Music Store Pet Peeves

[sangsaratrip]

Lame, douchey, arrogant employees that work there. Annoying sales people that keep bugging you. Lack of help, especially when you are in front of a group of employees who are just chatting it up. Amps that are not plugged in. Dead active basses. Lack of selection of basses and amps. The annoying music they usually play over the intercom system. Bait and switch tactics. What else, I'm sure there is more. Check out this site I just found,
Link Removed
That T shirt kicks ass. I want to get it and walk into Guitar Center, that would be sweet.

 

[Staccato]

Not an available cable in site for a bass demo!

In the meantime, you can watch them talk on the phone, or ring up customers until then. <customer impatiently taps his foot>
Let's see, ask for assistance (cord) and they know you're there. I get it...

 

[Rudyboy98]

Now here's the voice of experience. And at GC, I'll assume they hang the high end basses up high to try and avoid damage and insure salesman involvement. Which I understand, but yet either the ladder or salesman is not around to get it down for you.

+10000 for that post!

I don't mind it being out of the way to prevent damage.

However, anyone trying to sell me something I don't need definitely frustrates me. What frustrates me even more is that once the salesperson does "try to help" he can't negotiate a fair price. GC, Sam Ash, and heck even Musician's "Friend" (some oxymoron..everyone's a musician's friend aren't they-as long as the musician offers something back...) are price fixed. They're all the same corporation.

Don't tell me I can take advantage of the "BEST SALES EVENT YET!" when I see the same instrument for the same price all year long-and they change the price to within $20.00.

OR the same situation where "LAST CHANCE for **% off" on cheap stuff I don't want-and their regular stock is actually the usual price or...the small print on the AD that says...doesn't apply to xxxx brand, xxxx brand, xxxx brand....So then...why all the fuss about THE SALE?!

But I digress...ARGH!!!!

R...

 

[Eminor3rd]

Clearly you've never worked in a music store.

 

[martybernal]

+10000 for that post!

I don't mind it being out of the way to prevent damage.

However, anyone trying to sell me something I don't need definitely frustrates me. What frustrates me even more is that once the salesperson does "try to help" he can't negotiate a fair price. GC, Sam Ash, and heck even Musician's "Friend" (some oxymoron..everyone's a musician's friend aren't they-as long as the musician offers something back...) are price fixed. They're all the same corporation.

Don't tell me I can take advantage of the "BEST SALES EVENT YET!" when I see the same instrument for the same price all year long-and they change the price to within $20.00.

OR the same situation where "LAST CHANCE for **% off" on cheap stuff I don't want-and their regular stock is actually the usual price or...the small print on the AD that says...doesn't apply to xxxx brand, xxxx brand, xxxx brand....So then...why all the fuss about THE SALE?!

But I digress...ARGH!!!!

R...

100 percent correct. Or the GC holiday weekend sale with the printed flyers that list all the gear that the prices have been slashed. And people are lined up by the door
waiting for the store to open. And the prices on the gear you would actually want to buy is the same as the day before. Or as you said all year long. The thing I see a sale on at these events are the junk guitar stands or sets of bass guitar strings missing the damn G string. These GC sales events are waste of time. I've been to two of them and will never go back.

 

[Unrepresented]

The designed difficulty of demoing effects pedals with a bass.

Yes, I know you have a rack that all those pedals are looped into.

Yes, I see that you do have a guitar and a tiny practice amp to hear how they sound in a thin stringed treble machine.

I don't want to make you drag an amp or the display rack to a different section or be a bother, but these pedals can function with other instruments.

In their defense, at least one of the local GC's, as of recently, has a bass practice amp and bass hanging out in their "accessories" department.

 

[two fingers]

Well, I'm probably going to get hell for this but......
Let me tell you the OTHER side of the story. I worked at, and managed a music store for several years. There is NO WAY I would allow for all the amps to be plugged in, and a dozen guitar cables just laying around. First of all, the power chords and guitar cables (even the little cheap ones) would get stolen. Second, if you DID leave all of that stuff ready to go, you would have 5 guitar players and 5 bassists playing at the same time, all of them having a volume war, and all of them trying to out do each other. That would make for a TERRIBLE business environment. And you have to remember, even though music is fun, it IS A BUSINESS. I have had a policy that ALL basses and guitars get tuned first thing every morning, but it doesn't help. the VAST MAJORITY of out of tune guitars happen because of climate control and (most often) musicians with terrible ears. Set ups I will grant you. There's no excuse for putting a guitar or bass on the wall until it has been tweeked at least a little. But you also have to understand that for every musician, there is a different set up preference. So your version of an ultra high action may be just what another player loves. You might play SO LOW that other players would cringe at YOUR version of a "good set up".

Granted, there are a lot of terrible music stores out there. But I just wanted you to know that quite often, even though we tried, it was CUSTOMERS who junked up the bass section, and our ability to make it more user friendly. Cheers.

 

[RNV]

My GC doesn't have a place to try out effects. I was told that I had 30 days to try it and if were unharmed and I didn't like it, I could bring it back..... no questions. Well, you can return it for store credit only. I can return other things for cash back, but pedals are in house credit only and the receipt said nothing to that nature.

 

[Rico_2212]

This thread reminds me of the main reason I prefer to buy used. I only go into music stores to buy string, then get the hell out as fast as I can. I hate slap solos and wannabe Van Halens as much as the next guy.

 

[TheDude007]

Marty, I'm in KC too, where do you go for bass gear?

 

[masterFlash]

My humorous 2 cents...
Having money to burn I went in to a local store (not GC) to buy a fuzz pedal. The hired hand told me bass players don't use fuzz pedals. He showed me some distortion pedals and was quite put out when I asked if I could test them out. He was put out because he had to find batteries for them.

However the owner of this store is fantastic so I only buy when he is there.

 

[macaroni tony]

Well, I'm probably going to get hell for this but......
Let me tell you the OTHER side of the story. I worked at, and managed a music store for several years. There is NO WAY I would allow for all the amps to be plugged in, and a dozen guitar cables just laying around. First of all, the power chords and guitar cables (even the little cheap ones) would get stolen. Second, if you DID leave all of that stuff ready to go, you would have 5 guitar players and 5 bassists playing at the same time, all of them having a volume war, and all of them trying to out do each other. That would make for a TERRIBLE business environment. And you have to remember, even though music is fun, it IS A BUSINESS. I have had a policy that ALL basses and guitars get tuned first thing every morning, but it doesn't help. the VAST MAJORITY of out of tune guitars happen because of climate control and (most often) musicians with terrible ears. Set ups I will grant you. There's no excuse for putting a guitar or bass on the wall until it has been tweeked at least a little. But you also have to understand that for every musician, there is a different set up preference. So your version of an ultra high action may be just what another player loves. You might play SO LOW that other players would cringe at YOUR version of a "good set up".

Granted, there are a lot of terrible music stores out there. But I just wanted you to know that quite often, even though we tried, it was CUSTOMERS who junked up the bass section, and our ability to make it more user friendly. Cheers.

+1 from me...I've never worked in a music store, but I pretty much figured all of this

 

[Antares]

Not even GC specific, but all stores around me follow the same trend.

Apparently if its not a Fender, Musicman, Schecter, Ibanez or Warwick. They're not worth carrying. And your only allowed to have one 6 string bass on premises at all times. Anything more than that and apparently the world will end.

 

[delta7fred]

It's not just music shops, about 10 years ago I went to possibly the biggest music fair in the UK with the intention of buying a 5 String as none the local music shops had ever seen one let alone stocked them.

I found only one and eventually the salesman to ask if I could look at it. It was straight out of the box, not even tuned so I tuned it to the guitar next to it but the action was impossibly high.

At that moment the salesman came back hoping to get a sale, I just handed it back to him and said if they had bothered to set it up and tune it then I might have been interested. He offered to have it set up and ready in an hour but I had lost interest so went elsewhere and bought a couple of packs of strings for my P instead. A long way to go for strings and very disappointing. Funnily enough all the guitars were set up and ready to go.

It was another 5 years before I got one, a used Stingray 5 off Ebay.

 

[nightcityburn]

Driving over 150 miles to check out an incredible deal on a bass cab, only to plug up and immediately notice a blown driver that the sales person could have simply told me about.

Yes, I was very clear I was driving from Orlando to Tampa Bay.

 

[Staccato]

My GC doesn't have a place to try out effects. I was told that I had 30 days to try it and if were unharmed and I didn't like it, I could bring it back..... no questions. Well, you can return it for store credit only. I can return other things for cash back, but pedals are in house credit only and the receipt said nothing to that nature.

This is the strategy (ploy) in the GC Manual that reads, "most customers arrive home with gear, and are too lazy to return it-unless the product is defective."

 

[macaroni tony]

Driving over 150 miles to check out an incredible deal on a bass cab, only to plug up and immediately notice a blown driver that the sales person could have simply told me about.

Yes, I was very clear I was driving from Orlando to Tampa Bay.

Ooh....that's a tough blow

 

[martybernal]

Driving over 150 miles to check out an incredible deal on a bass cab, only to plug up and immediately notice a blown driver that the sales person could have simply told me about.

Yes, I was very clear I was driving from Orlando to Tampa Bay.

That sucks...

 

[martybernal]

Well, I'm probably going to get hell for this but......
Let me tell you the OTHER side of the story. I worked at, and managed a music store for several years. There is NO WAY I would allow for all the amps to be plugged in, and a dozen guitar cables just laying around. First of all, the power chords and guitar cables (even the little cheap ones) would get stolen. Second, if you DID leave all of that stuff ready to go, you would have 5 guitar players and 5 bassists playing at the same time, all of them having a volume war, and all of them trying to out do each other. That would make for a TERRIBLE business environment. And you have to remember, even though music is fun, it IS A BUSINESS. I have had a policy that ALL basses and guitars get tuned first thing every morning, but it doesn't help. the VAST MAJORITY of out of tune guitars happen because of climate control and (most often) musicians with terrible ears. Set ups I will grant you. There's no excuse for putting a guitar or bass on the wall until it has been tweeked at least a little. But you also have to understand that for every musician, there is a different set up preference. So your version of an ultra high action may be just what another player loves. You might play SO LOW that other players would cringe at YOUR version of a "good set up".

Granted, there are a lot of terrible music stores out there. But I just wanted you to know that quite often, even though we tried, it was CUSTOMERS who junked up the bass section, and our ability to make it more user friendly. Cheers.

Absolutely not. I was hoping someone just like you would chime in on this subject to help me better understand. You've given me a perspective from the store managers side. Whether I agree with it or not is not important, I appreciate it. I guess for me as long as the store personnel are available to get me what I need to try something out, I wouldn't have a big problem with it. But too many times the sales persons are no where to be found or as someone else said having clearly a personal conversation

There shouldn't be a single person that post anywhere here getting "hell", it's an opinion based forum. But it does happen here.

 

[macaroni tony]

aaawww :_O)