Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
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.
Re: Poor Set-ups in Music stores
- Thread starter honeyboy
- Start date
I think that it has to do with the large inventory at todays music stores. Even small Mom and Pop stores are stocking much more inventory. It's just hard to keep up with the daily teenage "wankfest" going on every day. I work retail and will periodically check out the bass necks for any bad up or back bow, but there are some that I don't get to because of customers or other things. If you ask for a setup you shall receive. Rarely will you be turned down.
Yup, you betcha it's about different climates. Haven't you ever shipped a bass cross-country? I've done many, and the necks never have the same bow-setting when they get to their destination...and that's with Spector, G&L, Fender, Musicman, even Ibanez.
It's the resposibility of the store to have their merchandise setup so it appeals to the customer...that's what their in business for! The small stores here do and it's great. The GC's here don't and I always find any/all brand basses usually with strings 1/2" off the neck.
It's the resposibility of the store to have their merchandise setup so it appeals to the customer...that's what their in business for! The small stores here do and it's great. The GC's here don't and I always find any/all brand basses usually with strings 1/2" off the neck.
The GC in my area doesn't setup ANYTHING! I was checking out a T-bird there and asked if the price included setup. The manager told me "We don't do any kind of tech work here, they are pretty much setup from the factory." 
OK, I'm not saying that anecdotes ever prove anything, but I thought I'd just throw this in. I was in the Bass Centre (a pretty big music store) about a month ago. I tried out 6 basses: Sub 4 & 5, MIM fender jazz 4 & 5, Warwick $$ 4 and a Warwick Corvette 5. None of them were perfect but the fenders were in a totally different league of badly set up. I'm here in London so both the MMs and the fenders had crossed the atlantic (I assume by plane) and ended up in a much colder part of the world than where thay started off, yet the MMs needed a bit of tinkering and the fenders were pretty much unplayable. I'm not suggesting that this is in any way conclusive (it was quite a small sample) but it did make me wonder how much fender care about setting their basses up. It also resulted in me spending my money on a Sub 5, so their loss I supose.
Cheers
Cheers
the cij fender's (geddy lee, marcus miller, aerodyne, ect) are much more playable than the mia fender's when new - at least imho... generally lower action w/ less fret buzz - not sure if this is purely due to climate or what - any thoughts. i've never had a set-up on my GL.
Well as a followup on this thread.. I just returned from a trip to my home town in the SF Bay Area where I went back to my favorite music stores, and played a few instruments along with a good friend of mine and studio bassist..
Anyway, I did get to play 3 Lull's and 2 Sadowsky's.. With the exception of the one Sadowsky at Gelb Music, all needed a proper setup, and one of the Sad's needed a fret filing down as well.. why? Clearly it's nothing to do with their quality, they all looked extremely well made, and all carried price tags in the $2000's+ but the fact is that they have travelled a long way, and the temps and humidity are totally different in the SF Bay area from their original place of manufacture.
Anyway, I got to properly experience the Sad at Gelb, as it seemed very nicely setup, (as were all of their Fender's, including their MIM's, which tells you that it's the stores responsibility to do it)... and it played very nicely, and sounded great.. the pre-amp is definitely better than that in the MIA Active Fenders... but over all I found the workmanship and other subjectives to be on par with Fender's MIA like and CS line in certain areas.. I do like the fact that you have a Active/Passive cutout, but lament the loss of a stringthru bridge.. they're really well made however, and the finish felt nice, whether I'd pay $2000 for one vs CS, I'm not sure about, as it didn't seem clear to me that it was better sounding than one of them, but the sound was nicer than the active MIA Jazz I played for sure.
Eitherway, the Setups were all bad at the one store, and all good at Gelb... go figure?
Anyway, I did get to play 3 Lull's and 2 Sadowsky's.. With the exception of the one Sadowsky at Gelb Music, all needed a proper setup, and one of the Sad's needed a fret filing down as well.. why? Clearly it's nothing to do with their quality, they all looked extremely well made, and all carried price tags in the $2000's+ but the fact is that they have travelled a long way, and the temps and humidity are totally different in the SF Bay area from their original place of manufacture.
Anyway, I got to properly experience the Sad at Gelb, as it seemed very nicely setup, (as were all of their Fender's, including their MIM's, which tells you that it's the stores responsibility to do it)... and it played very nicely, and sounded great.. the pre-amp is definitely better than that in the MIA Active Fenders... but over all I found the workmanship and other subjectives to be on par with Fender's MIA like and CS line in certain areas.. I do like the fact that you have a Active/Passive cutout, but lament the loss of a stringthru bridge.. they're really well made however, and the finish felt nice, whether I'd pay $2000 for one vs CS, I'm not sure about, as it didn't seem clear to me that it was better sounding than one of them, but the sound was nicer than the active MIA Jazz I played for sure.
Eitherway, the Setups were all bad at the one store, and all good at Gelb... go figure?
I used to work at a shop that would in fact set up all the instruments upon arrival and we would even occasionally readjust those instruments that hung around for a while. A good set up makes an instrument much easier to sell!
And hey, if you ask a GC employee to set up an instrument that you are really interested in they likely will - I have done it before. But then again, they know I like to spend money so if I asked them to wax my truck they probably would, lol.
And hey, if you ask a GC employee to set up an instrument that you are really interested in they likely will - I have done it before. But then again, they know I like to spend money so if I asked them to wax my truck they probably would, lol.
Hokay...then watch the prices go up in the shops because the shop owners have to keep someone on staff to set up every single bass that comes in every time. Personally, I don't think that they have the time or money to reset basses coming from the factory. Maybe it should be Fender that should look into ways to keep the basses that are shipped from becoming the product of a poor packaging technique that doesn't account for climate changes, in transit and on arrival...SamJ said:
So, my question is; who should have to pay for the setup? Fender, the shop owner, or the buyer?
gottawalk said:
Well, Gelb had VERY competitive pricing, and well set up basses, so clearly the cost isn't an issue, since the staff there to sell isn't selling at every minute.. I walked into Gelb on a Monday at 11, and there were some 5 employees staffing the store.. so that tells me they had enough to cover the floor, maintain the setups, and still give time for a couple of them to walk outside for a smoke break... it's not that hard to setup (At least preliminarily) a guitar.
SamJ said:
Funny you should mention this. A sales rep at my local store pissed me off this weekend and we had an interesting convo:
Me (while playing a Fender J): Why isn't this bass set-up well? All the KSDs and Yamahas are set-up WAY better than this and those other fenders...
Rep: I'm not paid to do that dude.
Me: So i guess you're paid to stand outside for most of the day and talk to each other right? Or take naps behind the counter like you usually are when i come in? How hard is it to set-up the basses when they arrive? I'm not even a tech and i do simple enough set-ups to keep them from playing this badly.
Rep: We don't have enough staff to set-up every bass that comes in dude...you know how long that would take?
Me (looking around to see SEVEN people in the store doing NOTHING): There's 7 of you guys in here and 6 fenders...You could set all of those up by yourself in a couple hours if you relax and do REALLY good set-ups...and less than that if one or two guys help out...that still leaves FOUR people to run an empty store...
Afterwards he got called away to do something and i got up and left.
Fretless5verfan said:Funny you should mention this. A sales rep at my local store pissed me off this weekend and we had an interesting convo:
Me (while playing a Fender J): Why isn't this bass set-up well? All the KSDs and Yamahas are set-up WAY better than this and those other fenders...
Rep: I'm not paid to do that dude.
Me: So i guess you're paid to stand outside for most of the day and talk to each other right? Or take naps behind the counter like you usually are when i come in? How hard is it to set-up the basses when they arrive? I'm not even a tech and i do simple enough set-ups to keep them from playing this badly.
Rep: We don't have enough staff to set-up every bass that comes in dude...you know how long that would take?
Me (looking around to see SEVEN people in the store doing NOTHING): There's 7 of you guys in here and 6 fenders...You could set all of those up by yourself in a couple hours if you relax and do REALLY good set-ups...and less than that if one or two guys help out...that still leaves FOUR people to run an empty store...
Afterwards he got called away to do something and i got up and left.
Well, you like me are probably testing some theories about all of the set up discussion we've all been having, and my theory has so far proven this (anecdotally)..
-There is always enough staff at music store to do the setups, even if not professionally done, they're better than nothing.
-The quality of the staff at many stores is high enough, (read they play bass/guitar) that it can be reasonably expected that they would know how to do a basic setup
-Some stores (Gelb in Redwood City) take the time to do the set up, yet their salesman still seem to have a lot of down time, while other stores (Guitar Center) don't.
-Fender, due to their design, and the obvious fact that the factory doesn't even attempt to set them up at the point where they are packaged is more prone to fall victim to this, which may lead some (did me for quite a while) to conclude their basses suck! Which can lead to a lot of bad rep, and bad will towards Fender.
In the case of my sitting down at Gelb and trying out some 10 different basses, Fenders, Sadowsky's, Lulls, MusicMan, etc.. they politely took me to an Ampeg 115 all-in-one practice amp, gave me a 1/4" cable and said.. "help yourself, call if you need anything else" and left me alone for 30 minutes, while they went about their business, much of it idle, but heck, their world was done! so why not?
I treated the instruments with great respect, and each and every one played nicely, with nice new strings, and a great setup.. Gleb is an example of how to do it. I am sure there are others..
This is an interesting thread. IMHO, I would say that there should be a high motivation on the part of any music store to have their instruments in the best possible playable condition. For the larger chains, in particular, which may be dealing with a less sophisticated clientele, who may not understand that a good setup is the key to the best possible playability, and who would likely walk out of a store (with a subsequent lost sale) if they found an instrument playing 'poorly', a good setup would be a benefit to their bottom line.
I have not personally had the luxury of actually going physically to the dealer from whom I purchase the majority of my guitars, but being a high end place, I would expect that the setups on their guitars, in the store, would be fabulous. Most of the guitars I've gotten from them still require a minor amount of tweaking, but that's personal preference. That said, the new floor model Precision Bass I just got yesterday from some store in Ohio (off Ebay, not my favorite shop) was horribly set up. The good news, for me, at least, was that I found the amount of effort to lower the action, and set the intonation, was FAR easier on a bass than a guitar. I had everything perfect in about half an hour. Maybe that's a data point. I'm no pro with respect to instrument setup, but it sure doesn't take a lot to improve playability of a bass or guitar pretty quickly and with not a lot of effort.
The bottom line is that (again, in my opinion) anyone who is half serious about playing ought to have some fundamental knowledge about setup, and be able to differentiate between an instrument which merely needs a good setup, and one which isn't a 'good' instrument. Yes, it would be nice to have an instrument in a store set up at least to factory specs, but life ain't perfect.
I have not personally had the luxury of actually going physically to the dealer from whom I purchase the majority of my guitars, but being a high end place, I would expect that the setups on their guitars, in the store, would be fabulous. Most of the guitars I've gotten from them still require a minor amount of tweaking, but that's personal preference. That said, the new floor model Precision Bass I just got yesterday from some store in Ohio (off Ebay, not my favorite shop) was horribly set up. The good news, for me, at least, was that I found the amount of effort to lower the action, and set the intonation, was FAR easier on a bass than a guitar. I had everything perfect in about half an hour. Maybe that's a data point. I'm no pro with respect to instrument setup, but it sure doesn't take a lot to improve playability of a bass or guitar pretty quickly and with not a lot of effort.
The bottom line is that (again, in my opinion) anyone who is half serious about playing ought to have some fundamental knowledge about setup, and be able to differentiate between an instrument which merely needs a good setup, and one which isn't a 'good' instrument. Yes, it would be nice to have an instrument in a store set up at least to factory specs, but life ain't perfect.
there was an mia jazz at my local gc that had been hanging around the store for about a year. it had a large ding in the body and was sort of beat from kids playing it, but was a nice bass in need of a set up. one of the assistant managers (who is a great bass player) decided to have some fun with this bass and slapped on a set of super light strings, like picolo strings and give this bass a set up with super low action. he had just finished it when i walked in and asked me to try it. i just laughed like a little kid when i played this bass as it was so easy and fun to play. i think it sold within a day. peace, jeff
If you know that it only needs a good set up then what's the problem? Insist that the bad set up is a factory defect, get a price cut, take it home and set it up yourself.
See? It's actually a godsend.
See? It's actually a godsend.
How about this one...
"I'm not an alcoholic. I'm a drunk. The difference is that alcoholics like to go to meetings, I don't." - Jackie Gleason
"I'm not an alcoholic. I'm a drunk. The difference is that alcoholics like to go to meetings, I don't." - Jackie Gleason
king_biscuit said:That's one of my favorite quotes... words to live by
Back to setups... I just received the Spector Euro 5 LX that I've had on order for several months. Out of the box, it played and sounded terrible. After setting up the truss rod and bridge, it's a dream bass. Setting up any guitar or bass is just a fact of life. If you don't know how or feel comfortable doing the work yourself, find someone who can and you will be pleased with how much better the instrument performs. This cannot be said enough times.
Paul Mac
Paul Mac
