FROM THE TOP MICHAEL SCHEAR I AMATI’S FINE INSTRUMENTS
INTERVIEWED BY KATIE KAILUS
HOW DO YOU START YOUR DAY? I take mornings pretty easy. I get up and shower. I don’t eat breakfast, and then I drive about five miles to the office. I’m lucky to live pretty close. CAN YOU SHARE A LITTLE BIT ABOUT HOW YOU CAME TO FOUND AMATI’S? I was in the paper chemistry business selling to photo labs across the country, and I knew the photo business was doomed due to advancements in technology. There was a Chinese restaurant I ate at once a week called Joong Wah. The wife was Korean and the husband was Chinese, and they helped me translate letters from Eng- lish to Chinese to send to factories in China because I was interested in bringing quality-made violins over. We got a couple responses, and I found some of the best factories that way. The husband and wife continued to help me communicate and eventually I started buying instruments. Originally, I was buying them for myself, and word got out, and a couple people asked, ‘Hey, can we get into your buying group? Can I tack on orders with you?’ So, I started buying for more than one company at a time, tacking on a small percentage to handle the paper- work and putting my money up front and then more deal- ers started joining us. So, we eventually decided to turn it into a business, and Amati was born. Amati is named after the teacher of Antonio Stradivari, the designer of the modern violin. CAN I ASK AN OFF-TOPIC QUESTION? WHAT WAS YOUR ORDER AT JOONG WAH? It was always breaded chicken with a sweet sauce. NICE. SO, WHAT YEAR DID YOU FOUND AMATI? This was about 35 years ago, so around 1989. THEN HOW DID YOU TRANSITION INTO UKULELES? Well, my wife was a school teacher, and they had an after-school program for students wanting to learn to play ukulele. She asked me if I could source some uku- leles, so I asked my contact in China and they sent over some prices and pictures, and the quality was not good. So, I looked at it and made a few changes to improve the quality. They started making better ukes, and I decided to start offering them to my wholesale accounts. I ordered about 600 ukuleles, and they sold out in three weeks.
WOW. WAS THIS DURING THE BIG ‘UKE-BOOM?’ Yes, this was around 2012. SO, YOU STARTED AMATI’S FINE INSTRUMENTS AROUND 1989. WHAT DOES THE AMATI’S TEAM LOOK LIKE TODAY? We have 29 employees here on staff in Cincinnati. We have four buildings here on the same street, and we have a workshop full of trained technicians and repair people where they do all the setups of our violins, vio- las, cellos, basses, ukuleles and now guitars. YOU ADDED GUITARS TO THE LINEUP IN LATE 2023. HOW DID YOU MAKE THAT DECISION? I decided to go into the electric guitar business be- cause I felt like the acoustic guitar market is a tough business to make money. Acoustic guitars are so large, and they don’t weigh anything, but they take up a lot freight space. Electrics are more compact, and they take up less freight space. So, when we started sourc- ing samples from different factories in China, we found things that were exceptional or dramatically improved over other factories. With business in China, there are some factories that do modest work and others that do exceptional work. Our job is to find the ones that do exceptional work. So, both of my daughters who work in the business now speak Chinese. And they would go on buying trips for us to China to source out these factories, and we eventually found amazing factories that do great work. These instruments stand out from others because of their value. They’re exceptional quality at an exceptional val- ue. When consumers see our product or see our product in a dealership, they can’t believe how competitive our prices are for the quality we’re putting out there. And with a guitar, we usually sell a gig bag, a cord, a strap and 15 picks — everything you need but the amp. SOUNDS LIKE ADDING YOUR GUITARS TO A DEALERSHIP’S SHOWROOM OFFERS A GREAT VALUE OPPORTUNITY. Yes, I’ll give you an example: There was a gentleman to who gave us a review on one of our social media accounts, and he said that he went to his local music store to buy a guitar and saw our guitar selling for some- where around $250. He went to the front counter and asked if that was really the price, and the employee said it was. He thought it was mis-priced because it plays like
34 I MUSIC INC. I DECEMBER 2024
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