Feedback Music is one of the biggest music stores of the Benelux and one of the mayor players on the European market today. Feedback has four stores, located throughout Holland, an elaborated web shop and the Feedback Magazine (with a circulation of up to 200.000). The headquarters in Rotterdam accommodate the central storage and the Feedback Service Centre, next to a large selection of instruments and musical equipment.
History
Feedback was founded in 1986 by Thijs Thunnissen and Rob Verhaegen. They started out by selling mainly second hand instruments in a tiny shop in Rotterdam. Some years later they moved to the Admiraal de Ruyterweg, where they resided a building large enough to be called a serious music store. Around that time the first Feedback Magazine was manufactured, by hand, cutting and pasting for nights. The official opening of the new store was not till 1993, because moving all those fragile instruments was not an easy job. The opening was celebrated with performances of Golden Earring and Back to Basic.
Soon stores were being opened in other Dutch cities. Feedback Utrecht opened second in 1995, followed by Feedback Apeldoorn in 1998. By 1999, the Feedback headquarters in Rotterdam had outgrown the store on the Admiraal de Ruyterweg. They moved again, this time to an enormous industrial building on the Ceintuurbaan, next to one of the main highways of Rotterdam. After intensive construction work, the store offered room to an even larger selection of instruments and equipment, as well as the central storage. Of course this had to be celebrated. Over 6000 people joined the Feedback crew for the celebrations, with Ilse de Lange as main act.
In 2006 the youngest of all Feedback stores opened her doors in Eindhoven. Feedback made an agreement with the North Sea Jazz Festival, to supply the entire backline for all seventeen stages. A huge project, still done by Feedback every year with great pleasure. On the stages in the stores themselves, many clinics and workshops have seen the light. Some of he best musicians from over the world showed there fans how its done on a Feedback stage. For example: Jennifer Batten, Virgil Donatie, Billy Sheehan, David Ellefson en Ronald Bruner are just some of many.
Nowadays, Feedback instruments can be found all over the world: behind the scenes of large television productions, in the orchestra pit of the Dutch national Circus; Circus Herman Renz, in practice spaces of music schools and in the tour busses of many artists. The headquarters in Rotterdam now contain the Feedback Service Centre, where specialist repair with great care and knowledge of the instruments, and the Feedback Magazine is now a well read periodical, containing interviews, reports, background articles and the newest products.
The web shop has undergone a transformation, with an even larger selection. Besides products, you can also find background articles, interviews and te event calendar on the website. Of course, the Feedback stores remain important, because instrument have to be seen, held and played!
De Feedback Music website: http://www.feedback.nl/