A student of mine just ordered a Vancore 4.3 Paduak. He received it yesterday, and asked me to come help him set it up. I was appalled at the shoddiness and bad design of the instrument's construction. The endpieces do not seem to have a position which they can lock into to keep them from swiveling. This causes the resonators to slide out of their holding slats. Also, the main cross beam support for the frame was drilled slighty off of where it should be, so that we had to re-drill some of the metal to allow the screws to fasten the pieces. I realize that this instrument is a beginner instrument, and cheap with regard to other manufacturers, but should students really be throwing their hard earned $2,000 into a piece of junk??

It would be better for one to spend the $2,000 on a practice-marimba by Doug DeMorrow. I am a recent customer, and I love it. First of all, Paduak is horrible, because it is more sensitive to mallets, so its not a good representation of what your mallets will sound like on a rosewood marimba. Paduak can also dent very easily, so forget using hard mallets. Doug uses real rosewood. The only difference is that it does not have resonators, and the rosewood is a bit lesser grade. And better yet, for the $2,000, Doug will make it a full 5-octaves. I remember when I was renting a 4.3 octave Yamaha Paduak, and I had to hit the air to my left whenever I needed a note lower than the low A.
For student model marimbas by manufacturers, I am sure Adams and Yamaha do a pretty good job, but those things can even get pretty expensive too.
A practice marimba by Doug is well worth the hard earned money. Oh, and all the pieces fit together! 🙂
~Behzad

I suggest looking at the DeMorrow practice marimbas. Great investment for beginners