Sometimes it sucks living on the other end of the damn planet...

[PerlNinja]

Been wanting to get a set of DiMarzio pickups for my Rockwell (it'll be my frankenbass), but there it is... the places online I've found so far either don't ship to Indonesia, or if they do, the shipping is atrocious.

On top of that I get to deal with the local customs goons who will most likely hold back whatever is shipped and demand some "cigarette money" in order to release it, so the total cost of anything is getting high as heck.

Then there's the issue that there's only *one* place in town I know of that sells genuine GHS strings, there's a few others that sell GHS but they're basically no-name made-in-china strings with a copied GHS sleeve on it. Gotta love it...

/end rant

P.S. I have considered cracking open an online store aimed at the local market that sells things like pickups, strings and accessories but trying to find some sort of wholesaler for that kind of stuff is a pain in the yingyang...

[Relic]

Geeez....
Any possibility of getting a group purchase with a few other bass players? Maybe if the shipping/customs prices are shared it'll be easier to handle?

[PerlNinja]

Originally Posted by Relic

Geeez....
Any possibility of getting a group purchase with a few other bass players? Maybe if the shipping/customs prices are shared it'll be easier to handle?

The problem with that is that someone (most likely me) is left holding the bag; most guys here are lucky if they have a bank account, so transactions are cash - which means I'm the one that gets the cash, and has to lay it out on my CC... considering the customs goons, that puts me at a pretty high risk of losing it all. Too high of a risk to be honest, I love my fellow bassists, but Indonesia being Indonesia, I'm not taking a chance on a grand worth (which it would be I think) of stuff.

Instead I'd rather be able to find a wholesale supplier of things and just run my own store but... yeah. Dilemma's all around

[MIJ-VI]

Perhaps it's time to make some new acquaintances:

Bassist Jakarta-Capital-Region in Jakarta-Capital-Region, Indonesia

[theNoseBleedKid]

Let me know if it's easier shipping from Australia to Indonesia (say, if the companies will ship here I can pass things along to you).

I don't know if that helps, but I'm happy to help if I can.

[PerlNinja]

Originally Posted by MIJ-VI

Perhaps it's time to make some new acquaintances:

Bassist Jakarta-Capital-Region in Jakarta-Capital-Region, Indonesia

I don't quite see what that has to do with obtaining gear Besides that, *if* any of the people listed there are able to get it, it'd be a miracle. *if* any of the people listed there were luthiers... and good ones.. that'd be a double miracle.

I've yet to find one. And I live here, and it's not like I don't spend time looking around either

[PerlNinja]

Originally Posted by theNoseBleedKid

Let me know if it's easier shipping from Australia to Indonesia (say, if the companies will ship here I can pass things along to you).

I don't know if that helps, but I'm happy to help if I can.

Well it would get the stuff out to Australia but I'd still have to deal with the happy customs goons in the end. I was thinking of setting up an online store so I could at the very least order things in bulk, at which point I'd make the proper donations to the proper customs goons for them not to uh... request donations for every individual thing that comes in.

And that's not a joke either, things work like this down here

[Relic]

Originally Posted by PerlNinja

Well it would get the stuff out to Australia but I'd still have to deal with the happy customs goons in the end. I was thinking of setting up an online store so I could at the very least order things in bulk, at which point I'd make the proper donations to the proper customs goons for them not to uh... request donations for every individual thing that comes in.

And that's not a joke either, things work like this down here

wow, there seems to be no easy answer...
Well, how hard is it to actually set up an online store there? Maybe that's the answer if it's not too impossible a thing to do. This way you're covered should you ever need anything else and who knows, you may actually make a bit of money from it?

[IncX]

i'm from the Philippines and i think our situations arent very different.

PUPs are easy ... just order them online, do not assign a value to them and just tell the customs guy its a refrigator magnet. and i bet theyd let it pass since its too small

strings are easier ... i have never been charged for them and they never pass customs - i dont think theyd pay attention to anything that small.

[PerlNinja]

Originally Posted by Relic

wow, there seems to be no easy answer...
Well, how hard is it to actually set up an online store there? Maybe that's the answer if it's not too impossible a thing to do. This way you're covered should you ever need anything else and who knows, you may actually make a bit of money from it?

Easy enough if you have a drop shipper that takes care of the actual shipping, that's how my wife runs her online girly stuff store. No stock needed, just take orders, process, and the drop shipper will take care of things arriving. Coincidentally it's a local drop shipper so that greatly simplifies matters.

I could probably wing it *if* I can buy from a wholesaler and just get a half container of stuff delivered in one go, given that big shipments usually mean the customs goons are a bit intimidated by the amount of cash involved, so that and name-dropping some police chief would usually guarantee a low low low one-time donation. Maybe. Theoretically, anyway.

It's a bit of an odd dichotomy though; nearly everyone in this country knows how to play guitar, there's more bassists around than I can keep track of, and there's so many stores that sell Cort/Rockwell/Ibanez gear it's insane. But anything beyond that (EBMM, Fender, Warwick, etc.) isn't easy to find at all. Strings you can get easy enough if you settle for some no-name made in china lasts-you-two-days gunk junk, and if you're lucky you can find some original D'Addario around, but most everything else is fake. I mean, the equivalent of $10 for a set of GHS Boomers (4 strings) is on the damn low side.

Oh well...

[PerlNinja]

Originally Posted by IncX

i'm from the Philippines and i think our situations arent very different.

PUPs are easy ... just order them online, do not assign a value to them and just tell the customs guy its a refrigator magnet. and i bet theyd let it pass since its too small

strings are easier ... i have never been charged for them and they never pass customs - i dont think theyd pay attention to anything that small.

I wish I was in the Phillipines, trade you location any day of the week

The customs goons here are particularly, ehm, "good" at their jobs. The last time I ordered strings they were held and the excuse was that "these have no markings from the Indonesian health and safety board". (But for an extra $10 they were willing to forget that).

Pickups I don't want to try, if it was a $50 set of economy things, sure, but a $199 set of DiMarzio... then we're talking a chunk of change I don't want to lose

I've been chatting to a friend who lives in Batam (it's a little Indonesian island very close to Singapore), he actually takes the ferry over to Singapore every week to go shopping, so perhaps a little ... grey import action can solve all this hoo-hah.

Then again I'd still be dealing with customs goons. Being a foreigner makes this an exceedingly difficult task because custom goon + foreigner = custom goon with eyes going *cha-ching*

[theNoseBleedKid]

Is corruption in Indonesia still that bad??

Wasn't there a popular politician (female, IIRC) that was quite intense with anti-corruption stances?

[subdude67]

hey ninja,

same problems here with shipping directly, i live in kenya, corruption is at an all time high here and we don't even have proper music stores due to the lack of people with cash to spend.

luckily i work in a hotel that accomodates several european airline crews during their layover. i made some good connections with some of them and now they bring my spareparts and equipment when they are flying here from germany or the UK.

[runmikeyrun]

Anyone else find it weird that all this stuff is made somewhere in Asia and has to be shipped all the way to the States, just to be shipped back to Indonesia, and with a huge degree of difficulty?

BTW I have a DiMarzio X2N wedged in between the soapbars on my Ibanez bass. Gives me a great low mid hump and boost when used through a distorted tube amp.

[PerlNinja]

Originally Posted by theNoseBleedKid

Is corruption in Indonesia still that bad??

Wasn't there a popular politician (female, IIRC) that was quite intense with anti-corruption stances?

Still just as bad. The problem is that politicians here will gladly state they're against corruption because that gets them popular support. Then, nothing happens

There are crackdowns on it, from time to time, and usually they'll slam a few guys in jail that have been chosen as the designated scapegoats, and then business goes back to normal.

[PerlNinja]

Originally Posted by subdude67

hey ninja,

same problems here with shipping directly, i live in kenya, corruption is at an all time high here and we don't even have proper music stores due to the lack of people with cash to spend.

luckily i work in a hotel that accomodates several european airline crews during their layover. i made some good connections with some of them and now they bring my spareparts and equipment when they are flying here from germany or the UK.

Hmm, that's a good idea actually.. I do know a few US and European pilots so maybe I'll go hit them up for my spare parts

[PerlNinja]

Originally Posted by runmikeyrun

Anyone else find it weird that all this stuff is made somewhere in Asia and has to be shipped all the way to the States, just to be shipped back to Indonesia, and with a huge degree of difficulty?

BTW I have a DiMarzio X2N wedged in between the soapbars on my Ibanez bass. Gives me a great low mid hump and boost when used through a distorted tube amp.

International trade is a bitch And yeah, I loved the X2N, friend has one on his bass and it's great! Personally I wanted to get a set of J's to replace the generic ones on my Rockwell, since the bass itself is constructed pretty well but the standard pickups sound like warmed up ass

[runmikeyrun]

Just shove the pickup up your butt, they'll never think to look for it there.

[Schlyder]

"Sometimes it sucks living on the other end of the damn planet..."

I hear ya... about the same here, living in the middle of no-where. :P

[PerlNinja]

Originally Posted by runmikeyrun

Just shove the pickup up your butt, they'll never think to look for it there.

No thanks, I already play ****** enough, don't need to add the odor too :P