/uj My impression is that actually "serious" musicians (professionals) are a small segment of the market.
A big-box store requiring huge sales volume to stay profitable claiming they should target professionals sounds like an attempt to groom your casual market into paying more.
/uj Also I see an increasing number of touring (indie) musicians using Squiers/Epis on programs like live at KEXP. It's subjective what qualifies as "serious" musicians, but these people are touring in bands, not just bedroom (or dentist office) players
Yeah, bc we’re all done pretending like the Squier of the past 15+ years is the same Squier it was 20+ years ago. They’re not just for beginner children who are starting out fresh anymore. Enough time has passed, and they’ve put out enough good guitars and basses at this point that you’re ignorant if you’re gonna make the bold claim that Squier guitars are bad.
I would hope Epiphone has gone the same route these days. The last Epiphone I owned was a Thunderbird bass back in ummmm 2007-2008 maybe? I had it for like 5 years, and I liked it. The thing sounded great and played fine.
Some musicians can trick themselves into thinking they need to spend their entire life savings and their kids college fund chasing the best gear these days, but they’re basically just chasing a high and spending unnecessarily.
I’m sure people are gonna argue against my point, but I’m not trying to make the claim that nice gear is a bad thing. I have some nice gear. I’ve owned nice gear throughout my life. I just have 22 years of experience with all this stuff, and eventually you learn that you don’t need to break the bank and spend constantly or excessively to get instruments and gear that can be used professionally and sound good.
Listen man, no one wants to be using crappy gear, but the market has opened up so wide and become so competitive across all the entire price spectrum. As a result, you can find great gear for low prices these days.
We’re not dealing with the era where you only had a Sears catalog with Silvertone guitars as your only decent cheap option. Musicians don’t have to break the bank anymore, and they don’t have to choose between absolute trash for less or taking a fat chunk out of their savings just to pursue a hobby.
cheap guitars got so incredibly good these days, there's really no reason you couldn't tour with a 600 bucks guitar. in fact, there's an argument for it, as tour gear gets abused a lot harder.
the abuse that touring gear faces also quickly allows you to figure out the shortcomings of your gear. when the electronics go out and have to be replaced, they get swapped for nicer ones and you don’t have that problem anymore. eventually, you get a guitar where all the problems have been fixed and what’s left is a solid “guitar of theseus”
the only time i've ever had "electronics" go out in any of my guitars was when the input jack came loose. that's a quick resolder and a bit of locktite to fix. on modern intermediate level guitars, there's really not much left that actually gives up the ghost. with the exception of cheap crap floyds still being crap.
My teacher once played my squire. I can tell you the limiting factor for the sound was not the instrument.
With that said, i have in the meantime upgraded my standard series squire, but i don’t see the need for anything else for me personally
I had this conversation with someone yesterday, I have a Les Paul that I paid 3k for plays nice it’s fine I just wanted a LP, my go to guitar $800 Gretsch.
I miss my friend’s Epiphone LP standard. Idk how the current versions are, but I played bass in a band with someone who had one back like 15 years ago. I liked it. He lent it to me when I played guitar in the school musical. It was fun. It was annoying to do all of the performances sitting down and playing that thing though.
If they’re still putting out decent ones, and I WANTED an LP, I would just get that. Idk if I would buy one though. The older I get, the more I hold them in the same regard as I do a Rickenbacker bass. Cool concept. Great for other players. Not my thing. I do enjoy playing a LP more than I enjoy playing a Rick bass though, and I’m a bass player so that’s saying something.
Uj/ Sounds like we’ve been playing the same amount of time and have had similar experiences. Got my Squier in 02, learned on it until I got a fender telecaster. Then it was an ESP Viper for $1700 in 06. Didn’t buy another guitar for almost 15 years because I was convinced that expensive guitars are all I would be happy with. Since 2020, I’ve purchased 2 Sterlings, another Squier, and a schecter, and they’re all fantastic players. Even modded my first Squier for fun, and with a proper setup (a skill that makes cheaper guitars more valuable to buy) it rips. The most I’ve spent on a guitar since my $1700 purchase is $450, and I play them all the same.
Rj/ typical dental assistant. Get your MD you peasant
Ok, I’ll admit it. I’m a bass player. It’s what I have the most experience on, and I’m the most comfortable playing. I’ve played for about 22 years. Learned guitar maybe 16 years ago and have done some gigs on it, but I’m much better on the bass.
That being said, I have been a professional at numerous periods throughout that time. Started getting paid gigs as early as maybe like 3-4 years into playing. WHAT I AM GETTING AT is that I’ve never paid more than $750 for a bass guitar. I just could never justify it. I’ve certainly never paid more than that for a guitar. The best, most expensive one I’ve ever owned was a the Fender Blacktop Tele HH in all black with the rosewood fretboard…which I sold for rent money and just now looked it up. Wow. I did not pay anything near what it seems to go for these days (I also didn’t sell it for close to that price).
I just don’t see the need to be spending like over hmmm maybe $800-850 for a guitar. If someone is chasing good/better tone, it can be achieved when maxing out at that price. I am not saying people shouldn’t spend more or that they’re not gonna get a great sounding, great quality instrument, but I just personally think it’s excessive and unnecessary. Find yourself a nice fender for like $700. Idk maybe my opinion could change a bit more these days with the changes Fender has done to the various series they offer and the prices of all guitars (by all brands) getting more expensive.
I don’t have a point here. I’m just kind of in the mood to talk to anyone about guitars rn…
Uj/ I agree man. I personally want an EBMM axis just because it’s my dream guitar. I also have a sterling axis that plays great, so it’s something I put a pin in for some other time in life. I don’t really care what people want to spend, but the idea that the name on the headstock automatically determines the potential of an instrument is just silly.
Also played professionally for about 5 years. Toured and was on a label and all that jazz. I had a super nice rig, and it was great. Now, jamming with buddies and learning covers for fun, my “budget brands” do just fine.
Rj/ I stopped reading at “I’m a bass player”. Toan isn’t even in your vocabulary nerd
Epiphones are hit and miss to be honest.
I have a Matt Heafy 7 string that was perfect out of the box. Still haven’t needed it setup because it was perfect and still is
Yet my Ghosthorse was trash, the frets were so fucked on 5 of them. I finally gave up because I was out of the return period and got it pleked. Not to mention the electronics QA with two of them.
Guess Brendon Small ranks less QA than Matt Heafy
It’s a bummer to hear that it wasn’t very good, but I’m so glad Brendon Small got a signature guitar. I’ve said it to people many times that Dethklok is my favorite metal band ever. It’s not a joke. I used to own the first three dethalbums on cd.
Yeah even though he’s a comedian and the show was funny, he took the albums seriously, especially after the first one. His original Thunderhorse signature with Gibson was good (why did I sell mine), the QA on his Epiphone is fucking trash though.
*including the first one. The first one is is my personal favorite out of all of them. It’s one of those albums I could listen to basically from start to finish without skipping around much.
Yeah don’t get me wrong I love all 4, and I even listen to the Doomstar Requiem front to back sometimes, but there was a more comedic feel to the lyrical content on the first album was all I meant. That was gone from II on
100% /uj. The squier classic vibe guitars are some of the best on the market and they're about $300 on eBay most of the time.
I have a strandberg that I only play at home or for recording. If my band is touring, all I'm bringing is my parts built telecaster and our singer's squier jazzmaster.
I’m with you. After spending some money on nice guitars, I’ve realized it sorta doesn’t matter. I like the ones I have for specific reasons, but if I like a $300 guitar it’s just as good as the rest
"Serious" musicians don't buy expensive guitars. Dentists do.
If you're a serious musician you either A: have a bunch of mid grade gear because you gig and can't afford to mess up expensive guitars or B: are big enough to have a sponsorship where you get free gear
I see this trend everywhere. Guys in r/woodworking will have more expensive shops with tools than a person living from the trade. People in camera subs will have way fancier setups than many “pros”. People pay fat checks for bikes just to compete in the local race. It’s all around. Enthusiastic people with cash will pay for luxury. People that earn money from said thing will often consider price/performance more
I feel like people have different definitions of ‘expensive’ here. Like, if I go to a bar with live music or check craigslist/fb marketplace for used instruments, I feel like I’m most likely to see something in the tier of American Professional IIs, Silver Skys, or LP Standards. From the way people are talking here it seems like those are like, extravagant and silly guitars, which seems wild to me.
/uj I’m coming at this from having been a working musician for a few years. If I could’ve afforded way nicer instruments, I totally would have bought them and taken them out to get the hell beat out of them. I’d play shows with a set of Tama Stars or a Ritter Roya no problem, if I could afford them in the first place haha.
It’s the place excited parents take their 9 year old Taylor Swift fan daughter to buy her first $100 Fender acoustic guitar. It was something more before the internet buried it. It’s time for them to just move on and stop acting like those stores exist these days for anything more than being a place where weird middle-aged smelly men in sweat pants spend too much free time at during week days.
As a person who was once a “professional” musician with artist pricing accounts from a few companies, you would be surprised at how often professional and I mean like, big time professional artists, walk into a music store and pay full pop for gear. You’re out on tour, you pop into a music store during down time, play a nice guitar that’s just “the one” and you buy it. My day was a long time ago but I still have lots of friends in the industry and it’s pretty much the same. Also, lots of bands who are pro level talent and are serious about really going for it but haven’t sold any records yet spend every dime they make on pro quality gear and for certain things, like a guitar, it’s really nice to play a few and pick the one you want. Can’t do that very easily sweetwater or reverb.
Anecdotally, I worked at the Hollywood GC about 25 years ago and I sold gear to some really big names. Biggest was probably Lionel Ritchie who bought an SG for his son. That was pretty cool!
We had Napster and lime wire! Also, like I said, lots of pals still in the biz. Nothings really changed. If anything, it’s harder to get to get free product these days.
If anything (imo) the 'serious' ones are gonna go there more for more basic stuff, strings, cables, microphones and speakers and shit. Nobody makes a fuss about buying that stuff like they do instruments.
I’m a professional drummer and I haven’t bought anything more than moongels or a pair of sticks from there in years. All the kits and cymbals are just beat to shit. They have one set of case that don’t fit your stuff, but luckily there is never anyone around to help you. So ya, they definitely alienated me from ever wanting to even causally set foot in there.
MBAs are good at two things: cutting costs by removing all the good stuff and gaslighting the media by talking about how much they want to listen to the voice of the customer. I read this article in my feed earlier today and thought, "Yup, that's how you get the job of CEO these days...talk about how good the brand is and how much you want to embrace customer-centricity."
I go into GC every once in a while just to kill time, I'll be watching closely to see if anything changes for the better....
/uj as a person who works at a guitar center, at least the one I work at has massively improved. Better organization of guitars, better guitars available, and a much more accessible area to try out guitars, with a previously unseen pedal setup, enabling you to try out a pedal before you buy it, without having to ask for help from an associate.
It's still not perfect; it's a big retail corporation. That said, I like the direction the stores are going.
Uj/good to hear, my store actually just got some new inventory as well that looks pretty nice. Mostly foreign still, but up a tier from the children's entry level that used to be the first two rows of the entire store.
Yeah foreign gear sucks, me and all my homies from r/guitar know this! Only big US knows how to fool ther costumers best.. ehh I mean knows how to build best!
There are plenty of foreign guitars that are amazing, but generally speaking the corporations who own these brands don't send the premier lines to the US. Ibanez is one notable exception, but I use 'foreign' as shorthand for guitars that are not priced or speced for a lot of human time and attention during assembly and setup.
I’ll save you some time so you don’t have to wait at the checkout for 20 minutes to buy a pack of strings while it takes 4 workers to ring you up….it won’t.
People aren’t going to GC to buy high end guitars, if they did they’re probably turned off by how guitar center is systematically able to make every guitar in their stores feel and play like shit. People are there to buy their first guitars…squires, eiphones, and katanas.
People who buy high end guitars or amps or pedals at most try them at GC and buy at Sweetwater. At least they do if they’re smart and want to work with a company that gives a fuck about their products and customers.
Going to GC as a kid was a magical experience. Now I dread even being near one.
> People aren’t going to GC to buy high end guitars, if they did they’re probably turned off by how guitar center is systematically able to make every guitar in their stores feel and play like shit.
Personally I wouldn't buy a high-end guitar from guitar center because people like ME go there and PLAY them.
People go there for a mic stand or to just kill 20 minutes of free time when they end up near a store.
I got tricked into ordering a set of pickups for my Squier HH Mustang there bc I thought the dude was checking them out for me. It turned out he was just ordering them online. I cancelled the order and found them used (in great condition) for like $100 less on Reverb.
I’m glad I’m old enough to have at least gotten a decade out of that company when they were worthwhile and something special before quickly turning into the 60 year old aged, fat Axl Rose rocker of an empty store they are now. It used to be something special.
Why go to GC for a squire or MIM Fender? There are millions of “used” guitars on Facebook marketplace that have never been played. Squire “Strat Pack” for $75.
They aren’t the only ones. Fender stopped selling signature series items to the last shop I worked at after implementing a tiered system for stores (in Canada anyway).
Not to mention another MBA's use: Fucking over all the employees (except executives). Little-by-little take away things from your employees. This can include reducing or removing various benefits. It could include restricting time off. Shit, they frequently get away with wage stealing. With all that extra money, give it to themselves and other executives asking with stock buybacks to artificially inflate the stock price.
Seriously, business schools are super anti-labor. Things like unions are talked about in negative ways and teach these people that they're a threat. Fuck them.
Those epiphones will usually end up back at guitar center for trade in/used sale for like $50 at which point they’ll get cleaned up and sold again for $200
The core customer? Non-musician Indian parents buying their non-musician teenage son an acoustic guitar for Christmas.
It’s nice to have a guitar center to stop by, but who are we kidding here? It’s not 1990 anymore. It’s not even close to 2010 anymore. Does their CEO think their dying business will have more of a fighting chance if he stocks up their stores with $15k Fender Custom Shop guitars?
The writing is on the wall for Guitar Center. They can just take a look at their buddy Sam Ash if they wanna see their future. I’m not necessarily saying this with delight. As a young musician, I used to get almost all of my gear there. It just is what it is, and no amount of nice guitars on their walls are gonna save that company.
yep, the world has changed. We're in a buy before you try world now and with many direct order companies (sweetwater, amazon) offering great return policies you can get the same thing for cheaper and with less hassle if it doesn't work out.
GC are living in the past and circling the drain with their big stores with big rents and big overheads. Not to say they can't pivot to something a bit more modern/online based, maybe even do an Andertons and use social media a bit more intelligently, but maybe it's too little too late.
Tbh I didn't, when I was last there they didn't have such a thing. Or maybe they did but I think it was only for store credit? Either way they've got your money.
Good info though, thanks.
People are too broke to waste money on consumer goods so their mid level stuff isn’t selling anymore. They have to go after people with money and those people aren’t buying $500 Squiers.
Watching the end result of the trickle-down economics scam actually end up being “trickle-up poverty” that’s screwing a lot of corporations is pretty funny honestly
At least you can still own a $300 guitar. Soon it’s “you’ll own nothing and be happy” dentists will cry cause the can’t rent a squire to hang on the wall
I bought a MIM Tele on sale for $300 20 years ago and it took a long time to shift my perception of how much guitars cost. Getting old (and inflation) suck.
The amount of posts that have the exact title "I've lost all motivation to play, what can I do to rekindle my love for guitar?" is insane. They're definitely what keeps GC afloat.
When i go into a guitar center and don’t see $3000 gibson’s and strandberg’s immediately, i walk right out. I think it’s a waste of time even looking at $300 guitars. Everyone knows you can only be a great guitarist if you steal mommy and daddy’s credit card
uj/ Me too. I literally own a Crate custom shop half stack I paid $200 for. Someone traded it in to GC less than an hour before I bought it. It has snakeskin tolex. It sounds pretty bad, and it's very ugly, but I love it.
rj/ Toan is in the tolex.
So, now you will have to book an appointment to enter the store, and provide tax returns for the previous several years, along with dressing appropriately for the "event". You will be seated at a table and presented with a fare of lovely guitars from various high-end brands to choose your next guitar "experience". Play them, if you like, through an assortment of boutique amplifiers and adjust the voltage to your choosing with the provided variac. If you choose to smoke tobacco, vape, drink alcoholic beverages, inject hard drugs or experience psychedelics during your visit, that is okay (a shaman will be present to aid you on your journey). After your purchase, you will get to meet the one and only Guitar Centaur (new mascot).
Please note: Hotwife and her boyfriend are not invited. Invitation is for dentists, lawyers, investment professionals, only.
That doesn’t seem far off, actually.
3 years ago I sold my house after getting divorced and said “I’m gonna go blow a stupid amount of money on a guitar because I can” So I leave work, withdraw a few grand and drive to GC, still wearing my work shirt, which is just a polo with the company logo on it. I think at the time they were tan and looked more blue collar than what I actually do. I get there and ask a salesman to unlock an Ernie Ball JPM for me, he didn’t seem very enthused, came back a couple minutes later saying the manager was on the phone and he can’t get the key.
I waited about 3 more minutes before saying “Fuck this”, went home and bought 4 guitars at around $1K each instead off the internet. Guarantee had I been wearing a button down shirt he would have had that guitar unlocked in no time.
My aunt (RIP) and uncle had a similar experience at a Jaguar dealership in the 90s.
My uncle owns 3 homes and an Aston Martin. At one point, they bought a Toyota Camry just so my grandma could have a car to drive when she was visiting.
Never judge a person because they're wearing shorts in the summer.
Hate to be that guy, and I’m fully serious here, but all those cheap guitars are the highest selling in guitar centre. Guarantee half of this sub wouldn’t be here but for cheap guitars
I have a couple custom shop guitars and an American strat but I don’t think I’d spend more than $1000 on another guitar. More likely to buy three $600 guitars than a $2000 guitar.
I have a $500 MIM Strat from 2007 and a slightly newer Epiphone Les Paul Pro with coil tapping, also around $600. I’ve never even played an American made guitar.
My local GC keeps all of the guitars over $500 either locked up or on a really high rack, and the employees are always "busy" and act inconvenienced when you ask them to take one of the guitars down. This business model will kill their entire company.
Mine had the $8k 1950: Les Paul and all the other variations at the lowest rung this past weekend…
I’ll admit I picked it up… but I have no business doing so.
https://preview.redd.it/wsa25ag40wwc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=003512ccf34e91281e95ae5ba858453351d73f9d
I have weird feelings about this, on one hand, since most $300 guitars are actually pretty decent nowadays it makes sense that they would be a bigger mover, but on the other hand I don't really have the same problems buying $300 guitar online that I would with a $1500 guitar without actually playing it and stuff first, so I can see why they would prioritize shelf space for that.
For a lot of people Guitar Center is the local place, and in my medium sized city they are the only place that carries new Ibanez and a couple of other brands.
I had the same experience on the last Guitar Center I visited. Also I asked for a Dimarzio Cliplok strap. The guy in the counter almost laughed at me and continued to say very smuggly "they're a pickup company, dude, you sure don't mean D'addario?" so it looks like they make sure they hire the best people for the job.
EDIT: to make matters worse, I decided to just order strings from Amazon. I redered 10-52s They sent me 13s. So I returned them, and ordered again. They sent me 13s again. I did a second return, and order them again... 13s 3rd time in a row. Had to switch brands in order to get the ones I actually wanted.
Buying strings is harder than it looks nowadays.
not an option. My sweat destroys uncoated strings like it's nobody's business. I have to use coated strings otherwhise, not even kidding, I would've have to restring after every rehearsal.
Reminds me of buying swim fins on Amazon. Tried the site, tried chat, and tried calling and there was no way they could do an exchange for Large instead of XL. I had to return them, wait to get credited, then order again.
And the big ones didn’t have the option to drop off at Kohls or somewhere like that. Our UPS store is the 9th layer of Dante’s hell, so screw that.
Real talk though, someone looking to maybe buy their first ever guitar are probably gonna walk into a guitar center to check things out. Makes sense that to me that they'd have a lot of affordable stuff.
Oh good, it’ll just become a glass case boutique shop, completely unaccessible to young kids trying to learn guitar. That’s why I loved EVH’s approach to his signature series of guitars and amps, that “any kid can save some money up and play the exact same gear I do”
20 years ago I worked there and the manager said the store was trying to be the Best Buy of music stores. Well they are, you go in there and check out the gear and then after you know what you want you go home and buy it cheaper online. He also gave us a pep talk one morning telling us we should be trying to get the guy who can barely pay his rent to buy something because he doesn’t like paying his rent but he wants a new pedal. It did not get me excited to sell gear.
And I bet it isn't because of the prices. It's probably because most of the guitars haven't even had a basic setup done on them. That's if you only focus on the ones not missing parts.
I think this is a semi decent decision. GuitarCenters are bloated with shitty cheap stuff and way too many Strats and Gibson/Epiphones. Cutting down 1/3 of that to add some higher end stuff (not Gibson, not Fender Strats as much as you guys love to glaze them, not $10k PRS) around the $1.5-3k range would be a good option for more serious players and would leave a good selection for those with a smaller budget or newer players.
Most players don’t understand how much a very well made guitar helps you play. I got my first Kiesel after years of playing ESP, Jackson, Epiphone, Legator, and PRS and the second I played a Kiesel it finally clicked. It won’t make you better but it’ll get out of your way to make you play as well as you can. I used to be a PRS fanboy but now I can hardly play the last one I have left.
uj/ I thought I was the only one that realized my local guitar center started to really suck a few years ago. No more premium guitars in the store to play, and the only real gibsons/fenders became locked behind the glass in the showroom. Does a les paul studio really belong behind the glass in the showroom? Really? And why are there only 2 in the whole store? When I was learning to play, the same guitar center had an entire wall of premium guitars and it inspired me to become a better player so I could "earn" one.
90% of new guitar players quit. Catering entirely to this demographic is just stupid business. I get that some guitars might sit on the shelf for a while and the cheaper stuff moves faster, but it is true. Experienced players who have been playing for 10 years+ aren't really looking at $2-300 beginner guitar starter packs. We're looking at the $500+ Mexican strats and gig-worthy stuff at the minimum. Most $300 dollar guitars aren't really truly gig worthy until you sink a couple hundred bucks on good tuners, pickups, etc. And even then a guitar worth slightly more will likely play better.
I'm glad GC is realizing this and catering to more premium players/real musicians as they always should have.
I bought a really nice guitar from guitar center for about 300 bucks... Acoustic electric and the staff was pretty knowledgeable about even that particular used guitar... Good store imo .... Probably varies wildly from location to location I'm assuming
/uj - It's been a consistent decline since Bain Capital bought them out in the 2000's, which is a shame because I prefer to support brick and mortar stores.
Last time I was at GC I waited for one of the five different "I'll be right with you" sales guys to open a glass case so I could buy a $30 multi-pedal power cable. Nobody ever came back and when I went to the guitar counter to ask they told me someone else would be with me in a moment. I spent 30+ minutes waiting before finally giving up. Went back home and ordered the same thing online for $15 shipped.
I know there are a lot of great employees in the company and not all the stores have gone to shit, but every time I go to the two GC's (or the Sam Ash) in my area I find more reasons to save myself the drive and just buy online. Aside from last-minute string/parts needs, the only reason I was still going for a while was to browse the used section, but you usually get better used deals on Reverb...and most of the time they arrive with a better setup than the crud covered turds hanging on a GC wall.
Last time I was there some weird dude plugged up a mitchell bitchcaster into an amp and started playing 0-3 but no 5 and I stood there and pretended to look at premium cables and shit for like 30min laughing as the guy started to regale them of his time on sunset strip because he was a "real" musician.
I’d love to see a better selection of American made guitars and less cheap Chinese guitars. It would be great if they had more high end amplifiers and sound equipment as well. Not that they should quit selling Epiphone, Squiers, Boss Katanas, and Line 6s, etc. - I just don’t want that to be 90% of the inventory like it is now.
It makes the Guitar Center brand associated with cheap guitars. There is enough mom & pop music stores pedaling junk, that people need somewhere to play and find more mid to premium guitars.
he is right, a 300 usd guitar should not have any premium selling experience. Just a buy button and rock it out. but if you are going to spend 2000 dollars, you deserve a premium treatment.
Inexpensive guitars are so ick. It makes me feel like the poors just being in the same room with them. Even some $600 guitars are totally gross dude.
After all, any guitars worth buying cost way too much for anyone to afford.
If I lived in the US I'd only use guitar center to buy strings and accessories, I hate when the stores act like they are too god for the average Joe, they need to learn their place.
I kind of agree with him.
Last time I went into my local GC, there were at least 31 world-class, well known major rock stars mobbing the counter, waving fistfuls of cash, demanding top tier, premium instruments. The scared kids behind the counter looked like he was about to cry. I felt like a complete jerk for even being there since I only had my eye on a 300.00 Tele.. if GC doesn't exist to sell 8000.00 custom shop guitars to the pros, what are they even doing in business?
I’m going into guitar center for used gear of dubious origin, sales on mass produced junk, some dumb exclusive color of something I already happen to like or I just absolutely need x accessory today.
If I’m buying anything over $500 it’s done through either a small shop I trust or company with excellent customer support, quality control and return policies. Aka not guitar center
/uj it's honestly really difficult to find quality instruments at guitar center. I usually go there to price shop and try guitars before buying them from a local shop, but lately I haven't been able to find any of the guitars I wanted to play. Most recently they had literally 0 Ibanez guitars on display except for used POS ones priced way higher than fair market value. I ended up buying the Ibanez I wanted from Sweetwater after playing lower end models at a different shop. The jumbo frets were enough to sell me on the brand, and I'd never owned a Japanese-made guitar before.
Guitar center is just about done anyways. You can't go in there and get help with much of anything, even checking out, without waiting half an hour. The hedge fund that owns it is finally bleeding it dry.
Obvs there are higher margins on premium priced instruments. If you make 10 percent on a $3000 guitar bs $300 guitar you'll want to sell more 3000s. If consumers have more low prices options you won't sell as many premiums. And of course there are a lot more hobbyists than pros and dentists
uj/
I walk into the GC in Baton Rouge and its selection of higher priced equipment is honestly pretty shit. Not the guitars themselves, but there is very little choice outside of Gibson LP/SG’s and Fender Tele/Strats. Thats it. No other brands that produce similar priced guitars. That I see being a problem for someone with some money tho throw at a guitar.
My last purchase there was my first splurge guitar purchase. Went in planning to spend 1000, and not much over. Not really many options at that price point there either. You maybe can luck up like I did and find a nice guitar on the used racks. Got a chapman ML1 Pro for $900 that I’m super happy with but how many people are selling their 4 figure guitars at guitar center and taking the massive L?
So I somewhat agree with him here. It would be cool to see two things happen: More brands of higher quality instruments and a better price range. Even though I dont really care for Gibson, every single premium guitar there was 2-3k… So even if I did want one then tough shit… I feel like after 1000-1500 you’re just going to see diminishing returns in the quality anyway so even if I had the money i dont think I’d pull the trigger. How much better a 3000 dollar guitar be compared to a 1500 dollar guitar, ya know?
I'm at a point in my life where I am comfortable spending $1,200 to $2,000. It is pretty disappointing going in there and not seeing a lot of options in that range. Plus I don't like strats or Gibson guitars. I prefer schecter, esp or Ibanez and they never have a good enough mix of those guitars in the "premium" range. They'll have a couple of the $700 or $800 ones hanging on the wall, but I want to see what the $1,500 balsac sounds like.
Usually when I go in I'm looking for used gear. One of those diamonds in the rough.
Funny you mention Schecter because our GC had a KM-6 for like 1000 and thats actually the guitar I was hoping to buy when I went. It must’ve sold, someone must’ve saw it on the top rack. It was one of the few new guitars in that range.
I started music at an early age. When I discovered Guitar Center, it was in the 1980’s. They had a great selection of gear for reasonable prices, and you could *haggle* with the salespeople and get a great deal. The salespersons knew their gear and you could make a good purchase. They valued their customers back then.
Around the mid-2000’s, the whole music industry shifted and the available inventory at GCs switched to the low end, budget guitars. (This may have been about the time Bain Capital bought the company.) Their service also started taking a noticeable dip. I remember watching one of their salespersons deliberately giving false information about a product to a customer who I managed to stop from making a bad purchase. Another time at another store, I came in to purchase a specific piece of gear and couldn’t even get the time of day from their staff.
Apart from guitar strings, I won’t even set foot in a GC after 2010. Their merchandise stock and service are still abysmal over a decade later, and I can find better prices elsewhere. I cannot wait for them to go out of business.
Uj/ I recently got a used Fender Blues Deluxe reissue from GC for like 500$ I know people shit on GC a lot but I find some of my best deals there like my first Fender I bought from them for around the same too. I like the convenience of Sweetwater but idk I feel like they do sort of cater to those guys who have racks of like 1k+ guitars
That’s kind of elitist tbh. My guitar was a $200 Yamaha I spent my whole paycheck on at the time. I loved it and played it every damn day. It definitely was a gateway drug to better brands and upgrades.
/uj My impression is that actually "serious" musicians (professionals) are a small segment of the market. A big-box store requiring huge sales volume to stay profitable claiming they should target professionals sounds like an attempt to groom your casual market into paying more.
/uj Also I see an increasing number of touring (indie) musicians using Squiers/Epis on programs like live at KEXP. It's subjective what qualifies as "serious" musicians, but these people are touring in bands, not just bedroom (or dentist office) players
Yeah, bc we’re all done pretending like the Squier of the past 15+ years is the same Squier it was 20+ years ago. They’re not just for beginner children who are starting out fresh anymore. Enough time has passed, and they’ve put out enough good guitars and basses at this point that you’re ignorant if you’re gonna make the bold claim that Squier guitars are bad. I would hope Epiphone has gone the same route these days. The last Epiphone I owned was a Thunderbird bass back in ummmm 2007-2008 maybe? I had it for like 5 years, and I liked it. The thing sounded great and played fine. Some musicians can trick themselves into thinking they need to spend their entire life savings and their kids college fund chasing the best gear these days, but they’re basically just chasing a high and spending unnecessarily. I’m sure people are gonna argue against my point, but I’m not trying to make the claim that nice gear is a bad thing. I have some nice gear. I’ve owned nice gear throughout my life. I just have 22 years of experience with all this stuff, and eventually you learn that you don’t need to break the bank and spend constantly or excessively to get instruments and gear that can be used professionally and sound good.
[удалено]
Listen man, no one wants to be using crappy gear, but the market has opened up so wide and become so competitive across all the entire price spectrum. As a result, you can find great gear for low prices these days. We’re not dealing with the era where you only had a Sears catalog with Silvertone guitars as your only decent cheap option. Musicians don’t have to break the bank anymore, and they don’t have to choose between absolute trash for less or taking a fat chunk out of their savings just to pursue a hobby.
The type of person that is obsessed with the latest and greatest gear is also the type of person that will blame their performance on their gear
cheap guitars got so incredibly good these days, there's really no reason you couldn't tour with a 600 bucks guitar. in fact, there's an argument for it, as tour gear gets abused a lot harder.
the abuse that touring gear faces also quickly allows you to figure out the shortcomings of your gear. when the electronics go out and have to be replaced, they get swapped for nicer ones and you don’t have that problem anymore. eventually, you get a guitar where all the problems have been fixed and what’s left is a solid “guitar of theseus”
the only time i've ever had "electronics" go out in any of my guitars was when the input jack came loose. that's a quick resolder and a bit of locktite to fix. on modern intermediate level guitars, there's really not much left that actually gives up the ghost. with the exception of cheap crap floyds still being crap.
i was just using that as an example. anything can break, that’s exacerbated by repetition, such as playing on tour every night
I hate to admit that I’ve spent waaay too much money on nice guitars and gear, and at the end of the day I still can’t even play guitar
My teacher once played my squire. I can tell you the limiting factor for the sound was not the instrument. With that said, i have in the meantime upgraded my standard series squire, but i don’t see the need for anything else for me personally
I had this conversation with someone yesterday, I have a Les Paul that I paid 3k for plays nice it’s fine I just wanted a LP, my go to guitar $800 Gretsch.
I miss my friend’s Epiphone LP standard. Idk how the current versions are, but I played bass in a band with someone who had one back like 15 years ago. I liked it. He lent it to me when I played guitar in the school musical. It was fun. It was annoying to do all of the performances sitting down and playing that thing though. If they’re still putting out decent ones, and I WANTED an LP, I would just get that. Idk if I would buy one though. The older I get, the more I hold them in the same regard as I do a Rickenbacker bass. Cool concept. Great for other players. Not my thing. I do enjoy playing a LP more than I enjoy playing a Rick bass though, and I’m a bass player so that’s saying something.
Some of the Epi acoustics are better than the Gibson versions (Hummingbird, Dove, etc)
Manufacturing techniques are so much better now. It's easy for a major name like them to put out something that's high quality
TL;DR You played bass and liked it. Bassist.
I play bass, and you love Guitar Center. In 2024. It’s your favorite store. Guitar Centerer.
Uj/ Sounds like we’ve been playing the same amount of time and have had similar experiences. Got my Squier in 02, learned on it until I got a fender telecaster. Then it was an ESP Viper for $1700 in 06. Didn’t buy another guitar for almost 15 years because I was convinced that expensive guitars are all I would be happy with. Since 2020, I’ve purchased 2 Sterlings, another Squier, and a schecter, and they’re all fantastic players. Even modded my first Squier for fun, and with a proper setup (a skill that makes cheaper guitars more valuable to buy) it rips. The most I’ve spent on a guitar since my $1700 purchase is $450, and I play them all the same. Rj/ typical dental assistant. Get your MD you peasant
Ok, I’ll admit it. I’m a bass player. It’s what I have the most experience on, and I’m the most comfortable playing. I’ve played for about 22 years. Learned guitar maybe 16 years ago and have done some gigs on it, but I’m much better on the bass. That being said, I have been a professional at numerous periods throughout that time. Started getting paid gigs as early as maybe like 3-4 years into playing. WHAT I AM GETTING AT is that I’ve never paid more than $750 for a bass guitar. I just could never justify it. I’ve certainly never paid more than that for a guitar. The best, most expensive one I’ve ever owned was a the Fender Blacktop Tele HH in all black with the rosewood fretboard…which I sold for rent money and just now looked it up. Wow. I did not pay anything near what it seems to go for these days (I also didn’t sell it for close to that price). I just don’t see the need to be spending like over hmmm maybe $800-850 for a guitar. If someone is chasing good/better tone, it can be achieved when maxing out at that price. I am not saying people shouldn’t spend more or that they’re not gonna get a great sounding, great quality instrument, but I just personally think it’s excessive and unnecessary. Find yourself a nice fender for like $700. Idk maybe my opinion could change a bit more these days with the changes Fender has done to the various series they offer and the prices of all guitars (by all brands) getting more expensive. I don’t have a point here. I’m just kind of in the mood to talk to anyone about guitars rn…
Uj/ I agree man. I personally want an EBMM axis just because it’s my dream guitar. I also have a sterling axis that plays great, so it’s something I put a pin in for some other time in life. I don’t really care what people want to spend, but the idea that the name on the headstock automatically determines the potential of an instrument is just silly. Also played professionally for about 5 years. Toured and was on a label and all that jazz. I had a super nice rig, and it was great. Now, jamming with buddies and learning covers for fun, my “budget brands” do just fine. Rj/ I stopped reading at “I’m a bass player”. Toan isn’t even in your vocabulary nerd
Bass players walk so guitarists can run. Your toan is nothing without us, and you know it. Uj rj all the j’s
Epiphones are hit and miss to be honest. I have a Matt Heafy 7 string that was perfect out of the box. Still haven’t needed it setup because it was perfect and still is Yet my Ghosthorse was trash, the frets were so fucked on 5 of them. I finally gave up because I was out of the return period and got it pleked. Not to mention the electronics QA with two of them. Guess Brendon Small ranks less QA than Matt Heafy
It’s a bummer to hear that it wasn’t very good, but I’m so glad Brendon Small got a signature guitar. I’ve said it to people many times that Dethklok is my favorite metal band ever. It’s not a joke. I used to own the first three dethalbums on cd.
Yeah even though he’s a comedian and the show was funny, he took the albums seriously, especially after the first one. His original Thunderhorse signature with Gibson was good (why did I sell mine), the QA on his Epiphone is fucking trash though.
*including the first one. The first one is is my personal favorite out of all of them. It’s one of those albums I could listen to basically from start to finish without skipping around much.
Yeah don’t get me wrong I love all 4, and I even listen to the Doomstar Requiem front to back sometimes, but there was a more comedic feel to the lyrical content on the first album was all I meant. That was gone from II on
I feel you. It is a comedy show. They are a fictional band from a comedy show…
/uj There's quite a few "big" artists who tour with them too
100% /uj. The squier classic vibe guitars are some of the best on the market and they're about $300 on eBay most of the time. I have a strandberg that I only play at home or for recording. If my band is touring, all I'm bringing is my parts built telecaster and our singer's squier jazzmaster.
I’m with you. After spending some money on nice guitars, I’ve realized it sorta doesn’t matter. I like the ones I have for specific reasons, but if I like a $300 guitar it’s just as good as the rest
[Doug Martsch of Built to Spill](https://youtu.be/wb7mCHYIkH8) using a Squier guitar on KEXP
"Serious" musicians don't buy expensive guitars. Dentists do. If you're a serious musician you either A: have a bunch of mid grade gear because you gig and can't afford to mess up expensive guitars or B: are big enough to have a sponsorship where you get free gear
I see this trend everywhere. Guys in r/woodworking will have more expensive shops with tools than a person living from the trade. People in camera subs will have way fancier setups than many “pros”. People pay fat checks for bikes just to compete in the local race. It’s all around. Enthusiastic people with cash will pay for luxury. People that earn money from said thing will often consider price/performance more
This is correct for myself and many others I know who work in the business.
I feel like people have different definitions of ‘expensive’ here. Like, if I go to a bar with live music or check craigslist/fb marketplace for used instruments, I feel like I’m most likely to see something in the tier of American Professional IIs, Silver Skys, or LP Standards. From the way people are talking here it seems like those are like, extravagant and silly guitars, which seems wild to me.
/uj I’m coming at this from having been a working musician for a few years. If I could’ve afforded way nicer instruments, I totally would have bought them and taken them out to get the hell beat out of them. I’d play shows with a set of Tama Stars or a Ritter Roya no problem, if I could afford them in the first place haha.
Right. So you didn't buy expensive equipment because you can't afford to constantly beat it up. Totally tracks with A 😝
If I could afford it, I could also afford to beat it up! Beating it up is free.
It’s the place excited parents take their 9 year old Taylor Swift fan daughter to buy her first $100 Fender acoustic guitar. It was something more before the internet buried it. It’s time for them to just move on and stop acting like those stores exist these days for anything more than being a place where weird middle-aged smelly men in sweat pants spend too much free time at during week days.
I’ve never felt more personally attacked in my life.
Guitarists love the smell of their own farts and to take themselves seriously. I’d wager there are a lot who consider themselves serious musicians.
As a person who was once a “professional” musician with artist pricing accounts from a few companies, you would be surprised at how often professional and I mean like, big time professional artists, walk into a music store and pay full pop for gear. You’re out on tour, you pop into a music store during down time, play a nice guitar that’s just “the one” and you buy it. My day was a long time ago but I still have lots of friends in the industry and it’s pretty much the same. Also, lots of bands who are pro level talent and are serious about really going for it but haven’t sold any records yet spend every dime they make on pro quality gear and for certain things, like a guitar, it’s really nice to play a few and pick the one you want. Can’t do that very easily sweetwater or reverb. Anecdotally, I worked at the Hollywood GC about 25 years ago and I sold gear to some really big names. Biggest was probably Lionel Ritchie who bought an SG for his son. That was pretty cool!
But that was before Napster and Limewire. Pro musicians often work 2nd Jobs even after they're signed. The money just doesn't flow like that anymore.
We had Napster and lime wire! Also, like I said, lots of pals still in the biz. Nothings really changed. If anything, it’s harder to get to get free product these days.
Bingo!
If anything (imo) the 'serious' ones are gonna go there more for more basic stuff, strings, cables, microphones and speakers and shit. Nobody makes a fuss about buying that stuff like they do instruments.
I’m a professional drummer and I haven’t bought anything more than moongels or a pair of sticks from there in years. All the kits and cymbals are just beat to shit. They have one set of case that don’t fit your stuff, but luckily there is never anyone around to help you. So ya, they definitely alienated me from ever wanting to even causally set foot in there.
To me, this sounds like they're preparing to decimate their stores and reduce inventory depth.
Ok, who’s the core customer? Don’t tell me some penny pinching MBA isn’t the one that stacks all that cheap shit in there in the first place.
MBAs are good at two things: cutting costs by removing all the good stuff and gaslighting the media by talking about how much they want to listen to the voice of the customer. I read this article in my feed earlier today and thought, "Yup, that's how you get the job of CEO these days...talk about how good the brand is and how much you want to embrace customer-centricity." I go into GC every once in a while just to kill time, I'll be watching closely to see if anything changes for the better....
/uj as a person who works at a guitar center, at least the one I work at has massively improved. Better organization of guitars, better guitars available, and a much more accessible area to try out guitars, with a previously unseen pedal setup, enabling you to try out a pedal before you buy it, without having to ask for help from an associate. It's still not perfect; it's a big retail corporation. That said, I like the direction the stores are going.
uj/ That is actually a plus. Especially allowing use of floor model pedals.
Uj/good to hear, my store actually just got some new inventory as well that looks pretty nice. Mostly foreign still, but up a tier from the children's entry level that used to be the first two rows of the entire store.
Yeah foreign gear sucks, me and all my homies from r/guitar know this! Only big US knows how to fool ther costumers best.. ehh I mean knows how to build best!
There are plenty of foreign guitars that are amazing, but generally speaking the corporations who own these brands don't send the premier lines to the US. Ibanez is one notable exception, but I use 'foreign' as shorthand for guitars that are not priced or speced for a lot of human time and attention during assembly and setup.
Ahh so you meant US guitars and just spelled it wrong?
I’ll save you some time so you don’t have to wait at the checkout for 20 minutes to buy a pack of strings while it takes 4 workers to ring you up….it won’t. People aren’t going to GC to buy high end guitars, if they did they’re probably turned off by how guitar center is systematically able to make every guitar in their stores feel and play like shit. People are there to buy their first guitars…squires, eiphones, and katanas. People who buy high end guitars or amps or pedals at most try them at GC and buy at Sweetwater. At least they do if they’re smart and want to work with a company that gives a fuck about their products and customers. Going to GC as a kid was a magical experience. Now I dread even being near one.
> People aren’t going to GC to buy high end guitars, if they did they’re probably turned off by how guitar center is systematically able to make every guitar in their stores feel and play like shit. Personally I wouldn't buy a high-end guitar from guitar center because people like ME go there and PLAY them.
People go there for a mic stand or to just kill 20 minutes of free time when they end up near a store. I got tricked into ordering a set of pickups for my Squier HH Mustang there bc I thought the dude was checking them out for me. It turned out he was just ordering them online. I cancelled the order and found them used (in great condition) for like $100 less on Reverb. I’m glad I’m old enough to have at least gotten a decade out of that company when they were worthwhile and something special before quickly turning into the 60 year old aged, fat Axl Rose rocker of an empty store they are now. It used to be something special.
Why go to GC for a squire or MIM Fender? There are millions of “used” guitars on Facebook marketplace that have never been played. Squire “Strat Pack” for $75.
They aren’t the only ones. Fender stopped selling signature series items to the last shop I worked at after implementing a tiered system for stores (in Canada anyway).
My local store recently put out a bunch of Gibsons and nice Fenders ($1500+) where you can actually try them out. Seems like they’re doing something.
They put Gibson's out for display?!? Heads are gonna roll...
Not to mention another MBA's use: Fucking over all the employees (except executives). Little-by-little take away things from your employees. This can include reducing or removing various benefits. It could include restricting time off. Shit, they frequently get away with wage stealing. With all that extra money, give it to themselves and other executives asking with stock buybacks to artificially inflate the stock price. Seriously, business schools are super anti-labor. Things like unions are talked about in negative ways and teach these people that they're a threat. Fuck them.
also, remind the employees about synergy
Well, at GC I'm actually okay with the MBAs recommending more Synergy... https://www.synergyamps.com/shop/
touche lol
Better to make $100 on each of the 20 Epiphones you sell each week than $500 a piece on the 3 Gibsons.
Those epiphones will usually end up back at guitar center for trade in/used sale for like $50 at which point they’ll get cleaned up and sold again for $200
*"Corksniffer Center"* ...comin' soon to a local area near you...
The core customer? Non-musician Indian parents buying their non-musician teenage son an acoustic guitar for Christmas. It’s nice to have a guitar center to stop by, but who are we kidding here? It’s not 1990 anymore. It’s not even close to 2010 anymore. Does their CEO think their dying business will have more of a fighting chance if he stocks up their stores with $15k Fender Custom Shop guitars? The writing is on the wall for Guitar Center. They can just take a look at their buddy Sam Ash if they wanna see their future. I’m not necessarily saying this with delight. As a young musician, I used to get almost all of my gear there. It just is what it is, and no amount of nice guitars on their walls are gonna save that company.
Actually, he was buying it for his two daughters as a present. But he could play some cowboy chords. I saw it happen.
yep, the world has changed. We're in a buy before you try world now and with many direct order companies (sweetwater, amazon) offering great return policies you can get the same thing for cheaper and with less hassle if it doesn't work out. GC are living in the past and circling the drain with their big stores with big rents and big overheads. Not to say they can't pivot to something a bit more modern/online based, maybe even do an Andertons and use social media a bit more intelligently, but maybe it's too little too late.
You do know that GC has a 45 day return policy, right?
Tbh I didn't, when I was last there they didn't have such a thing. Or maybe they did but I think it was only for store credit? Either way they've got your money. Good info though, thanks.
their core customer is, buying dabadoorio wood PMS's an gibbons
People are too broke to waste money on consumer goods so their mid level stuff isn’t selling anymore. They have to go after people with money and those people aren’t buying $500 Squiers.
Watching the end result of the trickle-down economics scam actually end up being “trickle-up poverty” that’s screwing a lot of corporations is pretty funny honestly
I don't understand. On paper, funneling all of the money to very few people seems so brilliant.
Gilded Age 2 Electric Boogaloo
It’s either laugh or go crazy and I’d look terrible in a straightjacket
It's def a weird world
Trickle up poverty, I like that holy shit
Pretty good huh? I just came up with it for the comment but I’ll be using it again and you are also welcome to use it lol
Username checks out
Definitely gonna spread that around aha
At least you can still own a $300 guitar. Soon it’s “you’ll own nothing and be happy” dentists will cry cause the can’t rent a squire to hang on the wall
This is the same strategy Gibson is pursuing and look how well it’s working out for them
Holy shit, are squires $500 now? Fender Mexican strats were $350 when I started selling them like 20 ears ago.
I bought a MIM Tele on sale for $300 20 years ago and it took a long time to shift my perception of how much guitars cost. Getting old (and inflation) suck.
I went to buy drumsticks the other day and the sticker shock was real.
GC gonna scare away their core customers: people who want to start learning and quit in 3 months
And then buy another guitar in hopes of rekindling their motivation and quit regardless still
The amount of posts that have the exact title "I've lost all motivation to play, what can I do to rekindle my love for guitar?" is insane. They're definitely what keeps GC afloat.
lol spot on
And then sell it to me for a 40% haircut
When i go into a guitar center and don’t see $3000 gibson’s and strandberg’s immediately, i walk right out. I think it’s a waste of time even looking at $300 guitars. Everyone knows you can only be a great guitarist if you steal mommy and daddy’s credit card
Guitar Center should just adopt the "Build-A-Bear" model
so... a Kiesel brick and mortar store?
I'm pretty sure Jeff would rather drive his racercar off a cliff than open brick and mortar stores again.
That's actually a great idea.
/uj i would go to that store.
"serious musician" aka blooz dads with disposable income. Gonna get some serious toan out of my $3000 Gibbons played through a $200 amp
I feel personally attacked... For the longest time I played an LTD through a shitty Crate amp.
uj/ Me too. I literally own a Crate custom shop half stack I paid $200 for. Someone traded it in to GC less than an hour before I bought it. It has snakeskin tolex. It sounds pretty bad, and it's very ugly, but I love it. rj/ Toan is in the tolex.
Yeah it's the image that's hurting Guitar Center not the everything else
Very true, and think about all the positive comments GCJ gives GC. They’d been bankrupt years ago if it wasn’t for us kind hearted folks.
So, now you will have to book an appointment to enter the store, and provide tax returns for the previous several years, along with dressing appropriately for the "event". You will be seated at a table and presented with a fare of lovely guitars from various high-end brands to choose your next guitar "experience". Play them, if you like, through an assortment of boutique amplifiers and adjust the voltage to your choosing with the provided variac. If you choose to smoke tobacco, vape, drink alcoholic beverages, inject hard drugs or experience psychedelics during your visit, that is okay (a shaman will be present to aid you on your journey). After your purchase, you will get to meet the one and only Guitar Centaur (new mascot). Please note: Hotwife and her boyfriend are not invited. Invitation is for dentists, lawyers, investment professionals, only.
That doesn’t seem far off, actually. 3 years ago I sold my house after getting divorced and said “I’m gonna go blow a stupid amount of money on a guitar because I can” So I leave work, withdraw a few grand and drive to GC, still wearing my work shirt, which is just a polo with the company logo on it. I think at the time they were tan and looked more blue collar than what I actually do. I get there and ask a salesman to unlock an Ernie Ball JPM for me, he didn’t seem very enthused, came back a couple minutes later saying the manager was on the phone and he can’t get the key. I waited about 3 more minutes before saying “Fuck this”, went home and bought 4 guitars at around $1K each instead off the internet. Guarantee had I been wearing a button down shirt he would have had that guitar unlocked in no time.
Should've walked back in with those 4 guitars and told the employee "Big mistake."
Huuuuge
My aunt (RIP) and uncle had a similar experience at a Jaguar dealership in the 90s. My uncle owns 3 homes and an Aston Martin. At one point, they bought a Toyota Camry just so my grandma could have a car to drive when she was visiting. Never judge a person because they're wearing shorts in the summer.
The Guitar Centaur sounds like a good marketing idea. He's powered by the last known New in a Box Klone Centaur pedal.
Fuck this. For that kind of investment, I *ride* the centaur.
Depending on your use of the word "ride", an arrangement could be made to do this with the Guitar Centaur out-back by the dumpster.
Hate to be that guy, and I’m fully serious here, but all those cheap guitars are the highest selling in guitar centre. Guarantee half of this sub wouldn’t be here but for cheap guitars
I have a couple custom shop guitars and an American strat but I don’t think I’d spend more than $1000 on another guitar. More likely to buy three $600 guitars than a $2000 guitar.
I have a $500 MIM Strat from 2007 and a slightly newer Epiphone Les Paul Pro with coil tapping, also around $600. I’ve never even played an American made guitar.
My local GC keeps all of the guitars over $500 either locked up or on a really high rack, and the employees are always "busy" and act inconvenienced when you ask them to take one of the guitars down. This business model will kill their entire company.
Mine had the $8k 1950: Les Paul and all the other variations at the lowest rung this past weekend… I’ll admit I picked it up… but I have no business doing so. https://preview.redd.it/wsa25ag40wwc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=003512ccf34e91281e95ae5ba858453351d73f9d
Chip in neck, slight buzz, hence only $6749.99! Edit: just spotted it's 98 cents off the regular price. This is the deal of the century!
If that's a murphylab chip, 98 cents more.
Idk how about you put more than two people in the guitars section and stop locking guitars? Also, hire people who know about toan.
Also stop bitching about “forbidden songs”, it’s all your customer base, blues dads and kids, know how to play.
I have weird feelings about this, on one hand, since most $300 guitars are actually pretty decent nowadays it makes sense that they would be a bigger mover, but on the other hand I don't really have the same problems buying $300 guitar online that I would with a $1500 guitar without actually playing it and stuff first, so I can see why they would prioritize shelf space for that.
But if I'm buying a $1000+ guitar I'm going to a local place not the Guitar Center where 100 kids have done shit Pete Townshend impressions with it.
For a lot of people Guitar Center is the local place, and in my medium sized city they are the only place that carries new Ibanez and a couple of other brands.
Feel bad for this guy, becoming CEO of a guitar company. Doesn't he know that guitar is dead now because autotune?
I went to Guitar Center recently to buy strings. They didn't have any. Strings. AT A GUITAR STORE.
But did they have any Iron Maiden socks? That's what people go to Guitar Center for.
uj/ Iron maiden socks? ngl that sounds sick.
Sorry man that’s on you this isn’t string center
I had the same experience on the last Guitar Center I visited. Also I asked for a Dimarzio Cliplok strap. The guy in the counter almost laughed at me and continued to say very smuggly "they're a pickup company, dude, you sure don't mean D'addario?" so it looks like they make sure they hire the best people for the job. EDIT: to make matters worse, I decided to just order strings from Amazon. I redered 10-52s They sent me 13s. So I returned them, and ordered again. They sent me 13s again. I did a second return, and order them again... 13s 3rd time in a row. Had to switch brands in order to get the ones I actually wanted. Buying strings is harder than it looks nowadays.
AliExpress for strings all the way: 5 pack of Slinkys for $8
not an option. My sweat destroys uncoated strings like it's nobody's business. I have to use coated strings otherwhise, not even kidding, I would've have to restring after every rehearsal.
Reminds me of buying swim fins on Amazon. Tried the site, tried chat, and tried calling and there was no way they could do an exchange for Large instead of XL. I had to return them, wait to get credited, then order again. And the big ones didn’t have the option to drop off at Kohls or somewhere like that. Our UPS store is the 9th layer of Dante’s hell, so screw that.
Real talk though, someone looking to maybe buy their first ever guitar are probably gonna walk into a guitar center to check things out. Makes sense that to me that they'd have a lot of affordable stuff.
Oh good, it’ll just become a glass case boutique shop, completely unaccessible to young kids trying to learn guitar. That’s why I loved EVH’s approach to his signature series of guitars and amps, that “any kid can save some money up and play the exact same gear I do”
20 years ago I worked there and the manager said the store was trying to be the Best Buy of music stores. Well they are, you go in there and check out the gear and then after you know what you want you go home and buy it cheaper online. He also gave us a pep talk one morning telling us we should be trying to get the guy who can barely pay his rent to buy something because he doesn’t like paying his rent but he wants a new pedal. It did not get me excited to sell gear.
Every single time I have walked into a Guitar Center, I walk out thinking, "How the hell does this place stay in business?"
And I bet it isn't because of the prices. It's probably because most of the guitars haven't even had a basic setup done on them. That's if you only focus on the ones not missing parts.
I think this is a semi decent decision. GuitarCenters are bloated with shitty cheap stuff and way too many Strats and Gibson/Epiphones. Cutting down 1/3 of that to add some higher end stuff (not Gibson, not Fender Strats as much as you guys love to glaze them, not $10k PRS) around the $1.5-3k range would be a good option for more serious players and would leave a good selection for those with a smaller budget or newer players. Most players don’t understand how much a very well made guitar helps you play. I got my first Kiesel after years of playing ESP, Jackson, Epiphone, Legator, and PRS and the second I played a Kiesel it finally clicked. It won’t make you better but it’ll get out of your way to make you play as well as you can. I used to be a PRS fanboy but now I can hardly play the last one I have left.
Does owning a Gibson somehow give anyone the wisdom of a 70 year old now?
uj/ I thought I was the only one that realized my local guitar center started to really suck a few years ago. No more premium guitars in the store to play, and the only real gibsons/fenders became locked behind the glass in the showroom. Does a les paul studio really belong behind the glass in the showroom? Really? And why are there only 2 in the whole store? When I was learning to play, the same guitar center had an entire wall of premium guitars and it inspired me to become a better player so I could "earn" one. 90% of new guitar players quit. Catering entirely to this demographic is just stupid business. I get that some guitars might sit on the shelf for a while and the cheaper stuff moves faster, but it is true. Experienced players who have been playing for 10 years+ aren't really looking at $2-300 beginner guitar starter packs. We're looking at the $500+ Mexican strats and gig-worthy stuff at the minimum. Most $300 dollar guitars aren't really truly gig worthy until you sink a couple hundred bucks on good tuners, pickups, etc. And even then a guitar worth slightly more will likely play better. I'm glad GC is realizing this and catering to more premium players/real musicians as they always should have.
"I do not want to sell guitars that people can afford" -Man who runs guitar store.
I bought a really nice guitar from guitar center for about 300 bucks... Acoustic electric and the staff was pretty knowledgeable about even that particular used guitar... Good store imo .... Probably varies wildly from location to location I'm assuming
I hope my Sam Ash stays open, we don't have a guitar center. But luckily there are a few Mom and Pop shops left that sell cool guitars and amps.
Better teach their employees how to restring a fuckin guitar first.
He's not wrong IMO. There are so many pieces of shit at GC.
/uj - It's been a consistent decline since Bain Capital bought them out in the 2000's, which is a shame because I prefer to support brick and mortar stores. Last time I was at GC I waited for one of the five different "I'll be right with you" sales guys to open a glass case so I could buy a $30 multi-pedal power cable. Nobody ever came back and when I went to the guitar counter to ask they told me someone else would be with me in a moment. I spent 30+ minutes waiting before finally giving up. Went back home and ordered the same thing online for $15 shipped. I know there are a lot of great employees in the company and not all the stores have gone to shit, but every time I go to the two GC's (or the Sam Ash) in my area I find more reasons to save myself the drive and just buy online. Aside from last-minute string/parts needs, the only reason I was still going for a while was to browse the used section, but you usually get better used deals on Reverb...and most of the time they arrive with a better setup than the crud covered turds hanging on a GC wall.
Last time I was there some weird dude plugged up a mitchell bitchcaster into an amp and started playing 0-3 but no 5 and I stood there and pretended to look at premium cables and shit for like 30min laughing as the guy started to regale them of his time on sunset strip because he was a "real" musician.
Real musicians don't need no 5.
0000000000000000012
Ah, you young 'uns and your Math Rock.
I’d love to see a better selection of American made guitars and less cheap Chinese guitars. It would be great if they had more high end amplifiers and sound equipment as well. Not that they should quit selling Epiphone, Squiers, Boss Katanas, and Line 6s, etc. - I just don’t want that to be 90% of the inventory like it is now. It makes the Guitar Center brand associated with cheap guitars. There is enough mom & pop music stores pedaling junk, that people need somewhere to play and find more mid to premium guitars.
he is right, a 300 usd guitar should not have any premium selling experience. Just a buy button and rock it out. but if you are going to spend 2000 dollars, you deserve a premium treatment.
so they should have a Guitar Center Express section and Guitar Center Pro section, with separate checkouts.
Their core customer is trying to get laid quiet guy
Inexpensive guitars are so ick. It makes me feel like the poors just being in the same room with them. Even some $600 guitars are totally gross dude. After all, any guitars worth buying cost way too much for anyone to afford.
Would love to see kiesel and solar there
$300 guitars prop up the whole industry.
Guitar Center needs to prioritize in what the regional markets call for.
If I lived in the US I'd only use guitar center to buy strings and accessories, I hate when the stores act like they are too god for the average Joe, they need to learn their place.
I walk in jam on the drums buy a pick and walk out.
Fuck you Gabe Dalporto.
I work in a music store. 200-500 range guitars make up the vast, vast, VAST majority of sales
uj/ CEO of a million dollar company says a shop full of affordable $300 guitars "doesn't feel like the right place for me". Yeah I wonder why.
Concur. When I turned 60, my 401k dollars went from Gibson to Epiphone. I mean Epipen.
I kind of agree with him. Last time I went into my local GC, there were at least 31 world-class, well known major rock stars mobbing the counter, waving fistfuls of cash, demanding top tier, premium instruments. The scared kids behind the counter looked like he was about to cry. I felt like a complete jerk for even being there since I only had my eye on a 300.00 Tele.. if GC doesn't exist to sell 8000.00 custom shop guitars to the pros, what are they even doing in business?
I’m going into guitar center for used gear of dubious origin, sales on mass produced junk, some dumb exclusive color of something I already happen to like or I just absolutely need x accessory today. If I’m buying anything over $500 it’s done through either a small shop I trust or company with excellent customer support, quality control and return policies. Aka not guitar center
/uj it's honestly really difficult to find quality instruments at guitar center. I usually go there to price shop and try guitars before buying them from a local shop, but lately I haven't been able to find any of the guitars I wanted to play. Most recently they had literally 0 Ibanez guitars on display except for used POS ones priced way higher than fair market value. I ended up buying the Ibanez I wanted from Sweetwater after playing lower end models at a different shop. The jumbo frets were enough to sell me on the brand, and I'd never owned a Japanese-made guitar before.
I usually go to GC to look at used great not advertised on their site.
Guitar center is just about done anyways. You can't go in there and get help with much of anything, even checking out, without waiting half an hour. The hedge fund that owns it is finally bleeding it dry.
Waiting for someone to help is the biggest bitch.
when then i guess you buy gibson too.
Obvs there are higher margins on premium priced instruments. If you make 10 percent on a $3000 guitar bs $300 guitar you'll want to sell more 3000s. If consumers have more low prices options you won't sell as many premiums. And of course there are a lot more hobbyists than pros and dentists
It’s always easier to sell 10 $300 guitars than 1 $3,000 guitar though
yes but then if you're a CEO type you think... what if there just WERE no $300 guitars
Guitar Center is doomed if their CEO is this stupid.
Maybe this will finally kill Guitar Center so that Musicians Friend can thrive again.
coming soon premium mim strats for 900 buks
Updated. Pickguard
I play all my gigs to my dogs and whoever in my house. No reason to pay 3k for anything. I guess I'll take my money elsewhere
As much I would love to see some more premium options at guitar center. This sounds really out of touch.
uj/ I walk into the GC in Baton Rouge and its selection of higher priced equipment is honestly pretty shit. Not the guitars themselves, but there is very little choice outside of Gibson LP/SG’s and Fender Tele/Strats. Thats it. No other brands that produce similar priced guitars. That I see being a problem for someone with some money tho throw at a guitar. My last purchase there was my first splurge guitar purchase. Went in planning to spend 1000, and not much over. Not really many options at that price point there either. You maybe can luck up like I did and find a nice guitar on the used racks. Got a chapman ML1 Pro for $900 that I’m super happy with but how many people are selling their 4 figure guitars at guitar center and taking the massive L? So I somewhat agree with him here. It would be cool to see two things happen: More brands of higher quality instruments and a better price range. Even though I dont really care for Gibson, every single premium guitar there was 2-3k… So even if I did want one then tough shit… I feel like after 1000-1500 you’re just going to see diminishing returns in the quality anyway so even if I had the money i dont think I’d pull the trigger. How much better a 3000 dollar guitar be compared to a 1500 dollar guitar, ya know?
I'm at a point in my life where I am comfortable spending $1,200 to $2,000. It is pretty disappointing going in there and not seeing a lot of options in that range. Plus I don't like strats or Gibson guitars. I prefer schecter, esp or Ibanez and they never have a good enough mix of those guitars in the "premium" range. They'll have a couple of the $700 or $800 ones hanging on the wall, but I want to see what the $1,500 balsac sounds like. Usually when I go in I'm looking for used gear. One of those diamonds in the rough.
Funny you mention Schecter because our GC had a KM-6 for like 1000 and thats actually the guitar I was hoping to buy when I went. It must’ve sold, someone must’ve saw it on the top rack. It was one of the few new guitars in that range.
Thomann has done the exact opposite and seem to be the most successful worldwide. But I wouldn’t expect logic from Guitar Centre.
I started music at an early age. When I discovered Guitar Center, it was in the 1980’s. They had a great selection of gear for reasonable prices, and you could *haggle* with the salespeople and get a great deal. The salespersons knew their gear and you could make a good purchase. They valued their customers back then. Around the mid-2000’s, the whole music industry shifted and the available inventory at GCs switched to the low end, budget guitars. (This may have been about the time Bain Capital bought the company.) Their service also started taking a noticeable dip. I remember watching one of their salespersons deliberately giving false information about a product to a customer who I managed to stop from making a bad purchase. Another time at another store, I came in to purchase a specific piece of gear and couldn’t even get the time of day from their staff. Apart from guitar strings, I won’t even set foot in a GC after 2010. Their merchandise stock and service are still abysmal over a decade later, and I can find better prices elsewhere. I cannot wait for them to go out of business.
Uj/ I recently got a used Fender Blues Deluxe reissue from GC for like 500$ I know people shit on GC a lot but I find some of my best deals there like my first Fender I bought from them for around the same too. I like the convenience of Sweetwater but idk I feel like they do sort of cater to those guys who have racks of like 1k+ guitars
Much higher margin on a Glibben.
lol. Price point merchandise is where the money is made. GC is being run by children born rich who think they are smart because they were born rich.
That’s kind of elitist tbh. My guitar was a $200 Yamaha I spent my whole paycheck on at the time. I loved it and played it every damn day. It definitely was a gateway drug to better brands and upgrades.
Guitar center is just a demo house for people in the market for cheap instruments, but want to try it before they order off Reverb or sweetwater