• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

G&L Club Part 7

#31,381
jfh2424 said:
I contacted Greg and G&L again
Click to expand...
G&L in no way deserve Greg. And Greg in no way deserves the dysfunctional shower that G&L have turned into.

I've decided life is too precious to spend it waiting for G&L to disappoint me yet again. I'd rather shove my SB-1 in the trash and wave goodbye to the $$$ wasted on it than have myself at their mercy again.
 
  • Like
  • Sad
Reactions: LadyLoveStingRay5, Crispus, chuck65 and 3 others
#31,384
I suppose I get to experience G&L service for myself first-hand...the story is, on 7/4 I purchased a Kiloton 5, a great instrument. Monday I took it to my setup tech in SE Michigan and waited for a call-back saying the Kiloton was setup properly. Instead, Wednesday rolls around and my tech calls me and says that as he was adjusting the neck relief, the truss rod broke at the weld, in his words, "sheared right off". It felt like a Battan Death March driving the 40 miles to pick up the wounded Kiloton. The tech called G&L and inquired about a new neck but was told the bass had to get shipped to Fullerton CA because G&L has to fashion at least the neck heel to fit squarely in the neck pocket.

Got the bass back and later called G&L service and finally after many "mailbox full" messages, reached Memo Romero...I requested an RMA via email that I might get a reply soon enough to ship the bass out by today, but two days later, here it sits, no RMA as of yet. It's amazing that once I had this neck issue, I "magically" found all sorts of G&L owners with neck problems, and at Guitars By Leo, I'm reading of 22 to 28 weeks lead time for a neck. Yikes!

And to top it off, the other bass in my rotation, a Ric 4003, recently suffered damage and is being refinished at a shop 120 miles away. I had to pull a Jazz Bass out of the Classifieds here and I imagine I will probably be using it for awhile. Thanks for enduring my rant.
 
  • Like
  • Sad
Reactions: Murch, jglunt, Glazenn and 4 others
#31,385
I had a bad experience with a BTO in 2018. The neck had light blue stains under the finish and some areas were burned through on the buffing wheel. I canceled when the neck fix took twice as long as the bass took to make originally.

Folks report broken truss rods here. I personally know two people with newer G&Ls that experienced broken rods. One had the rod break almost immediately on the replacement neck.

G&L have long been a favorite. Im mainly interested in 80s and late 90s ones for a variety of reasons.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Murch, jglunt, Glazenn and 1 other person
#31,386
jglunt said:
When I had G&L build me a new neck for my SB-2, I had zero contact with them. The only way I knew it arrived there was by my tracking number. Four months later, with no notice, the bass with its new neck showed up on my doorstep, much to my surprise.

I've been checking back in on that site from time to time, and nothing has been announced that I've seen.
Click to expand...
Heyas, here's a link to a post by Ken that says it's staying up, but read only, for now. For now is one year.... for now.

 
  • Like
Reactions: Glazenn and jglunt
#31,389
Just thought I would throw my 2 cents in.Around 5 years ago I bought a Limited Edition Fender Deluxe Active Precision bass in Sapphire Blue with ash body from Sweetwater.The bass was exclusive to Sweetwater alone with less than 150 made.A little over 2 years into ownership I decided to have it professionally setup and have a set of TI Jazz Flats put on.My luthier calls me a few days later and tells me my trussrod spins freely and doesn't do anything.I called Sweetwater and ask why this wasn't caught in their multi point inspection and that I paid for different strings to be installed and it should of be caught then as well.Funny there was the inspection tag from the Fender factory with someone's signature that missed it as well.I emailed Fender 3 times about it and they said take it back to Sweetwater.I really wanted to keep that bass but after calling Fender 6 TIMES! and being on hold up to an half hour waiting for someone to pickup I gave up.Sweetwater calls me back and agrees to give my $ back since it should have been caught during the inspection and setup.What great place to deal with.I took that Fender back to Sweetwater and applied that $ towards a G+L FULLERTON DELUXE JB.I love it and have had it a few years and it is the best bass I have ever owned.Sorry to hear a few of you have had problems with your G+L basses but believe me the incompetence I experienced from Fender I would be hard pressed to buy anything from them again.God Bless Sweetwater for handling the problem the way they did.They don't deserve that type of aggravation from Fender.
 
  • Like
  • Haha
Reactions: rok51, pjbassist, MrB64 and 6 others
#31,391
Sorry everyone.I just wanted to mention that G+L isn't alone in the mishandling of problematic instruments and the way they do or don't handle the problems.No one should have to wait months and months to get problems resolved and correspondence with the customers needs to greatly improve.When people pay that much $ for something those companies need to be Johnny on the Spot in their response.On that note one of the companies I've dealt with over the years that has always dotted the I and crossed the t is Mesa Boogie.Fender and G+L could definitely learn something from Mesa as to how they handle problems.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Crispus, metron, MrB64 and 2 others
#31,393
Over the weekend, my SB-1 has been with my tech, being properly set up with the 35-95 Roto Bass nickel-plated rounds that are now its destiny. He took the opportunity to investigate what the truss rod is doing. He says that it is at least still adjustable - it does work, just within a desperately restricted range. So I think we can reasonably hope that going forward the neck will not be, err, moving forward. We've recorded what the action is currently at, so if in the future I feel it has gotten worse, we can check that out. From G string to E string the action is .049 / .053 / .059 / .065
 
#31,394
BruceG68 said:
Just thought I would throw my 2 cents in.Around 5 years ago I bought a Limited Edition Fender Deluxe Active Precision bass in Sapphire Blue with ash body from Sweetwater.The bass was exclusive to Sweetwater alone with less than 150 made.A little over 2 years into ownership I decided to have it professionally setup and have a set of TI Jazz Flats put on.My luthier calls me a few days later and tells me my trussrod spins freely and doesn't do anything.I called Sweetwater and ask why this wasn't caught in their multi point inspection and that I paid for different strings to be installed and it should of be caught then as well.Funny there was the inspection tag from the Fender factory with someone's signature that missed it as well.I emailed Fender 3 times about it and they said take it back to Sweetwater.I really wanted to keep that bass but after calling Fender 6 TIMES! and being on hold up to an half hour waiting for someone to pickup I gave up.Sweetwater calls me back and agrees to give my $ back since it should have been caught during the inspection and setup.What great place to deal with.I took that Fender back to Sweetwater and applied that $ towards a G+L FULLERTON DELUXE JB.I love it and have had it a few years and it is the best bass I have ever owned.Sorry to hear a few of you have had problems with your G+L basses but believe me the incompetence I experienced from Fender I would be hard pressed to buy anything from them again.God Bless Sweetwater for handling the problem the way they did.They don't deserve that type of aggravation from Fender.
Click to expand...
I agree completely with regards to Sweetwater. I got my Fullerton Deluxe JB from them and I did my BTO L2K with them as well. The only problem I had with either of them was that the JB was missing an intonation spring, and they sent that out to me post haste. They are both fantastic instruments. Like you said about yours, the best I've ever owned.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Crispus and jglunt
#31,396
MrB64 said:
Heyas, here's a link to a post by Ken that says it's staying up, but read only, for now. For now is one year.... for now.

Click to expand...
Something expired as it's not loading. 😢 That's sad. Let's just blame facebooger and the likes for this happening. 😤

pjbassist said:
We were told that Talkbass was "Arguably over due" for a refresh too...
Click to expand...
Oh yeah? Interesting. I dropped a bunch of posts in the Suggestion Box. So far nobody seems to like anything. People are very averse to change, even if it doesn't really affect anything... 😅
 
#31,397
Mister_GothFrak said:
Something expired as it's not loading. 😢 That's sad. Let's just blame facebooger and the likes for this happening. 😤


Oh yeah? Interesting. I dropped a bunch of posts in the Suggestion Box. So far nobody seems to like anything. People are very averse to change, even if it doesn't really affect anything... 😅
Click to expand...

I just wanna know when we'll ever get the "smart ass" emoticon back.

I'm deeply affected by the recent loss of it! (blank space here)
 
  • Like
Reactions: Murch, Lucky Chuck and jglunt
#31,398
I must say that all these comments about G&L surprise me. I thought G&L was loved and it is sad to read all of these comments. My experience with the brand is very limited, a L2500 which was pretty amazing (that I didn't buy though, because I preferred a Yamaha BB735) and a new LB-100 I have recently bought. It feels really good but I will make it a setup and check for any issue. Out of the box is really great.

20240801_133057.jpg
 
  • Like
  • Wow
Reactions: tIANcI, FearNoEvil65, Murch and 11 others
#31,399
javi_bassist said:
I must say that all these comments about G&L surprise me. I thought G&L was loved and it is sad to read all of these comments. My experience with the brand is very limited, a L2500 which was pretty amazing (that I didn't buy though, because I preferred a Yamaha BB735) and a new LB-100 I have recently bought. It feels really good but I will make it a setup and check for any issue. Out of the box is really great.

View attachment 6999303
Click to expand...

It's not unusual for the few with bad experiences to congregate and be the most vocal. That doesn't discount or negate their experience, but neither does it mean that every G&L bass has some major issue. I currently have 5 G&Ls in the house with no problems, including USA-made necks from 1987-mid 2010s and an Indonesian Tribute Guitar. Every single one is and has been rock solid, as were the other G&Ls I've had and sold over the past 25 years.

Enjoy your new LB100! Mine ('94) is LPB, but a vintage pearloid PG and no blocks. It's a fantastic P-bass with a superb neck!
 
  • Like
Reactions: pjbassist, woodyng2, Murch and 7 others
#31,400
lowfreqgeek said:
It's not unusual for the few with bad experiences to congregate and be the most vocal. That doesn't discount or negate their experience, but neither does it mean that every G&L bass has some major issue. I currently have 5 G&Ls in the house with no problems, including USA-made necks from 1987-mid 2010s and an Indonesian Tribute Guitar. Every single one is and has been rock solid, as were the other G&Ls I've had and sold over the past 25 years.

Enjoy your new LB100! Mine ('94) is LPB, but a vintage pearloid PG and no blocks. It's a fantastic P-bass with a superb neck!
Click to expand...
Absolutely. And I should follow up my less than ideal BTO experience was followed by two others that were good. Yes I went back for more because I really like G&L and they can make outstanding instruments. I was nervous for the outcome though.

I would order another but the truss rods seem to be an issue. I would personally like to see a design change.
 
  • Like
Reactions: woodyng2, javi_bassist, jglunt and 1 other person

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back