Partners Carl and Travis Thacker are definitely in tune. "We're always thinking the same line. It's weird," said Carl, co-owner of Carl's Professional Band and Instrument Repair. "We're on the same wavelength when it comes to the repair field and trying to make the business better and make it better for our customers."

The father and son team have been working together since Travis started apprenticing with his dad when he was 15, 10 years ago. Carl started in the repair business in his teens, more than 32 years ago. The youngest son, who graduated last year from Normal Community West High School, also works in the shop. And of course Kalvin the dog is there for moral support. A true family business.

In addition to repairing and cleaning instruments, the shop also rents and sells instruments out of their shop in West Bloomington.

"Our main thing is repair - that's what we do," Carl said. "We're not salesmen trying to repair, we're repairmen trying to sell"

And that approach comes through in how they select the instruments they're going to sell.

"We look at new instruments mechanically first, not how well they're going to play," Carl said. "We look at them to see if they're going to hold up, if they're well built, new parts, those things. Then if it passes that we give them to the good players, have them play them and then we take the line on if it's something we want to do."

That technical quality is important to Carl. Parents come in and say their child is just starting and doesn't need an expensive instrument that plays well. But if the instrument isn't technically sound, Carl points out, then learning to play can be too difficult. "Experienced musicians can play through problems, new players have a harder time. They don't know what to do."

And Carl knows about kids learning to play instruments. While he himself doesn't play, both his sons play.

Even though Carl showed Travis his way around the repair shop, Travis' music business degree from Illinois State University adds another level to the business that started in Carl's basement 14 years ago.

"He knows the stuff you're supposed to do. I don't," Carl said. "I know how to order stuff and do stuff, but the business end of it, advertising and things like that, that we've kind of moved into, really he's done a lot with it."

They're business has grown from both of them working part time, to Travis working full time, Carl "semi-part time" and Austin part time. Travis runs the shop, while his dad works in the afternoon and late evening after he gets off work at Illinois State University working in the School of Music.

"I used to have come home from work and fax out orders at 10 or 11 o'clock at night," Carl said.

The two moved into their commercial location two years ago as their business continued to grow. The decision has worked to their benefit as people bring their "prized possession" sometimes worth thousands to get repaired or cleaned

"You probably feel different bringing it to somebody's basement," Travis said. "Than you would taking it to a commercial location." And while the location is in a more industrial area, they find that doesn't hurt business, as its more of a destination business, proven even more so from the response they get from there Web site, www.carlsproband.com.

"We get a lot of stuff from out of state, California and Florida," Travis explained. "A lot of places where people will send us stuff because they've seen the quality of the work we've done."

That quality is developed from years of experience, expertise and training. Some technicians can go to school to learn the trade, but they may only work a few instruments.

"This is a craft you have to learn through repetition," Travis said. "So when you do a thousand trumpets, you kind of get an idea of how they work."

Both Travis and Carl have continued to train and learn, taking seminars and programs through the NAPBIRT, the National Association of Professional Band Instrument Repair Technicians. And while some of the instruments have stayed the same for hundreds of years, the equipment and processes used to clean and fix them have changed dramatically.

We've got "high tech repair tools, that when I started we didn't have a lot of," Carl said. "Things are better, faster."

One of those high tech tools is the ultrasonic cleaners, one of the only ones in Central Illinois. The large drum that can hold two sousaphones uses a weak acid and sound to clean instruments inside and out.

"Its kind of like ones the jewelers use to clean jewelry only this one is huge," Carl said.

While most of their clients are high school and college students, they also work on classic and antique instruments, often having to build the parts necessary, as they pointed to a Civil War era over-the-shoulder trumpet they were reassembling. While they do repair work to the string instruments they rent, they specialize in brass and woodwinds.

While the business has expanded and is doing more advertising and promotion, a lot of their thousand-customer plus business is thanks to more than 15 years of word of mouth.

"The music community is a really small tight-knit community and they all talk." Carl said. "So if you did a bad job, you wouldn't be in business very long."

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Carl's Professional Band and Instrument Repair

802 N. Morris Ave. Bloomington

Phone: (309)828-Horn

M-T 9 a.m.-7 p.m. Friday 9 a.m. - 6 p.m. Sunday: Closed