I love guitar center thread

  • Thread starter Thread starter Sanjanjoseph
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Love/hate gc

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    73
I think it's a so/so kinda place. You just need to know what you're dealing with. I find it to be a fun place to go and wander around and look at stuff. And they have a good selection of items when I want to buy something right away instead of online. They've never given me any trouble trying things out, and they've even let me let my kids bang around on the drums or strum a guitar or two (the tit for tat I need to give the little 'uns so that they sit quietly and in one place when I'm fiddling around).

As far as the loud music goes, that's a double-edged sword. when I'm just trying things out to fiddle around, I'm glad the music is on to mask my fiddling. When I am trying things out for real, they have always turned the music down if I ask, and sometimes even when I haven't (if I'm working with a salesman).

As far as helpfulness goes, you can't expect much. I have had one good experience where a guy went to the mat for me for a long time helping me to try out all kinds of heads and cabs. I picked one, brought it home, hated it, brought it back a couple days later, and he was like, no problem. Helped me out again, I picked up a new head, and I was all set. On the other side of the coin, when I went to get my first recording soundcard for my computer, I had done my research first, but wanted to ask the salesguy for help. I wanted to start on a budget, didn't want to spend a lot of money, knew there were entry level cards for $100 or so. What did he do? He brought me straight to the $600+ cards and then tried to sell me a midi controller, too, for another few hundred more. Fortunately, I did my homework first and knew that guy was trying to totally screw over a newbie, so you have to be careful.

So, I voted for "ok".
 
gc

Before GC and Mars came to the Baltimore metro area there were very few places to buy music gear and all the sales guys at these places ignored you unless you really intend to buy. I guess I expected them to help me learn about a product that I was inquiring about. And if I don't buy that day,they'll make an effort to make me come back and buy from them. When I was shopping for a 4track at Bills music, the owners son who was a sales guy walked me over to a Tascam ,pointed at it and walked away. So I took my money that was in my pocket walked across the street and bought there. The fact that you need to know more or as much about gear than the salesman to get a decent deal is bullshit. If a sales guy knows you aren't knowledgable about what you want to buy he/she should make an effort to do so. And without having to bullshit you. I listen to sales people bullshit the parents that come in with their 15 year old kids into spending more money than they need to. Damn shame. I've had no problems with the high dollar gear I've bought at GC(no guitars though) And I only go there after researching the product I'm interested in. They do cut me some slack on strings if I buy 5 packs or more. But the sales staff is not much to brag about. I find it hard to believe these guys are musicians. Been playing for 25 years and nothing has changed regarding shopping for gear.
 
the people working in guitar center are complete dipshits. the only time i buy from guitar center is when i go in there to buy $1,000 worth of guitar pedals which i use for 29 days while cutting a record and then return them on day 30.

"what's wrong with... all of them?"

"they don't make me sound like deep purple. i'm trying to sound like deep purple."

the other real problem is that they really don't carry any interesting guitar effects and they have a shit selection of studio gear. and the kids working there talk total fucking nonsense all day.

i went there the other night, i had my car parked illegally out front, full of gear. i had to get two things: pics for me and two sets of drum sticks for the drummer. i'm waiting at the drum counter while the dipshits are talking to one another paying no attention to me.

finally i'm like 'GIG GIG GIG GIG GIG GIG' and got their attention.

so I say: "two sets of vic firth 5A hickory." (can't remember exactly what he uses, whatever.)

now the kid pulls down a set of 7s and is like 'i prefer these.'

'my drummer likes 5As.'

'he should try these. i like these.'

I DON'T GIVE A SHIT. PUT IT IN THE BAG.

fuck.

as for prices... oh man... suppose you want a guitar for $700.00. buy that shit in new york and you're talking .875% sales tax. buy that shit from zzounds.com or something else... you're talking 0% sales tax. and free shipping. so what these doofuses don't understand is that in order to be competitive they have to be willing to offer discounts.

a kid once said to me: "if i offer you a discount, i will make less money. that's how this works.'

of course, if he doesn't sell it at all, he will make zero money. which is what happened.
 
I like the guitar center for the most part. I've had some good experiences there with workers helping me try stuff out. I usually buy strings and small things there if I need them immediately, and have made a few larger purchases as well.

I had my first really bad experience with them this Christmas. I wanted to get a tweed blues jr. with some Christmas cash, so I went and bought one the day after Christmas. There was something wrong with it, so I took it back the same day and the dude gave me such a hard time. First he told me it was because I had it plugged into the wall, not a power strip which was really funny, then he kept telling me there was nothing wrong with it. I don't care if he couldn't hear the problem over the other 4 guitarists and 2 drummers playing loudly in the store, one of the tubes was ringing and feeding back. I don't know if it was a bad tube, socket, bias problem...whatever, but something was wrong. Plus, it shouldn't have mattered, all I was doing was exchanging it for another and it was the SAME DAY.

Anyways, I am going to avoid buying thing from that store's guitar dept. from now on, but other than that one thing at the one Guitar Center, they have been good to me overall. I think it really just depends on which person you get...like any other store. And like someone else said, my biggest problem with local stores is that 90% of what they have in stock is complete junk stuff. I realize that's mostly what they sell, but it doesn't make me want to go there.
 
Yeah, they do that stuff. On the other hand, when the folks from MARS opened their store here, they told my friend, who owns a guitar store, quite directly that they were going to put him out of business. He's expanded twice since then and, of course, MARS has been consigned to the trash bin.
 
everytime i go there when i'm on the fence about buying something i always get the same lie no matter who the sales person is: "i have one those. i really like it." it's happened way too many times to be true all the time.

the loud music thing sucks. and they give horrible advice. but they are the cheapest thing around. they're the walmart of music.
 
The one here has a great selection for guitar but not so much for everything else. The sales people are pushy as hell, though. The other day this guy was pushing this egnater amp on me and I pretty much had to bitch-slap him to get him off my back. And if you don't commit to buying something right away, they get rude and condescending with you.

Overall I think they are alright because they have a big selection of guitars and they are liberal with letting you try them out. It's funny when you see 13-year-olds playing 2,000 dollar Gibsons.
 
this thread is funny....

its true though. nothing against the humans working there, its the environment, its a job of sales and commissions. Probably great guys off work..

the 8yr olds whacking up a $2,000 Gibson is so true... ahahahaa wow?:eek:

The entire environment is fried man...its really like THE hyper-mode frenzy store.
 
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