The ACCESS Story
THE BEGINNING
The beginning of our story is a familiar one. A couple of professional musicians meet while horse-trading equipment and instruments and strike up a friendship. Soon, we found that our knowledge, talent and enthusiasm meet a need in the local music scene, and our friendship expanded into business ventures.
THAT FIRST BAG
One of our first goals – find a better way to transport the plethora of gear we needed to and from music gigs, something better than the current makeshift choices… duffle-bags, overstuffed guitar cases, even plastic grocery bags in a pinch.
And who better to design a musician’s carry-all than a couple of old pros? We dumped out the contents of own guitar cases and took inventory. Everything in that pile was vital. Everything in that pile needed a spot in the new carry-all. And everything in that pile needed to be easily accessible in the finished product.
MUSIC EXPRESS
The PFX1 was just the first of the music industry accessories we manufactured. By 1994, we founded Music Express, an OEM/ODM design and manufacturing group serving the music products industry. Music Express has evolved into a leading global supplier to many of the music and pro audio industry’s premier brands. We design and manufacture bags, cases and carrier systems for keyboards, pro audio and woodwinds & brass, stands & support hardware, wire & cable, miscellaneous guitar accessories and turnkey stringed instrument and drum product lines.
A CASE OR BAG FOR EVERY GUITAR.... AND MORE
And guitar bags and cases? Absolutely. Having established ourselves as knowledgeable and reputable manufacturers with highly innovative and skilled designers, heavy-hitters in the guitar industry sought us out to design and build their guitar cases and gig bags for years… Fender, Gibson, Taylor, Breedlove, Larrivee and Yamaha – just to name a few. And we became (we’ve become?) one of the biggest suppliers of guitar bags and cases in the industry.
View a Gallery of Music Express OEM Bags and Cases – Click Here!
HARDCELL IS A GAME CHANGER
ACCESS is first to use high-density closed cell foam in gig bags. Our HardCell™ version out performs more commonly used open-cell ‘sponge’ foams by every measure: shock absorption, thermal insulation and resistance to impact, puncture and moisture.
THE UPSTART UPRISING
Following a lot of urging from their dealers, ACCESS subverts their Very Good → Better → Best product line to introduce UpStart: an entry-level bag – but one with a with backbone. UpStart utilizes our rigid HardCell™ high-density foam allowing it to literally stand up to the status quo of flimsy, limp beginner guitar bags.
STILL GROWING
With distribution across Europe, Asia, and Australia beginning in 2013, ACCESS Bags and Cases has continued to expand globally and is now available in more than 21 countries.