So I went to guitar cebter yesterday and went directly to the bass section (as always). Mostly the same as always a few good basses on the floor nothin special. I played through an ampeg combo witha jaguar and a mim jazz bass, but oddly enough the highlight of my trip was playing a $200 laguna bass out of a roland micro bass cube. How could this be?
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My GC experience
- Thread starter zeppelinbass95
- Start date
- Aug 5, 2005
- 7,243
- 92
- Disclosures
- Endorsing Artist: J.C. Basses
Laguna basses are an entirely different animals than both the Fenders you tried. And I'd take the Roland over an Ampeg any day. It's just a sign that you've seen the anti-Fender light and are slowly drifting away from the typical Fender + Ampeg rig.
All you have to do is take the red pill or the blue pill.
Welcome, to truth.
All you have to do is take the red pill or the blue pill.
Welcome, to truth.
A gal I work with bought a Laguna bass from GC not too long ago and had me check it out. Decent bass for the $$ but the setup it came with was godawful (action way too high, intonation off, etc.). I told her to take it to someone who knew what he was doing as far as setup and she brought it back a couple days later and it played really nicely.
I have a micro cube rx. Its friggin awesome!!! fun too! sounds much bigger than it is.
At my local GC the only Laguna is an LB224. I can't say much about the tone as it's the bass setup with the effects. However it sounds good with ME-50B
..
I couldn't see myself purchasing one as the body doesn't feel right to me, it seems slightly unbalanced and sits sort of awkwardly on MY body. Also i couldn't find a place that my plucking hand could comfortably be placed.
Due to a very limited supply of bass gear in my city I have not had an opportunity to try out the Micro Cube, Jaguar or MIM P bass
..I couldn't see myself purchasing one as the body doesn't feel right to me, it seems slightly unbalanced and sits sort of awkwardly on MY body. Also i couldn't find a place that my plucking hand could comfortably be placed.
Due to a very limited supply of bass gear in my city I have not had an opportunity to try out the Micro Cube, Jaguar or MIM P bass
despite what most people think...no.at least for me,cause my guitar center is actually one of the best ones
i love GC, i worked there over 3 years, and at our store we focused on customer satisfaction. i was a door guy for part of the time then worked in the warehouse. I understand when people say that the setup sucks most of the time, thats cause they go straight from the box to the floor (after tuning of course) and i was actually one of those picky guys, where if i noticed something too outta line (bad setup, rounds on a FL, loose knobs, etc) id set it behind the guitar desk until someone took care of it. if it went back up w/o being taken care of, id put it right back behind the counter. Of course id always look at the basses and not the gee-tars 
Even now as a customer i still make sure everyone does good. just bought a piece off the used site (Mark Hoppus bass for $300) and made sure that the store i bought it from made sure it was set up.
hope you had fun at that GC, and dont worry what brand anything is. as long as it sounds good and feels good to you, go for whatever!
Even now as a customer i still make sure everyone does good. just bought a piece off the used site (Mark Hoppus bass for $300) and made sure that the store i bought it from made sure it was set up.
hope you had fun at that GC, and dont worry what brand anything is. as long as it sounds good and feels good to you, go for whatever!
I just feel like, if selling instruments is your business, then it's just good business to present each instrument in the best possible light. Which for stringed instruments, means having them set-up so they're at least reasonably playable. I know people's tastes vary, but I think we can all pretty much agree that no one wants a bass with strings 1/4 inch off the fretboard and too much relief in the neck and the intonation all wack. This poor gal that showed me her Laguna is just starting out on bass and she said, "is it supposed to be this hard to play?" and I told her of course not. This isn't necessarily a dig only at GC (I've run into that careless attitude at other places as well).
- Aug 5, 2005
- 7,243
- 92
- Disclosures
- Endorsing Artist: J.C. Basses
i love GC, i worked there over 3 years, and at our store we focused on customer satisfaction. i was a door guy for part of the time then worked in the warehouse. I understand when people say that the setup sucks most of the time, thats cause they go straight from the box to the floor (after tuning of course) and i was actually one of those picky guys, where if i noticed something too outta line (bad setup, rounds on a FL, loose knobs, etc) id set it behind the guitar desk until someone took care of it. if it went back up w/o being taken care of, id put it right back behind the counter. Of course id always look at the basses and not the gee-tars
Even now as a customer i still make sure everyone does good. just bought a piece off the used site (Mark Hoppus bass for $300) and made sure that the store i bought it from made sure it was set up.
hope you had fun at that GC, and dont worry what brand anything is. as long as it sounds good and feels good to you, go for whatever!
Do you think they'd get mad if I brought my allen wrenches with me and toyed around with the action on some of the basses? Some of them are so absolutely ridiculous that 12 seconds with a bridge adjustment could make it damn-near playable.
As a visitor of Guitar Center, I could care less if the thing is properly intonated, but action adjustments are quick and easy. Does GC move enough volume daily not to warrant the 20 minutes of trivial care that it would take to make an instrument feel playable?
i totally understand that. sometimes they come bad out of the box, and something should be done. sometimes, believe it or not, its hard to get everything done required for a day, and then on top of that set up multiple instruments. sometimes they sell faster than recognized in which a setup would be needed
I often ask THEM for allen wrenches, especially if I'm serious about buying a particular instrument. Even if the setup is acceptable, I still want to make certain the truss rod is functional.
Compare to my local mom-and-pop shop where they know me by name. I was playing a Sterling they had just taken in used and the guy asked how I liked it and I said, "the action's a little high" and he took it out of my hands and re-set it for me on the spot. And thanked me for letting him know about it.
I just went to GC Last week and found something I never expected. I was just playing some basses when a salesman came up to me and said "Did you see the Tobias 6 string in the front of the store". So the next thing I know, I am playing a used Tobias Basic 6 string. Rosewood fretboard, Bubinga top, Neck thru. I fell in love with it. It was used of course. They had it for a sales price of 1700 bucks! I thought to my self, Man these things go for about 2800 dollars new. It was in mint condition and everything. I was looking to upgrade to a better 6 string. But I do not have the money saved up yet. So this one passed me by. 
That was probably the best experience at GC I have ever had.
That was probably the best experience at GC I have ever had.
Everyone's mileage will vary but we have a load of GC stores here in the Pacific NW so lots of choice. I shop downtown Seattle and couldn't be more pleased with the service and attitude of the sales guys. In addition, there are a few experts amongst them nice change. This is a stark contrast to my experience when I lived in S Fla.
I think so, all 3 of the T birds I played at the last GC I went to were very interesting to say the least. You could have fired an arrow off 2 of them the relief in the neck was so bad and the action on the third was so high it was almost funny.
Although, the Squier CV and fretless VM I played were set up very well and were a joy to play.
As to the Laguna, they seem like very nice instruments, though I only played the one....
