stock at guitar center

[james brunnning]

i stopped by my local gc to check out the new rb's and the only had one baddly set up five string back in the bass room.the fenders and music mans have a whole section of wall space for them.i had to look for the warwicks and no german made ones either i don't want to bash gc to much cause i have found some good deals there but come on one or two badly set up rbs is bad.gc shows them in the mailer they send me but when i get to the store almost nothing.i can see how a salesman could talk someone out of buy a warwick and into buying a fender or mm.and i don't like gc blasting some loud music in the store when i'm trying to hear how the bass sounds unplugged but on the other hand my kids loved the store they ripped around all over the place i just let them go.and hoped i wouldn't have to buy a broken guitar or worse.iknow i should have kept a tighter reign on them and i do when i'm in my local mom and pop music store .i just miss the old days when 48th street in nyc had mannys sam ash and hughe used guitar store alex music rudys music a custom shop and mabey one more i forgot all on one block.you could get just about any guitar or bass and every thing else you could think of in one spot/block now when i go in to music stores they might carry two brands of bass strings and not the whole product line either two or three different gauges and for a big chain store gc isn't that much better.it seems if i want to get anything i have to go on line and wailorder it now.and that thkes all the fun out of shopping.sorry i'm just ranting

 

[Flaky Tuna]

lol You should just research on warwicks till you find the loved one, and then buy used from one of us trustworthy members

 

[Trey]

I never really liked GC. I guess it's good to bring your bass to check out amps, but shopping for a bass is HELL GC because they always have the same o' sh*t, and it's hard to find an instrument with a good setup, know what I mean? It also doesn't help when you know that kids go in there every day and scratch everything to hell and contaminate the strings with their grimy fingers. I don't know much about the guitar department, I just know the bass department is usually crap. They have some nice keyboards, though ^__^

 

[james brunnning]

:di was just venting on the state of music shops now a days ans gc is one of the worst and they have the resourses to be good.for a big store there slection is small and the bass are in bad shape how are you supossed to show show or sell a bass when there set up bad and all funk a fied with hand dirt.i just wanted to see some of the new rbs up close and couldn't because gc doesn't realy want to sell them.i guess i'm going to have to take a trip in to manhatten and check out a real warwick store:d.

 

[BassPlyr Randy]

I agree with you James. And as you said, they have the potential to be good, the problem is GC is a corparate chain of store and all they really give a rats ass about is making money so they generally stock those items that are easy for them to move and that they can make the biggest profit from. and because its run by suits instead of by people that actually understand the instruments, they miss the boat most of the time when it comes to stocking their stores. Then we come down to the poor service and lazy salesmen. Unfortunately dirty instruments and grimy strings is par for the coarse when you allow people to handle and play the instruments, which they pretty much have to do if they want to sell them. But that is also where the lazy comes in. You have to watch these people, if they are being hard on an instrument, potentially scratching it or whatever, they need to lose their touching privledges. Also, after being handles, the salesmen should give the instrument a good wipe down to help the strings from getting so groody so fast, but face it, these are minimum wage employees living off whatever commissions they might rack up, so its hard to find someone that gives a sh*t. Replacing strings and doing setups basically comes down to money. It costs them money to do those things and that means less profit for that instrument and lord knows, a suit can't live with that idea.

Where as your mom & pop type stores and generally run by people that really do care, their big problem is they can't afforad to have a big selection to show off.

So yea, I can feel for your frustration. and sometimes it just makes you want to scream!!!!!!! For me, I would have to drive 130 miles just to experience a small mom & pop type music store and more like 225 miles to find a Guitar Centre or other big music store. So I am really at a disadvantage when wanting to look into new equipment. I could always plan a trip to go get some hands on with instruments I am interested in, but as you point out, once I get there, there's a good chance they won't even have the instruments I am hoping to check out in the first place.

So yea... vent away my friend, I know exactly where you're coming from