Does anyone else out their hate Guitar Center?

[zachd33]

I despise that place, I guess if it were the only place in town to try out equipment I could see it being ok. Everytime I go in there it feels so cold. It feels like a bunch of angry teens that don't want to help anyone. It is like the Walmart of music equipment. Its just too damn cramped in there as well. I would much rather travel 5 more mins to get to sweetwater. They actually help you, and have a room set aside for trying out equipment that is nice and spacious.

 

I realize not everyone has a sweetwater in their town, so I'm wondering, where do you all go to try out your equipment, and am I the only one who just despises guitar center?

[LP Man]

I think it's only you man. I love my guitar center. Everyone gives you proper help. But I do agree with you on the space thing.

[Taylor Player]

I don't hate them... I just won't buy anything there. I am lucky in that there are several great acoustic places in my city that actually know how to take good care of the instruments. They humidify and restring when needed. GC is OK for buying strings or getting the ocasional sale item, but for guitar purchases, give me the Podium or another place that actually caters to us guys that love solid wood guitars and don't want to hear "Stairway" or shredding from every corner of the store.

[Thundergod]

I go to guitar center (any of the 4 "close" to me when I go to florida) and I can say I hate them. Really. I only go there (ft. lauderdale, florida) for two weeks every year or two, and I spend most of the time testing equipment and looking for things to buy (GAS is bad with me). And guitar center is ok for trying things because most of the time they will have lots of stuff unlike some smaller stores... but I wouldnt even buy a patch cable from them. Most of the times I go there I notice kids damaging expensive guitars, while the attendants treat everyone else like they are there to steal something (I figure those kids are friends with them). On top of that, most of the time they are not willing to negotiate prices, I dont mind that when we are talking pedals and 100 buck stuff, but when we are talking things over 500 I am willing to negotiate and get as better a price as posible.

 

I was going to buy a cheap guitar there once (Ibanez rg350, loved the way that thing looked... hate the neck and tone), and the thing on display was missing some screws, the trem arm, and the nut locks.

 

I asked the GC boy to go to the back and get me a new one, fresh off the box... he said they didnt have any... I then asked for a jackson dinky in a swirly finish that I liked... same thing: wrong nut locks (maybe those were the ibanez's) and no trem arm... all hardware was black, and the guy goes to the back and brings a crome trem arm! says "it fits... you should be ok with it".

 

Again I ask for a new just out of the box guitar and he repeats they dont have any... I ask what they have in the back and he says they dont have any guitars (and I quote) "what you see is what there is, that's all" ... yeah right, like GC is going to have only one of each guitar and on display.

 

I would never buy from them.

[big mo]

I am not very fond of them either. The sales guys always seem put out when you ask for help and then become very condescending when you ask a question. The problem is, they often do have some of the best prices in town. So I must admit, as much as I hate them, I do buy stuff from them when the price is right. And I have been able to negotiate with them but I think that is because I have so many other locally owned options in town. I do wish we had a Sweetwater in town, though.

[Homz]

Guitar Center has my *** on speed dial. I get a call about every other week. I have spent 12k to 14k there in the last 3 years. That said, I wont go back unless as previously stated there is an awesome sale or something like that. The last couple of times I was in there which was about every week they treated me like I was annoying them. It seriously pissed me off. I have informed my wife and she agrees our next major purchase (either a new keyboard for my wife or a Telecaster for me) will be from Sam Ash. The Sam Ash in Indianapolis is managed by a guy named John and even though for years I haven't spent much in his store he always treated with the up most respect. I purchased a new overdrive peddle from him today in fact. And given that the Sam Ash here now has Gibson's I have no reason to go back to the Guitar Center.

 

The Sweet Water location mentioned at the beginning of this thread is only about an hour from my house maybe I will check them out too. I have never been there.

[solacematt]

I go to guitar center (any of the 4 "close" to me when I go to florida) and I can say I hate them. Really. I only go there (ft. lauderdale' date=' florida) for two weeks every year or two, and I spend most of the time testing equipment and looking for things to buy (GAS is bad with me). [/quote']

 

That's Hallendale, but yea, same thing. I dislike that store because one, no one really knows anything, and two they don't want to help you, even when you're ordering something or purchasing something that's of a nice sum of dough.

Example, when I first went in to try out my DC I plugged into a single 12" Marshall amp, had it on 2, lower than how I play through my practice amp in my room at 2AM and they're like, you have to turn it down. Yet it's ok for these ****** kids to pick up a 3k PRS scratch the **** out of it with the pick playing through a half stack. Or there's the one time a guy said he would help me try out a few different cabinet combinations. I was told he would be out of lunch in five mine. 45 min later the dept manager was like, ok, I don't know where he is, so he helped me pick out a cabinet, the other guy finally comes as I'm paying and he's like I thought you were going to wait. ...yea, I'm going to wait over an hour.

Next time you go to that Hallendale store though, ask for the dude in the Platinum room. He's cool, knows his stuff, and will help you.

[KSG_Standard]

There are only a couple of guitar stores in Corpus that sell Gibsons, Guitar Center is one of them. They are small and have a pretty small selection of high end stuff, I don't care for them. The GC in Houston is pretty cool as they carry lot's of stuff to test out. I've never bought anything from either of them though. I have bought lots of stuff through sweetwater.com from my experience they rock!

[cajunman831]

I,ll only buy stuff like my new Marshall amp or strings,etc.But all their guitars are damaged.I bought

a Les Paul std.plus with them and it was messed up with dings,a warped neck,sent it back,got

another one messed up,sent back and got another scratched guitar.Got my refund and decided to

purchase my guitars elsewhere.If only they knew how many customers they lose.

[myspace.com/jessenoah]

It seems like every guitar center i go to there is some ditzy girl working the front desk who doesnt know a thing about music. Then you have all the punks playing "stairway" from zep. People dont have clean hand when they play guitars. Absoulty horrible. Support your local music store, thats what I do.

[ninety1vee]

i dont like GC because they drove all the small shops out of business

if you drive down Sahara (a street in las vegas), there are 10-15 closed down guitar shops

hell, the place where i got my first electric is a target store now

[cookieman15061]

Well here's my ongoing saga. Four weeks ago my wife bought me a Fender Tele (I know, I know) for Christmas from GC. She wanted me to play it to make sure I was happy with it. It played great but I noticed a loud popping noise everytime I touched the strings. I called GC they said yep sounds like a loose ground wire and bring it in and they'll have a look. The guitar was to be sent to the local guitar dr. to be fixed and i was told this should take a week. One week later I call to see if its done and at first the guy that i dealt with acted like he didnt know what i was talking about. So after jogging his memory they check on the guitar and amazingly It hasn't left the store yet!!! Errrrrrrrgh!! It is going out tomorrow I'm told and then the GC salesdude gets snippy with me because i'm a little peeved! He feels I should be a little more patient since they are picking up the cost to fix it. ???!!!!What the??? :) Anyway he says he will call me when it gets back. Three weeks later no call so I call. I get the store mgr. this time and he's clueless also cause they can't find the guitar or who it was sent out to. Aaarghhhhhhhhhh!!! He promises to find out whats going on and call me right back. Four hours later I call back to find the mgr. went home for the day. AHHHDANGBLAMIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But the asst. mgr. would get to the bottom of this right away:-k. The *** mgr calls back 30 min. later and solved the mystery. The guitar was sent to and authorized fender repair person because it was brand new=d> and he would call this guy first thing in the morning and find out whats taking so long. 4:00 pm next day I get the call and am told the Fender guy didn't know the guitar was already bought so he didn't think it was a priority. Well I lose it and go off on the ***. mgr. lettin him know I'm not some snot nosed kid coming into his store to work on my stairway to heaven licks!! I BUY FRIGGIN GUITARS!!!!!!!! He agrees that they screwed up and wants to give me 30 dollars of free merchandise to make up for it. :) He says tele will be back in store tomorrow or the day after........ 4 days later I'm still waiting. Some of the worst customer service I've ever had and I'll be curing my next gas attack at a different guitar store.

[ninety1vee]

that's malarkey

ground wires are the easiest things to fix

[RichCI]

Solution: Don't shop there or any other place you don't like.

[Mark]

Hey did'nt Sweetwater open a retail store in Indiana? I think its in the northeast part of the state near the border,

[cajunman831]

I bought my R9 from Route66.Such nice people.They,re not a certified Gibson dealer.My guitar came from Gibson and if I have

any problems with it to send it back.Plus I saved a bunch of money.

[ChanMan]

I don't know, guys. Maybe it's just me... or maybe it's just the guys at GC here in Nashville are cool. Always seems more like a couple of guys talking guitars when I go in,even when they are swamped on Saturday afternoon. I've never had any service issues, but as they don't actually service them there, I likely wouldn't take my guitars to them if they needed something. (Sam Ash has a luthier listed on Gibson's official site)

 

Ask for Tony. Tell him I sent ya, and thanks again for the Mahogany Strat!

[surfpup]

I don't know' date=' guys. Maybe it's just me... or maybe it's just the guys at GC here in Nashville are cool.[/quote']

 

That's the key right there. I've only been in GC twice since the closest one is about 40 miles from me, and both times I've known way more about what I was looking at than the employees did. Very disappointing how little they know - and how much misinformation they will gleefully dispense.

[modoc_333]

I don't know' date=' guys. Maybe it's just me... or maybe it's just the guys at GC here in Nashville are cool. Always seems more like a couple of guys talking guitars when I go in,even when they are swamped on Saturday afternoon. I've never had any service issues, but as they don't actually service them there, I likely wouldn't take my guitars to them if they needed something. (Sam Ash has a luthier listed on Gibson's official site)

 

Ask for Tony. Tell him I sent ya, and thanks again for the Mahogany Strat![/quote']

 

i hate GC in general. I don't have one near me anymore though. i used to when i lived in another town.

that being said, i do know Tony at the Nashville GC personally. he really is a good guy. (i know him through other ways). if i were to ever buy anything from any GC, it would definitely be from Tony.

[James Allen]

Okay, here's my issue with my local GC in Chattanooga, TN. I've gone in there a couple of times and played various LPs. Both times, dealing with separate employees, I asked them to give me a little bit of info on each LP I was interested in. Both of these young dudes, said to me, "Oh, man. It rocks!"

I said, "Sure, I know that, that's why I'm interested in an LP. What else can you tell me about it; give me details, etc."

Both responses were variations of, "Man this guitar rocks! Especially if you run it through this rockin' amp, which rocks. It will be a rockin' setup, man."

"Is the amp a tube or not?" I ask, just because I am now enjoying the circus-freak-show.

"Uh, this is one mother of an amp, man. It rocks!" the "dude" answers.

I felt like I was in a bad remake of Spinal Tap.

So, I go the the other guitar store in town, L&M Music (which is pricey but roomy, and they aren't playing earsplitting Slipknot to such a raging volume that you can't really hear and feel the instrument you are trying to assess. This is one of my BIG issues with GC. You can't hear!), and the man, a guy over nineteen years old, gets down the LP I want to buy and we actually discuss what styles of music I want to use the damn thing for, then we select a Marshall amp that is similar to the one I currently use. As I play the guitar he explains the benefits of this particular guitar, then leaves me to myself so that I may get aquainted with the beautiful piece of craftmanship before I decide to buy.

That's why I hate GC!

[cvansickle]

I went into my local GC yesterday. What a freaking' mess that place was!

 

Many guitars are missing pieces like knobs, switch tips and strap buttons. One or two missing strings on electrics is common. You're lucky if all pickup settings work too. I wanted to try a high-end guitar, and it took five different amps on display to find one that actually worked.

 

I understand that it's the holidays, and that it's the busiest time for any retail store. Still, you have to keep inventory on hand that is actually in a sellable condition. Most of their stuff would be suitable only for a fire sale.

 

Don't get me started on the staff. And when did "How's it going?" and "No problem" replace "how may I help you" and "you're welcome" anyway? Like I've always said - GC gives these clowns a shirt with the store logo on it, and calls that "training."

[Cruznolfart]

I live way out in the boonies in the Siskiyou Forest in southern Orey-Gun. The closest M&P music store is almost 30 miles distance, and they aren't a Gibson dealer. So once in awhile I go to the GC in Medford, about a 60 mile trip one way. It's a spacious store with a great selection of merchandise in plain sight and a huge warehouse behind. I've never noticed the merchandise being defective and, although they do have the ubiquitous ditzy-greeter, the floor staff have always been courteous and helpful, if not in every case especially knowledgeable. There are several studios in the back part of the store for customers to use trying out the various instruments and amps, and they'll bring you anything you ask for. For the most part the sales staff has always seemed to be made up of young, enthusiastic musicians who enjoy helping other musicians. I think it's safe to say the average LP owner from this forum would be a great deal more knowledgeable, at least about Gibson products if not guitars in general, than the average sales-tech at GC but I've found that to be true whether shopping for guitars or deep freezes. The more you know, and all that. But, by and large, I've found using the Medford, OR Guitar Center to be a fairly positive experience.

[solacematt]

We refer to the greeters here as 'door whores.'

Anyways, about the whole rather go to the local music store thing, sadly, Guitar Center and Sam Ash are the reason why there aren't any local shops around here. The production company I used to work for used to own a music store as well. I had been going there since I started playing back in the mid 90's, and after I came back from touring I ended up getting a job there and, eventually became the manager. Just a small neighborhood music store, nothing fancy. Normal stuff, in-store repairs done fast, gear rentals, etc. Anyways, it turned out that people and saving a buck was the real problem. A lot of people would ***** about spending 5.00 on a set of strings when they could go to GC or Sam Ash and pay 3.75-4.00. Save a dollar, dollar twenty five but drive 45 min in either direction to go to SA or GC is pathetic. The thing that the big chain stores is that they buy in bulk so they can give a much lower price than the mom and pop store that can't go that low because even though you may be a dealer of some of those same companies, they don't give the smaller stores as good a deal because they aren't buying for 50 stores, they're buying for one store. Than you have the people who come in just to try out the gear because it's local and than go to GC and SA because they'll save 10-15 bucks there on the same piece.

Oh yea, for those who like to go the online retailer route (Musicians Friend), you do know that GC owns them right?

[davidblair]

I've never been inside one, it sounds like the fast food of guitar shops.

Unfortunately I think? I heard that Gibson sells to them and that agreement says that other dealers must be dropped. They must pay their invoices on time. Gibson has continued to grow lately, and GC is an easy solution. But I believe that Gibson should make an effort, a priority, to train their dealers' staff, making visits and tuning or adjusting instruments in the stores. And to develop a network of local luthiers for warranty work, bypassing the geeks at the counter. Any Gibson staff listening? I'm available!

This is pretty much a universal problem today for any business that's not owner occupied. Radio Shack is another example.

 

Stairway to Heaven is cool with me. The slow two or three chord songs bug me more.

 

We love Gibson, what a legacy. But I think we prefer buying Gibson from shops where the same staff will be around next year, and who aren't afraid to use a screwdriver or a soldering iron. The kind of staff that knows why neck and bridge pickups are wrapped north or south, and what in the world piezo is made from.

Since Loyd and Les left nothing is new.

 

Snap!

[Zepfreik]

i hate GC so much. i bought a guitar from them a year ago and it was horrid. Not in tune horrid quality, i am never going back there again. if you like Phx go to a store that was pointed out to me yesterday it is Bizarre Guitar. A guy pointed this out to me yesterday he swears by it and so does his friends so it good enough for me.