I've been putting a lot of thought into the next bass line that we pickup here at Rocket Music, and it's not a decision I take lightly. We'll be plowing 6-8 basses worth of cash into the endeavor, and that's real money for a small shop like us. Scary on the one hand, incredibly exciting on the other...

I figure I might as well get some input from you good folks here at TalkBass. I won't promise you that we go with the winner of this poll, but I am very interested in hearing which bass line you would most like to consider for your next bass purchase (other than the lines we already carry - G&L, Suhr, and Warwick)

So please give me your input, I'd really appreciate it!

And by all means, please feel free to reply to this post with any bass makers not listed in the poll. I only included the manufacturers of basses that I've always wanted to own because I greatly prefer to sell gear that I would consider owning myself.

Greg... sounds like things are getting pretty exciting down there. I SO need to stop saying it, and actually get off my duff and get down to see you all! Oh, and BTW I voted for Lakland b/c I am pretty sure my next bass is going to be a DJ signature and I'd LOVE to get it from YOU instead of someone else :D

Hey Greg: I vote for Alembic because since I am now playing short scale I'd love to try one of theirs, however I must say it would probably be some time until I could spring for a bass at that price point. Steve

Thanks, Rob & Steve!

Hey, Steve - have you ever played my Alembic Europa? It's not short scale, but it is ALL Alembic. I love it. I'll bring it into the store if you ever want to try it.

My vote went to Roscoe, with Modulus being a close second.

Yeah, my vote went to Roscoe, too :)

We generally try to avoid brands that use Sam Ash, GC and/or MF. But if the vote here had been 100% Modulus, I'd have to consider them more seriously than I am now...

Warwick is an example where we do pretty well despite the fact that GC also carries them. I chalk that up to GC mainly carrying the cheaper basses while we carry it all. Dolphin? SSI? SSII? Good luck finding a good one at GC. (Sorry, I try not to bash the bigger stores, they're really not all that bad all the time).

Anyway, I've been having some nice discussions with Gard about Rosoe basses and what is involved in becoming a dealer for them. He's a super nice dude, and I love that they're just 2 hours away from me. Road trip? You bet! I'd love to pick out some tops in person.

Still, I'm keeping an open mind. We'll see if any of these horses pulls ahead in the poll :)

I've owned 4 SKB3006's over the years, and they were all wonderful instruments. If at least one of them had been a 5 string, I'd still have one.

And yes, Gard is a hell of a cool guy.

Quite honestly, I'd say Lakland, they seem to be the most likley to do well.

Yep, Laklands are definitely nice. They remind me a bit of G&L, though, which I already carry. Same goes for Spector, they're very similar to Warwick... or as Stuart Spector and Ned Steinberger would probably say, Warwicks are very much like Spectors :hiding:

I see Lakland has crept ahead in the poll. 6-4 over Roscoe at the moment. Interesting.

I wish money were no object and I could pick them all up :bassist:

Yes, I can see you want to keep your lines diverse too, Roscoe would be my second choice, IIRC pretty different from the things you normally carry, and really nice to boot!

Yep, a Roscoe bass is an interesting creature. It's got one foot squarely in the uber-gorgeous, hi-fi bass realm (Alembic/Ken Smith/Fodera, etc.), but it's a bolt-on so it also makes a nod to the more Fender-style brands (Fender/G&L/Music Man/Lakland/Suhr/Sadowsky, etc.). I'm really curious to play one just to see how much it leans to the hi-fi side (I hope a lot, I'm an Alembic/Warwick man).

All the Roscoes I owned had a really huge sound, with the pickups/preamps just adding a different flavor (along with the different wood combos, too, of course).

I'll be anxious to hear your impressions once you've had a chance to head down there and check 'em out.

I would say that having options that the big box stores carry can be a benefit if you're doing much of your business via the internet. I tried out a bunch of Warwicks at a bunch of stores before settling on the $$ (and eventually getting it from you b/c your service and price points were better). We're all fond of suggesting to try before you buy, but it's not always an option.

Other potential food for thought: Zon has a MSP setup that limits negotiation. Your customer service is stellar, so that could separate you from many other dealers who carry Zon. On the other hand, I have a feeling that many shops have stopped carrying Zon b/c there's so little you can try before you buy and that quickly reduces the potential buying pool. Other "boutique" instruments suffer from the same issue.

Without knowing anything about your business, my immediate guess would be that Warwicks are your top sellers simply because they're out in the general marketplace, their branding is more powerful, and their instruments are in many shops.

They're not my style, but Laklands and Moduli would probably push sales much faster than Roscoes or Foderas. Even if they aren't something you might play yourself, they're still great instruments that many players seek.

Regardless of what you choose, good luck!

I agree that Laklands will probably sell better, but I voted Roscoe because they really have their own unique thing going on, and it has devoted fans- so even if you wouldn't turn as many Roscoes, you'd have some dedicated traffic that wouldn't just be price-comparing all over the place.

Wow - very interesting discussion, thanks for your input guys!

To be totally honest, as much as I wish bass gear was the big mover in my store, it's really high end guitars. And of the guitar brands we carry (Suhr, G&L, PRS, Vox), we sell way more of just one of those brands: Suhr

Which begs two questions:
1) Why is that? What is it about Suhr and Rocket Music that works so well?
2) Which bass brand(s) could we carry that might achieve that same sort of success?

When you sit a Suhr and a PRS side-by-side, they're both very beautiful, they both play very well and sound great, and they're both priced about the same. They're certainly different styles of guitars (one Fender-style, one Gibson-style), but I don't think that's why we sell WAY more Suhrs than PRS's :eyebrow:

When you sit a Suhr and a G&L side-by-side, it not quite as close a comparison. The G&L is usually a bit more utilitarian aesthetically, it plays very well (but maybe not quite as well), sounds great, and it's about half the price. You're basically comparing a Custom Shop Fender (Suhr) to an upper-end stock Fender (G&L). From the logical "less expensive stuff is easier to sell" perspective, we should be killing with G&Ls instead of Suhr. :hmm:

Don't get me wrong, we do well with both PRS and G&L. They're both fantastic brands, and I'd be happy owning either of them. But what I always ponder is why does Suhr do SO much better for us? My biz partner Danny and I spend hours talking this out, and we chalk it up to the following:

1) As much as we love and appreciate our local customers, we make our living online. We do lessons, repairs, and accessory sales just like every other mom and pop store, but that's only buttering the bread. Online sales of big ticket items is the main course here. Given the limited availability of Suhrs (you can't walk into a GC and play one), most folks have no choice but to buy their Suhr online from a small or medium sized shop like us.

2) Suhr's products and customer service are outstanding.

3) Suhr's prices are boutique prices, but they're reasonable prices. You get what you pay for.

4) Suhr's guitars are, for the most part, 100% custom. That has two big benefits:
Customers develop a strong, personal bond with their guitars. It's not the same as thousands of other identical guitars.
If we have guitar X in stock and you want it, chances are we've got the only one like it in the world. Guess where you're going to buy it?

5) When you special order a Suhr, the available level of customization is MUCH greater than with the other guys. You can specify every last detail (from choosing your specific top, to specifying the weight, to selecting your fretwire size, etc.). PRS will do the same thing, but you jump into the stratosphere price-wise with their Private Stock guitars.

6) That high level of customization means our prospective customer will probably appreciate some advice. That's an opportunity for Rocket Music to strut our customer service. Most guys talk to at least 2-3 dealers when they're shopping around for a custom guitar. The store that reacts quickly and can add something useful to the discussion while also being price competitive will win customers over every time. Hmmmm, if only I knew of such a store... :D

7) There are relatively few Suhr dealers, and none of them are the mega-chain stores or massive online operations (GC, MF, SA, etc.). Suhr really encourages their dealers and their end customers to work together closely and personally, much more so than many other guitar brands. Small as we are, we're one of the largest Suhr dealers in the world (not physical size, but number of guitars sold through).

8) Suhr has a great internet buzz going. Guitar players who frequent online forums see the Suhr name a lot and get a lot of positive reinforcement there.

So those are the sorts of things that we now look for when we decide to pickup a new brand:

Top shelf quality and support
Reasonable prices (not low, but justifiable)
Limited production volume and availability (small dealer network)
High level of customization that lets our expertise shine
A rabid online following

None of those factors alone is unique to Suhr, but it's pretty rare for any brand to have ALL of them like Suhr does. I think only 2 or 3 of the bass brands in this poll would satisfy ALL of those criteria.

Using this logic, Gadow guitars was the most recent guitar line that we've picked up. And, well, I've pretty quickly just talked myself into... (drum roll, please)... ROSCOE! Substitute "Roscoe" for "Suhr" in all of the points above, and I'm pretty confident that all of the statements would still be true.

Close contenders:

Alembic? Their prices are tough to swallow
Spector? I'm not sure their 'net following is particularly rabid
Ken Smith? I just straight up don't know enough about 'em
Lakland? I wasn't crazy about the one Lakland I've ever played, but I haven't written them off just yet (it'd be silly to do that based on one bass that might just have been setup poorly or whatever).


I think the other brands might be like Warwick is for me currently. They're awesome basses, but the price pressure is severe due to high production volume, wide distribution of new basses, and a very healthy used market. I end up giving the things away just to move 'em. That's not good for bidness.

Sorry for the dissertation! I love my job WAY too much :bassist:

Oh, I also meant to mention how we assuage the "I-must-try-before-I-buy" sentiment. I totally get that, by the way, I used to feel exactly that way before I bought a music store. Now I order guitars sight unseen every day, I'm constantly ordering Warwicks, G&Ls, PRSs, Suhrs, etc. for my store inventory. I sleep easier based on experience. The manufacturers we deal with deliver quality products, and I (or my biz partner) can competently address any setup issues that may slip out the factory door (Shhhhh, I didn't say that). And when that rare lemon comes in, we send it back. We don't drop the price and foist a bum product on the public like... ahem... some of the mega-operations do.

So we can guarantee that a beautiful, well playing instrument will show up on your doorstep. But we CANNOT guarantee that you'll love the tone, so we offer a 7-day no-hassle return policy. That's 7 days from the time you receive the piece. And you get a FULL REFUND once we've received the piece back from you, no restocking fees or other BS. All it costs you is the return shipping ($25-30 fully insured).

Now, I lose my a$$ when a $3K instrument comes back. Credit card processing fees and shipping the instrument to you cost about me about $150. Because we do free shipping (which just means I build my shipping costs into the prices I quote), I eat all of that $150 when a $3K instrument comes back. But I just look at that as a cost of doing business online. Lots of folks (me included) will NOT take a chance on an online instrument without that guarantee that it can be sent back.

The good news is that very few instruments come back when you deal with the caliber of manufacturers that we do. And we also do a free setup before we ship any instrument, just so we KNOW it will play great when you pull it out of the box.

Hopefully, that is enough to make everyone feel comfortable buying an instrument online from me. If not... if the item is expensive enough and you ask nicely enough, I'll sometimes include a return shipping label in the box so that it costs you absolutely nothing to try it... but you REALLY need to tell me you love me if you send it back in that case :bawl:

Good choice on (tentatively) going with Roscoe. I think that they'll be a killer addition to what you currently carry, and will venture far enough away from it, also, to really expand the horizons there.

...if the item is expensive enough and you ask nicely enough, I'll sometimes include a return shipping label in the box so that it costs you absolutely nothing to try it... but you REALLY need to tell me you love me if you send it back in that case :bawl:

In that case I'll take one of each! :p

After my first experience, I'll never hesitate to deal with Rocket Music!

Cool, dys, what's your shipping address again? I'll do freight on an order this big :eek:

No need for freight. I'll just eat a power bar, run it back to NYC. :D

Wow, Lakland is coming on strong in the poll. I'm still going to go with Roscoe as my first choice... but Lakland is probably in my near-term future (January-ish?). If Christmas is as good as we hope (recession? what recession?), it shouldn't be a problem to pick them up in Jan-Feb...

I had a chance to play another Lakland yesterday, one of their overseas models. It was actually pretty nice. Nothing fancy (and I'm a sucker for fancy), but it was a solid, great playing bass. I could carry them with pride.

Alright, a check has been written on an opening order, so it's official! We are going to be a Roscoe dealer. Bassses should start arriving in January :D

I want to pass along a sincere thank you to everyone who voted, posted, or called to give me input. I REALLY do appreciate it. It's so cool to see so many folks taking an active interest in our little store.

aww no respect for the Spectors!!! Not that I can blame anyone for voting Lakland, Alembic, or Roscoe.