Guitar Center store manager told me the SLO is 1 trick pony?

[mentoneman]

I went into a local GC and they had a used Mesa Mark III head, the salesman said it sucked because it had no gain at all to it. I go over, plug in, tweak it for 3 seconds, and watch his jaw hit the floor. I had to explain volume 1 to him, and the rest of the amp for that matter.

oh yeah
LOVE watching them try to figure out anything with more than 3 tone knobs.

used to have a friend there who actually prided himself on selling me gear at wrong low prices to stick it to the man.

 

[tekbow]

The term vintage only means from a other earlier time or era ..... anything no matter what it is that is 20 years old is vintage, even if the term is not normally used this way. Some things it is much less than 10 years. Go look up the definition if you do not believe me.

Vintage is a bastardized word in the guitar industry. It is really just a buzz word that has been redefined to suit retailers.

I think of 70s stuff and older as "vintage" in my head. To me, 50s and 60s electric guitars that were well made are true classics. The 70s stuff is vintage because it is from a different era and has its own thing going on. Vintage, to me doesn't really mean classic or of higher quality, but it does mean of another era and so old that it is back in fashion again which 70's guitars clearly are at this point.

Anyways, the whole 20 years thing was an after the fact addition to the meaning of the word. I know it won't be long before everyone excepts the old MIA charvels or the fender fullerton RIs as "vintage".

this. I wasn't eloquent enough to put it this way. i think vintage is often misrepresented as classic. vintage is a measurable definite phrase these days. classic is by consesus

 

[NinjaRaf]

I called them a couple weeks ago asking for a box to ship a guitar in. The dude on the phone said they werent allowed to give out boxes because of fraud. I was like...wtf ok. So I went in there...literally about 5 minutes after this. I know 2 of the dudes that work in the accessories area, and one of the assistant managers. I go in and talk to one of them and he was like...yeah just a sec. a minute later, he hands me a box.

I left a guitar there to get pups installed, and didnt get it back for 5 weeks.

The assistant manager knows her shit, and shes always been really helpful. The 2 dudes that I know there know some stuff, but they dont try to bullshit me when they dont know.

I really only go in there now for the used gear. I just picked up a korg pitchblack for 50 bucks.

I dont ever get into gear discussions there, but if I have questions, they havent really tried to bullshit me about gear...I go in there a lot, and they know I know more than they do about gear, so they dont even try lol.

I called a GC in chicago about buying a peavey ultra plus and they said they wouldnt ship it because its tube. The amp was used. I asked them to package the tubes separately, they said they cant. I told them to just keep the tubes cuz I would be replacing them anyway....they said no. I said...how do you think they get tube amps around the country? They dont have teleportation devices...He didnt say anything and I hung up.

 

[droptrd]

teleportation devices

 

[stratotone]

GC is primarily staffed with guys who if they weren't there would be at walmart stocking shelves. There are usually a few guys at each store that know what is going on - if you deal with GC on a regular basis, it behooves you to seek them out.

My worst story is how I went into the OKC GC, salesguy glommed onto me immediately, asked what I played. At the time I was sporting a VHT 50/CL. I told him this, he said that he never heard of that, but he was sure this Mode 4 Marshall would kick ass on it and be much better.

I laughed at him and walked off.

I have a guy at the local GC that takes care of me - if I go in and make a purchase when he's not there, I make sure it gets put on his account so he gets the sale, as I usually don't need guidance - I go into GC and know what I want in advance. However, my guy there gets me a discount and calls me if something comes in that he thinks I'd dig... it's a good relationship and I've also steered people towards him. He also knows what he's talking about and is a pretty nice guy... for a bass player.

If you go into a GC with the knowledge ahead of time that you're basically dealing with WalMart and 99% of the people there are going to be clueless posers, you're going to be fine. Just do your gear research BEFORE you get there.

Pete

 

[Mailman1971]

.........and yet here is another GC story....

Went in there about a month ago to get some strings. Here comes the retard 18 year old EMO kid flocking to my nutsack. I check out what amps they have and he is telling me that the B52 is the best he has ever heard or played.
I smile and say "Cool....."
He asks what I play. I told him I been playing Diezel for a few months. He LAUGHS OUT LOUD and asks me if it gets good gas mileage since its Diezel. He told me he never heard of them.
I told him it might just hang with your B52 but probably not.



This is the kind of shit that I hate going in there. Keep those guys on a leash.

 

[JakeAC5253]

I dont ever get into gear discussions there, but if I have questions, they havent really tried to bullshit me about gear...I go in there a lot, and they know I know more than they do about gear, so they dont even try lol.

That's the opposite of my experience. The guys there know that I'm a good player and that I know my shit, but they still try to BS me when I ask a question (sometimes I already know the answer and I'm just making conversation), even the ones that pretend to be my friends. IDK if it's because I'm 21 and still a kid in their eyes, or if they're trying to impress me or what, but it's annoying as hell. I would respect them much more if they just admitted when they didn't know anything.

Or when the guy behind the counter won't take my cables when I tell him they're bad, he has to plug them in to verify

 

[boof]

Funny thing is After trying out all those Suhrs I was really impressed with 9111 a Bengal reverse head stock but after dealing with the store there was no way I was going to buy anything from them. When I got home I looked up 9111 and found that it was actually bought from Matts music. I looked up the serial numbers from all the guitars I tried (yes I wrote down all the numbers) and ALL of them were being sold as new guitars that the store had actually bought from various guitar stores in the US and had them shipped over. Something doesn't sit right with me about that. when you buy it and walk out of the store its no longer new, its used. only a few minutes used perhaps but never the less used.. Anyway I found that matts music also had 9112 that was the exact same specs as 9111. So I took the chance and in some part based on the responses about Suhrs quality from this site and bought it from Matts without ever having played it. In the end it played as good as 9111 that I played at lost boys, I saved over $1000 and that was after shipping, and I didn't have that bitter taste in my mouth that I had just given several thousand dollars to the idiots at lost boys.

Boof, the funny thing about your story is I was calling to buy THAT BENGAL SUHR 9112 from Matts Music, and they said they had just sold it....

you should have jumped on it. I was sitting on the fence deciding if I should buy it or not for over a month.

 

[ashesofphoenix]

WOW some of these are great! My local GC in Oxford Valley PA is pretty good, but theres one in Plymouth Meeting that has some real winners... I really think that some of these guys don't know that there is gear that GC doesn't caryy!!!OMG!!! One time I asked a guy how many watts a particular Marshall head had and he said "I dunno why don't you read the back"!!!! I work in customer service and I almosted punted his 5 foot 5 girl jean wearin emo ass for that. I also went in recently just for cables and ended up making the mistake and asking some questions about a couple tube heads. I was told the best head they carried is the Line 6 HD100. After he said this I rotated my head left and right and saw 5 Mesa heads, 6 Marshall higher end heads, a used engl, used rivera and a used SLO. I left him weeping openly. The singer in my band used to work on the sales floor for GC and asked for a transfer to the warehouse cuz his head was gonna explode if he had to work along side these guys that think that Mesa's have no tone cause they can't use a simple EQ. I think we should all band together and start our own store for real gear heads.

ps. i asked a gc rep if they had any Deizel amps and he asked me what brand made them

 

[moltenmetalburn]

.........and yet here is another GC story....

Went in there about a month ago to get some strings. Here comes the retard 18 year old EMO kid flocking to my nutsack. I check out what amps they have and he is telling me that the B52 is the best he has ever heard or played.
I smile and say "Cool....."
He asks what I play. I told him I been playing Diezel for a few months. He LAUGHS OUT LOUD and asks me if it gets good gas mileage since its Diezel. He told me he never heard of them.
I told him it might just hang with your B52 but probably not.

That kid is a fool.

Part of the confusion is that we all typically mispronounce the Diezel name as DEE-ZUL rather than DEETZ-UL.

 

[Strat+Marshall]

That kid is a fool.

Part of the confusion is that we all typically mispronounce the Diezel name as DEE-ZUL rather than DEETZ-UL.

Looks like its spelled wrong.

 

[Mudder]

Right, mispronunciation is the problem.

 

[FourT6and2]

That kid is a fool.

Part of the confusion is that we all typically mispronounce the Diezel name as DEE-ZUL rather than DEETZ-UL.

Looks like its spelled wrong.

I lol'd.

A few weeks ago I went into a GC (not the one I like) and saw a cool looking pedal in a display case. It had some weird instructions on it about where to put it (in amp's loop) but I couldn't tell what the hell it was or what it did. But, it looked cool. So I asked the guy behind the counter what it was. "I don't know, looks like some kind of... pedal." Yeah, thanks bro. I got that. I want to know what it does. "Yeah, I don't know what it does." Well is there someone here who does? Or maybe, could you look it up on your fancy computer there and find out? He gets the manager. Manager doesn't know and doesn't want to take the time to find out. Customer service is awesome there.

Oh, how 'bout this one: I overheard someone talking to a rep from Orange about the gear he used. I heard something about a Diezel VH4 into a Mesa cab, so I said "oh hey, that's what I use for a rig. love it." The Orange rep goes, "yeah, Diezels are cool but they have way too many knobs. You can't get a good sound out of those things with all those knobs."

 

[spawnofthesith]

Oh I have dozens of stories about GC fail encounters. I'll just post a few for now.

1. One day I was in, and checking out a Soldano cab. I ask the floor manager what speakers it has in it, and he takes off the front grill, examines the speaker cones for a moment, and says, "Well it doesn't say the name of the speakers on front like it usually does, so they're probably nameless soldano standards"

2. I go in asking if they carry Sperzel locking tuners, and he tells me that there is no such brand as sperzel. I argue with him for like 5 minutes until I finally get him to look Sperzel up to see that they exist on his computer, and after seeing the site he simply says "Oh well they must be a new company"

3. I'm looking at the used equipment section, and I see one of those old 90's crate heads for cheap, and to make sure it was the amp I was thinking of I ask a guy hovering over me "Is this the amp that a lot of those death metal bands were playing back in the 90's?" and he responds "I dunno, but I wouldn't by that if you want high gain, come take a look at the new Spider IV amps, those have the best distortion on the market"

4. I'm in the amp room, trying out a JVM, and a guy comes in and says "Thinking about buying that thing?" (I wasn't really but to get him out of my hair I said: "Maybe, I am pretty set on getting a Mark V though" and of course they had a JVM there and not a Mark V so he says "Forget about the Mark V, those suck. They have no character and are built like crap. The JVM will do what you want way better than the mesa shitty"

My GC sucks.

 

[Anonymous]

I hate to inform you of this gents, but we (rig-talkers) are NOT the target customers for GC. Hence the many joyous encounters detailed herein...

Steve

 

[ashesofphoenix]

That kid is a fool.

Part of the confusion is that we all typically mispronounce the Diezel name as DEE-ZUL rather than DEETZ-UL.

Looks like its spelled wrong.

sorry i was typin too fast

 

[mentoneman]

just ask to play an amp on one of their better guitars, then when emo leaves, pull out the cable to the speaker cab, dime the amp and pound power chords on it, bend the tar out of the strings till the high e busts, then leave with the gtr plugged in to the amp

 

[Death by Uberschall]

I hate to inform you of this gents, but we (rig-talkers) are NOT the target customers for GC. Hence the many joyous encounters detailed herein...

Steve

^^ This ^^

There's a local music store my old band used to do a lot of business with. I was the only member of the band that bought gear elsewhere. One day our bass player apologized on my behalf for me not spending money there. The store owner told him it was no problem. He had seen my live rig and knew from that day he would not be getting much of my business.

 

[ashesofphoenix]

I hate to inform you of this gents, but we (rig-talkers) are NOT the target customers for GC. Hence the many joyous encounters detailed herein...

Steve

^^ This ^^

There's a local music store my old band used to do a lot of business with. I was the only member of the band that bought gear elsewhere. One day our bass player apologized on my behalf for me not spending money there. The store owner told him it was no problem. He had seen my live rig and knew from that day he would not be getting much of my business.

thats awesome!

 

[Zachman]