GC Experience

[marnold]

I had an all-day meeting in Milwaukee today. Drove down to my sister's place yesterday afternoon in what felt like a typhoon. Drove back this evening to a lovely rain-sleet combo. Joy. When I got to Appleton I decided to stop in at Guitar Center. Tung mentioned them having the BBE Free Fuzz for $49 and I also wanted to check out Acoustic bass amps. I also wanted to stop because driving that long in that weather (and being slowed down for two separate accidents) was wearing on my nerves.

I should have known better than to go into a GC on early Friday evening. Every bad guitarist and drummer seemed to be there. I stood by the pedals while two GC employees joked with each other. One threw a wad of tape. They ignored me. I walked away. I got to see the Acoustic amps in person anyway. The racket was too serious for me to consider plugging in. A visual inspection of both those and the Peavey amps led me to believe that the 15" speaker-equipped combos are just too big for my purposes. Because of the noise and the lack of customer service, I left with my credit card intact.

I stopped in Green Bay partially to get the George Lynch tab book. The store where I saw him promised to get more in. I got there at 6:20. They closed at 6. At least I managed to stop at my favorite Chinese place and pick up a big jug o' hot and sour soup and a couple of egg rolls, so all was not lost.

After looking at several bass amps, I'm becoming more convinced that the little 30W Marshall might be the one for me. It's got good tone, useful features, and it's small enough to be grabbed without throwing out my back but still big enough so you can actually hear it.

[Plank_Spanker]

GC can be a zoo.............................unless you are serious about buying and can chase off the animals. I've done this several times - find a sales dude, let him know you're serious, let him chase off off the tweeny wankers, set you up to try out the item, leave you alone to play, and get serious over a deal if you decide to buy.

It's a "dance".......................:D

[wingsdad]

The last time I was went out of my way to stop into a GC (75-80 miles round trip from here) after going up & down the wall eyeballing Fenders, I pulled a Strat off the wall and got one of the Clearasil-impaired Clerks' attention. He shuffled over, obviously enthused to be helping some old fart like me and asked if I could plug in to a nearby amp or 2 or 3 to check it out.

I guess that wasn't blunt enough for him. I should have just said: "I seriously want to try this guitar that costs as much as you make in a month. If I like it, maybe you can sell it to me."

Instead of helping me plug in, he told me I didn't want a Strat, I wanted a Les Paul. My ears shut down while he went off explaining to me why. I think I recall something about "way cooler...more balls...bleat...bleat...bleat...."

I didn't care to "dance" any more.

So I told him he was right, I didn't want this Strat. I handed it to him, asked if he'd put it back, and pick me out the right Les Paul for me.

I walked out silently once he was around the amps and off to the guitar wall.

Never goin' back agin.

[Tone2TheBone]

GC can be a zoo.............................unless you are serious about buying and can chase off the animals. I've done this several times - find a sales dude, let him know you're serious, let him chase off off the tweeny wankers, set you up to try out the item, leave you alone to play, and get serious over a deal if you decide to buy.

It's a "dance".......................:D

Yeah I do the same thing. You have to in GC. Money talks. :rockon:

Marnold...which Acoustic bass amp were you looking for? Was it the 200 watt 15" speaker model that was in the mini monthly catalog? Btw what is hot and sour soup?

[tunghaichuan]

My "weekend" is actually Wednesday and Thursday so I make sure I go to Guitar Center on one of those days right as they open. Not a lot of kids or wannabe shredders yet. I was in and out with the two Green Screamer pedals I got last Weds. in about 20 minutes. Plus the sales dood actually seemed kinda cool and helpful. :AOK:

I went on the Labor Day sale a few months ago and what a zoo. :whatever:

The only reason I go there is that they have great deals.

tung

[marnold]

Marnold...which Acoustic bass amp were you looking for? Was it the 200 watt 15" speaker model that was in the mini monthly catalog? Btw what is hot and sour soup?
Probably the 100W model would be the one I'd be looking at. To quote Elvis, "That thing is huuuuuge." I also looked at the 20W model and the 200W head with a 1x15 cab. All are good deals and are getting rave reviews on TalkBass. The odd thing is that the head is 200 watts into 4 ohms but the 1x15 cab is 8 ohms.

As an aside I was up in Marinette today and stopped in the guitar shoppe there. Didn't have much time, but I checked out the Peavey Vypyr amps and the MAX 112 bass amp. The owner, who is brutally honest sometimes, said he was very impressed with the 15W model. Next time I'm heading up there, I'm going to have to grab a guitar and bass and play through some amps.

This is hot and sour soup (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_and_sour_soup). It's one of my favorite things on this planet. It's my acid test to see if a Chinese restaurant is worth anything or not.

[duhvoodooman]

Btw what is hot and sour soup?
Oh man, Tone! If you like spicy Chinese cuisine, you've been missing what is definitely my favorite soup. The "hot" comes from those nasty little red peppers and the "sour" from rice vinegar--but it's all the other stuff in it that makes it s-o-o-o good! Seek it out from your favorite Chinese restaurant and give it a try. :AOK: :drool: :AOK:

[araT]

Oh man, Tone! If you like spicy Chinese cuisine, you've been missing what is definitely my favorite soup. The "hot" comes from those nasty little red peppers and the "sour" from rice vinegar--but it's all the other stuff in it that makes it s-o-o-o good! Seek it out from your favorite Chinese restaurant and give it a try. :AOK: :drool: :AOK:

Big +1 there! :drool:

[Spudman]

Oh man, Tone! If you like spicy Chinese cuisine, you've been missing what is definitely my favorite soup. The "hot" comes from those nasty little red peppers and the "sour" from rice vinegar--but it's all the other stuff in it that makes it s-o-o-o good! Seek it out from your favorite Chinese restaurant and give it a try. :AOK: :drool: :AOK:

+2 good stuff.:AOK:

[Andy]

+3

[Tone2TheBone]

I guess I know what I'll be eating today. :)

[Glacies]

Oh man... Hot and Sour soup with some of that horseradish inspired yellow mustard.... making my mouth water and I'm eating lunch as I type this.

I don't know what it is with music stores. My musical career is certainly not a long one, but every time I go into a place that sells guitar, there's someone there that has cranked a damn amp so loud I can barely hear myself think and they usually proceed to play something of Nirvana's in the worst way possible. I realize that sometimes you need to do that, especially if you're spending money, but most times I feel it's an affront to the guitar store and other customers, but I'm not sure either care. When I go in there, I try to get in on the "off" hours so I don't have to deal with that. I give the amp a little bit of volume and play some songs, try to really check the tone, work the board a bit - I get weird looks like I don't know what I'm doing. Bah - sometimes I just don't like being in public.

I'm looking forward to the chance to hit GC in Richmond soon though because there's some Ibanez models I've been trying to get my hands on for a while now.

[ShortBuSX]

I had a similar experience this weekend.
Im looking for a new Telecaster, I had no luck mail ordering a Classic Vibe...sent both of them back. So I figured the only way Id be happy was if I could hand pick my new guitar...Im even prepared to spend as much as $800(as opposed to my initial $300 CV). So I set out to goto Sam Ashe this weekend and try a few out, I was thinking Id try another Classic Vibe, or a Classic 50s or even a Baja Telecaster...but we get to Sam Ashe and its nothing but deth-metal kids and noise. Although I was surprised to see a healthy showing of Epiphone and Gibson, there werent alot of Fenders, nothing but Standards and 52ri's...nothing inbetween :thwap:
So we went to Guitar Center...more of the same! :thwap:
Then I decided to call the other Guitar Center...nothing there either, but they told me they could order what I wanted, I declined, as it kinda defeats the entire purpose.

Id kill mahself if I worked there.:AOK:

[Plank_Spanker]

Yeah I do the same thing. You have to in GC. Money talks. :rockon:

It does. When I buy guitars at GC, I find a sales rep (or whatever GC calls them), look them in the eye and tell them that I am there to buy a guitar. Show me the guitars and clear me out a place to play them. I want to take them into the acoustic room first. If I like it, the deal is real, nice and neat.

I've never had problems in GC.

[Duff]

I agree about asking or just going into the acoustic room if no one is in there with the electric stuff I'm checking. Very quiet in there.

I picked my Marshall MB30 bass amp at a local decent store that matched MF. 200 out the door. Nice amp even with my five string Schecter it doesn't distort. It has lots of cool features too. I liked it way better than the Peavey and I generally like Peavey amps.

For a small bass amp it has 30 smooth sounding watts and lots of tweakability and is portable, not too heavy but substantial nonetheless, steel speaker grill. I like the cosmetics too, ha ha, the white capped black knobs look cool. The manual compression, adjustable; and the two channels, clean and distortion are also really cool.

I'm totally happy with mine and have a Fender Rumble 100, heavy amp that I keep stationary next to my bed. I like the Fender a lot too. 15 inch speaker, loud, great tone for a fairly inexpensive amp. I got it at a big GC sale, like the Thanksgiving sale, for like 229 instead of 329 or whatever they are.

I use the Marshall almost exclusively though. Should use the Fender more. You know how it is when you have lots of equipment.

I like to play all of my guitars but need to work on playing all my amps. Lately I've been playing my Delta Blues, Hot Rod Deluxe Tweed w Jensen P12N, and Super Champ XD Fender, along with my Blackheart 3/5 head thru my Epiphone 1 by 12 inch cab that sounds so cool in combination. I am AMAZED at how good that Hot Rod Deluxe sounds though, as well as the Delta Blues but they sound really different, both fairly sizeable amps. I need to play the HRDx more. Every time I play my Delta Blues I have it hooked up to my Epi So. Cal 4 by 12 inch big cabinet and all five speakers produce a really nice tone at low volume, I can only imagine how they will sound cranked. Have to do that one of these mornings when people are at work. I work late. I also live in the country but still, those amps put out a lot of sound.

I have gotten some incredible deals at GC though. Plus you can pick out what you want. These days they don't seem to want to barter at all on price like they used to. Still, those sales are great. I like to get there right at opening before it gets loud and they usually have special deals for the first hour they are open. I picked something up during that first hour and saved like 250 dollars.

Duffy

[Fab4]

I'm spoiled by having a number of world-class, high-end guitar shops in the Denver area, so I don't have to deal with GC's sensory assault when I'm looking for serious gear. (The death metal kids I can handle; they're at least trying stuff out. But WHY do they have to play loud recorded music on the store's intercom system AND the PA systems AND in the DJ room? Aren't we all there to listen to gear we might want to buy? Wouldn't you want to foster a listening environment? Or am I just old?)

That said, I usually buy strings at GC because they give me deal when I buy in bulk (6-12 sets at a time), but if I'm looking for anything else I go in with three rules:

1) I do my homework before I walk through the door, that way I won't need any of their "help."

2) I always ask if they can do anything with the price. Sometimes they have room to work, sometimes not, but it's always worth asking.

3) I get the hell outta there as fast as I can, usually trailing the phrase "I hate that place, I hate that place..." all the way back to my car.