he took over the legwork.

He called me back today with a woman's name and phone number who does Public Relations work for the Army, and is a liaison for different charity groups (people sending other supplies to the troops, batteries, etc.). She said as long as we have this fellow's address... Trey... that everything will be good to go and they will take care of shipping.

I'm gonna send them the Dual 31-Band EQ and a bunch of guitar cables, other assorted stuff they might need. Maybe a couple of boom stands and clips? And I'm sure I've got a couple of Shure PGs laying around from the old days they can make use of. I'm also heading down to my local shop and getting some guitar and bass strings

Anyone else in the Boston area want to get down on this? I thought if anyone else was interested we could put together a whole little package and throw in some of our CDs and shit. Something like that will probably cheer the old boys up a little bit.

It's felt like a shitty, shitty world lately. Spreading a bit of music to anyone caught up in that godawful mess is one of the more decent ideas I've heard in 2008, this foul year of our lord.

Feel free to PM if you want to help. I'll probably get out to meet this woman next week.
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Thanks a million...I'm going to use our MWR as well to send some odds and ends that always seem to break in a depoloyed setting (guitar/mic cables, etc.). In addition, I'm asking him about the mics they have....if they need inexpensive but good-sounding and usable dynamics, I'll get some ES-57's or 58's from orangecountyspeaker.com

Jay
 
Mshilarious and crew

One quick thing....hold off on the monitors and the mic stands - LCDR Glaze is talking to the chaplains about where the need is greatest for those items, and we'll have a new address for that location.

Jay
 
vicenzajay said:
One quick thing....hold off on the monitors and the mic stands - LCDR Glaze is talking to the chaplains about where the need is greatest for those items, and we'll have a new address for that location.

Jay
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The monitors can be split into two sets (2 are powered, and 2 passive), so if they need to go 2 different places, let me know. I only have one set of sticks though . . .
 
Totally off topic..

mshilarious said:
The monitors can be split into two sets (2 are powered, and 2 passive), so if they need to go 2 different places, let me know. I only have one set of sticks though . . .
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But I wanted to let you know that I really love the locale where you live. I have spent Christmas and several other periods of time with friends in Duck - what a beautiful part of the world.

Jay
 
status

I'm plugging along, but haven't made a ton of progress. SW said shipping would be about $100, but I asked for clarification (as to whether they meant all the way to Iraq or to a domestic base, or whether that makes a difference) -- I'm currently reaching out to MF.
 
can anyone PM me with the contact info for the person in Army public relations? I need to pursue an arrangement with a domestic base.
 
Well, MF replied indicating free shipping straight to the FPO, so that's the best option so far. If they still have the refurb, I'll probably go with that, due to both price and two-rounds-of-quality-assurance.

If MF backs out on that, then I'll be back. In the meantime, if you want to contribute, PM me -- I'll post contributions in this thread (anonymously if you want) along with the total cost, etc. -- with the current plans and shipping cost, it's right at about 300.
 
OK - the order's in (MF #P5644683) - total was 318.99, since there was a $20 handling charge due to the size (but no shipping charge). They say they'll ship tomorrow after a 24 hour verification period, and their system says the AD50VT should arrive in Fallujah 5 to 7 days later.
 
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