My name is Jim McCarthy, and I’ve been a percussionist for over 20 years.

I’ve always had a passion for building things, and over the years I've had a LOT to do with building and designng marimbas especially for other people to build. I’d never consider myself a professional at woodworking or trades though - I’ve always been a musician first.

and this means that if I can build these projects... You can easily do it as well. You don't need to do any of the design, thinking, hard work and making mistakes - I've already done all that for you!

When I studied for my masters degree I got really into Acoustics and learned all about how Marimbas were built – I even made some massive, world record bass marimbas to indulge my hobby...

But these days my goals are much more practical... I design instruments especially for people like you. It started years ago when I built a few instruments to assist my wife in her school music program. You may have seen the Project 1 Box resonated Xylophone, or the Project 2 mini-marimba which people all around the world are already building to save money for their schools, as well as being interesting to play and enjoy for children.

I've also built many other instruments in my time, from small xylophones to ultra large Bass Marimbas. What I've done is refined my building processes into step by step building guides for five instruments, The Simple Glockenspiel, The Box Xylophone, the Two Octave Mini Marimba, Three Octave Concert Marimba, the Three Octave Concert Vibraphone and more recently, the Pro Five Octave Concert Marimba