Guitar Center.....wtf? (Updated in post 19)

Stopped into a nearby GC last night just to look around. Wandered into the Acoustic room to see if they had any decent left handeds to look at. I spotted a used Carvin Cobalt 850t for cheap. I'd played one of these about 5 years ago, and thought it was a decent guitar for the money. A sales kid comes in and says "wanna play it?" There was nobody else in the room playing so I said okay and he hands me a pick. I started to tune it up, but the door to the room was open, so I asked the kid to please close it.
 
As soon as I got it tuned and started to play a couple of chords, I hear this out of tune mandolin behind me. Thinking there was someone else in the room I missed, I turn around and there is the GC kid wandering around the room riffing on the mandolin, while he's staring up at the walls. I stopped playing and he gets around to my side of the room and just looks at me and smiles and nods and continues on around the room playing.
 
I put the guitar back on the wall and stood up, and without stopping playing he says "so..whaddya think?" WTF?
 
I went home and ordered a new Telecaster from MF. That's what I think!
 
 
Randy
 
 

I was very disappointed in the store in Baton Rouge. The workers there were NOT musicians and were only interested in showing me their push for the day.

Every trip to the big store here in Houston is a new experience. 
 
I went in once, said to the sales hippy who was busy untangling guitar cables "I wanna buy this Vox amp"  "Really??  Cool.  Be right with ya!"  He heads into the back room.  30 minutes later no sign of him anywhere.  Turns out someone who pointed at something slightly more expensive than the amp I wanted to lay some cash on had his complete attention in another room.  Buh bye.
 
Just a couple weeks back I reluctantly took a friend who just transferred here from Scotland to the same store to look at bass amps.   Friend has maybe 30 days experience on the instrument.  Another new sales dude approaches and offers help.  Friend mentions that his chops aren't sufficient to really test the rig and could the guy help out.  Guy has 30 years experience on bass and proves it convincingly.  Meanwhile another gifted player walks up, joins the chat and lays out some grooves.  Everyone is smiling and feeling the love.  Friend buys amp, salesman helps us stuff it into a very small KIA and off we go.  Friend says "thanks so much for helping me out!  What an awesome store!"
 
Must have been a good day or something?  Fun part was getting the rig to his house and learning firsthand how Scottish women say "what in the name of @&#* is that thing??" 

  Must be. The kid I dealt with had scruffy tufts of it all over his face. The only thing separating him from the homeless look was the nametag.

I went in to Menard's one Saturday to price a couple of windows for a shed I was building.

Walk up to the building counter and the guy puts his finger up to me in a shushing fashion. He had one of those ear pieces in, so I thought he was on the phone and couldn't talk.

The dude also had a couple of boxes of 'widgets' in front of him that he started counting ... after he put his finger up to me.

Pissed me off, but I stood there and waited for him. There was another guy there talking to a lady about doors or something.

At least 3 minutes go by, and I'm standing there looking up at the ceiling, looking at my wife, looking down at the floor, and she can see my face getting red and my blood pressure starting to boil. All the while, this guy is slowly counting his widgets, not saying a word on the phone, and writing down his count on a note pad as he's counting the widgets.

Finally he says, "And that makes 54." as he counts his last widget, and he lets out a loud short sharp sigh and rolls his eyes and says, "What do you need?".

I asked him if he was on the phone the whole time I was standing there and he said he wasn't on the phone, he was counting his widgets.

I blew a gasket and laid in to the ignorant freaking moron. I'm getting pissed just thinking about it now again. He was one of those cocky f'rs that stood there bumping up a shoulders, head bobbing, rolling his eyes while he was ignoring me and counting his widgets.

I said to him, "I'm building a new house and came in to price 15 inside doors, an entry door, 12 windows, and a 16 x 8 garage door, but I'll come back another day when you're not too busy counting." And I walked out. And the guy didn't say a word to me! He grabbed another box of widgets from under the counter and dumped out and started counting them again. I couldn't believe it.

I hear the guy next to him say, right in front of the other customer, "What the ***k is wrong with you man? Couldn't you have done that after you talked to the guy."

I hope he got fired. I really do.

Randy (or any lefties) ... look here.

If you're interested, I'm willing to come down on the price.

I decided to go through these guys because I didn't want to deal with packing and shipping and I thought I'd have a better chance of selling it via a real guitar store. If you talk to them, tell them you talked to the owner on-line and he said he'd be willing to lower the price.

I despise walking into big brick and mortar music stores. The douche levels are just far too high. Gives me panic attacks.

Must... escape... douches!

I don't even think they have GCs up here. I've certainly never been in one. From the stories I see here I'm more than content with that fact.

Pretty much everything I need I can get online. However trying buy a guitar over the tubes is... well, not great. Even the best makes and brands need to be handled before purchase IMO. I did however luck out with my Yammie but it does need some work. Still would have bought it though. Great axe.

We are VERY limited in choices up here as far as big music stores. The smaller places a usually far cooler anyway but tend to be a little more costly... well after they realize they can charge a ridiculous amount. I've seen a couple good stores get greedy and sink themselves because of it.

So I went back to GC today and after seeing that the same kid wasn't working, I went in to the Acoustic room and didn't see the Carvin. A sales guy came walking in and just gave me a nod, and I asked him about the used Carvin I saw last night. They had moved it, and he reached up and pulled it down, handed me a pick and said "want to use a tuner?" I told him no, I'd just harmonically tune it and he said "I"ll be right outside if you have any questions" and closed the door on his way out.

I played for about 15 minutes. Just a real nice guitar. Great neck, balance and tone. There isn't a mark on it. I stood up and he walks in and I asked if it had a case. Yup, original hard Carvin case. I didn't even haggle and just told him to ring it up. He says as we are walking out, "I know the answers, but when we get to the counter I'm gonna ask you to buy some crap you don't want, okay?" So sure enough, he offers the Gold Plan and then he offers the humidifier, strings, strap, picks" The manager is standing nearby listening to make sure the guy gives me the whole spiel, and I politely declined the extras. All in all, an enjoyable experience.

I got a nice Carvin Cobalt 850t in mint condition with a hard case for $299.

Randy

p.s. I'll post pics of the Telecaster I ordered last night when it arrives. Lets just keep that one between us guys til I figure out how I'm gonna explain 2 new guitars 3 weeks before Christmas.

Buy one get one (almost) free?

So I went back to GC today and after seeing that the same kid wasn't working, I went in to the Acoustic room and didn't see the Carvin. A sales guy came walking in and just gave me a nod, and I asked him about the used Carvin I saw last night. They had moved it, and he reached up and pulled it down, handed me a pick and said "want to use a tuner?" I told him no, I'd just harmonically tune it and he said "I"ll be right outside if you have any questions" and closed the door on his way out. I played for about 15 minutes. Just a real nice guitar. Great neck, balance and tone. There isn't a mark on it. I stood up and he walks in and I asked if it had a case. Yup, original hard Carvin case. I didn't even haggle and just told him to ring it up. He says as we are walking out, "I know the answers, but when we get to the counter I'm gonna ask you to buy some crap you don't want, okay?" So sure enough, he offers the Gold Plan and then he offers the humidifier, strings, strap, picks" The manager is standing nearby listening to make sure the guy gives me the whole spiel, and I politely declined the extras. All in all, an enjoyable experience. I got a nice Carvin Cobalt 850t in mint condition with a hard case for $299. Randy

 
I'm glad you went back. That is a good ending!! You're a better man than me. I would have told him, in the hearing of the  manager, about the other visit. Maybe not though, I am better than I used to be about letting things slide. I likely would have told him something like, "You know, you are the reason that I bought this guitar". Then let him ask why... etc.
You were graceful about it I though. You're a good guy. I hardly ever see any Carvin guitars here in GA. I'll see a 100-X or whatever the old head was that they reintroduced a few years ago. I sometimes think it is the same one poppint up in different pawn shops, lol. I'd love to play one of their guitars. They all look really nice and their catalog is very seductive... almost convinced me to buy one of their SS combo amps and the Bel Aire looks cool too, but I bet it sounds just like a PV classic. They make beautiful guitars but I wonder how well they keep their value. Most of my guitars go up in value, even the fancy one has.
Anyway... good story!
 
J
 
 

  The GC here where I live is decent. The people working there are knowledgeable.
 
 The main problem I have with that store is that for the longest time there were all of these kids in there working beatz in the keyboards section and plinking on all the guitars in the guitars section. Sometimes it will be quiet and I'll decide to try something out and within a few seconds one of these guys comes around close to me and starts up something. It is usually just too loud with all of that going on to hear what I'm trying to do.

 I understand it is a music store and they sell instruments but man noone has the decent common courtesy to let a guy try something out for a few minutes. The last time I was there I noticed they had the keyboards turned off. Maybe a few employees had to go insane first.

 I gave up using the tester guitars to try effects and such as they are junk and I usually can't hear anyways.

 When I go in there now I usually make a quick 5 minute sweep of the place with my wife waiting in the car. I know where everything is and what I might want. If it isn't there I don't waste my time.

Went to both Guitar Center ans Sam Ash yesterday. I was looking for a "newly arrived" amp I saw on GC's web site. The Blackstar ID 15 (which looks totally killer for a solid state amp).

http://www.sweetwater.com...QCFQ_hQgodiz0ARw 

What I hadn't seen however was the fine prints - estimated shipping January 4th, as I learned after speaking to a couple of sales guys.  (Sweetwaters claims it'll ship on 12/9, but that's the same thing they say for all Blackstar amps.)


In fact they had only ONE Blackstar in the shop - a used HT 15. At $300, in absolutely mint condition, it was quite a bargain. I was ready to walk home w/ it when my wife brought my attention to a little puzzling note in the upper corner of the price tag - available for pick up 12/26. 

Seems that in Nevada, the law requires that second hand goods be kept for a 30 days period - in the event that it was stolen and is claimed. Bummer. I needed a little amp NOW.

The sales guy suggested that I might want to look at Line 6 amps, which were every where in the store. No thanks.

While we were there, my wife wanted to look for a short scale bass, preferably a Jaguar or a Mustang. Bummer again - they had neither.

Empty handed, off we went to Sam Ash. The sales guy there was a bit older and sounded more like a musician selling gear than just a sales person. We started discussing the Blackstar amps lineage  - and, yipee, they had a bunch of them in store. Off we were to see a couple of used Mesa Boogies, and then some cool little Marshalls. Overall, it felt more like discussing gear and tone w/ a fellow musician.

They also had the Peavey Vypyr, which looks really cool, but I'm trying to move away from modeling amps - I just wants some elements of it. The ID 15 will have this cool feature which allows you to switch between different type of tube emulation, but overall, it still looks like an amp, not a POD in a combo amp, w/ all the effects and whatnot.

Since I needed a bit more time to evaluate my options because the one amp I wanted won't be available before next year, I once again left empty handed. 

Went home and spent a few hours researching on the web. For a while, I did reconsider the Line 6 Spider IV 75, but eventually, pretty much settled for the little Blackstar HT-1. 

The one thing that bothered me was the lack of a proper EQ section, and I still have to try it for myself to see how that single knob ISF thingie works. 

But on the good side, it has real tubes, i can crank it because it's only 1 watt, and that mighty little bastard can even feed a 4 x 12 cab. And it has the speaker emulated output which I can use to record whenever I want.

So it looks like I'll be paying the folks at Sam Ash another visit today. :P