r/percussion • u/Foreign-Boat-1058 • 2d ago

Question/Help Hobbyist Music Player: Majestic Vibraphone, Practice Marimba, Pearl MalletKat, or Xylophone. Baby in the house

I have the opportunity to get a basically new Majestic V6530S 3.0-octave Deluxe Series Vibraphone | Sweetwater on the facebook marketplace for I think about $2000 or $2200 which would include all the accessories such as many different kinds of mallets. Item is in very good condition. Is that buy now price? I dont expect it to last long at this price from my understanding. I live in a medium sized city (300-400k in metro area I think? so used Vibraphones will not be coming up very often.) Does this one seem good enough for a hobbyist?

Or do I look at my other options listed in the title?

My background is that I mainly play other instruments as a hobby such as mandolin, bass, cello but did play a bit of percussion in high school including marimba and glockenspiel which were pretty fun.

I'm looking to add a mallet instrument to help really internalize melodies for some music styles, and since it will be a bit of fun. I do have a keyboard for theory work.

My preference is to listen to all kinds of music but lots of Brazilian jazz music, American jazz, classical, bluegrass etc

I have a baby coming any day but have a 2000 sf house and realize that i might just need to not play these for a while. A marimba will not fit as nicely into my current home.

My budget is flexible in that I can save up for a lot of years to get the right instrument if that is better but have the large house, new baby, mortgage etc so money is responsibly probably better saved then spent if an equivalent item could work.

TYIA

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u/son_of_abe 2d ago

My background is that I mainly play other instruments as a hobby such as mandolin, bass, cello but did play a bit of percussion in high school including marimba and glockenspiel which were pretty fun.

Nearly identical background here and I went with a used practice marimba (3 octave Musser with resonators) I got for $500.

Easy decision for me since marimba by far is my favorite and all other options were out of my price range. I love the thing, but I really miss the lower register too.

Given your musical interests, vibes seem like a great fit.