Chistopher
malapterurus electricus tonewood instigator
There are just too many of these Guitar Center stories out there, but here's mine:
I walk into the store with my BBT Taylor in hand so that I can get a LR Baggs Anthem SL pickup installed. The sales rep tries to hit me with their classic "Welcome to Guitar Center, can I help you with anything?" sales pitch. I brush it off and tell the guy what I came to do. He says that I have a nice guitar and I say, "yeah, but the strings are maybe 1mm to high." Mind you all I've asked for at this point is to install the pickup. He says it will be done by next Monday, so I leave.
Today I get a call saying that the guitar has been finished early, so I go by to pick it up. I see the man not only installed the pickup, but lowered the action, cleaned the fretboard, replaced the missing truss rod cover with one made of rosewood, and replaced the old strings with the same type I had in my bag (Elixir Nanowebs, a $13 set). I know immediately that something is up, so I look down at the bill and see $200 for the pickup and $50 for the installation. Then I'm talking to the tech and he has the nerve to say that he set the mag/mic ratio to what he thought was the optimum level and then showed me how I could change it if I wanted to. He also said he overheard me saying it could be lowered a bit and figured it wouldn't be too much of a hassle to do it free of charge because he was short of jobs at the moment.
TL;DR- People who generalize about GC are often times wrong. I have to say, today was a good day.
I walk into the store with my BBT Taylor in hand so that I can get a LR Baggs Anthem SL pickup installed. The sales rep tries to hit me with their classic "Welcome to Guitar Center, can I help you with anything?" sales pitch. I brush it off and tell the guy what I came to do. He says that I have a nice guitar and I say, "yeah, but the strings are maybe 1mm to high." Mind you all I've asked for at this point is to install the pickup. He says it will be done by next Monday, so I leave.
Today I get a call saying that the guitar has been finished early, so I go by to pick it up. I see the man not only installed the pickup, but lowered the action, cleaned the fretboard, replaced the missing truss rod cover with one made of rosewood, and replaced the old strings with the same type I had in my bag (Elixir Nanowebs, a $13 set). I know immediately that something is up, so I look down at the bill and see $200 for the pickup and $50 for the installation. Then I'm talking to the tech and he has the nerve to say that he set the mag/mic ratio to what he thought was the optimum level and then showed me how I could change it if I wanted to. He also said he overheard me saying it could be lowered a bit and figured it wouldn't be too much of a hassle to do it free of charge because he was short of jobs at the moment.
TL;DR- People who generalize about GC are often times wrong. I have to say, today was a good day.
