So, a drummer friend and I went to kill some time at GC this afternoon. While he was shopping for a new suspended cymbal, I decided to kill some time thumbing (no pun intended) through their cruddy selection of basses.

I ended up plugging a passive Warwick Corvette Standard 4 (I had never played a Warwick before) through an Ampeg SVT-4PRO into an Ampeg PR-410HLF.

Holy kick in the pants Batman!

Let it suffice to say that I had myself a good ol' time. I thoroughly enjoyed the amp setup but I was fairly suprised with the Warwick. I didn't really like the strings that came on it but the bass was so comfortable for me to play and I couldn't find a single problem with that particular one. Priced around $880 I think I'll have to visit a few hundred more times before asking her out.

Then to have some more fun I found an Aphex Bass Xciter on display that I plugged though.

The walls shook.

Anybody have experience with any of this equipment? Good, bad, middle of the road?

Oops, didn't mean to reply.

Glad to hear you enjoyed the equipment you tried out.

But the Guitar Center near me always has tons of great gear. Maybe it has a better selection because of the large number of musicians and other music stores in the area.

I don't have experience with those items, though I've tried the Warwick. Nice, but not for me.

GC has lots of fine equipment in varied price levels. Since their lines don't change much, I am not often surprised by what they have. But I never have a trouble finding something I want to play.

Tom

Warwicks do tend to be the bees knees, but I found that the older warwicks sound much better...at least to my ears. MAybe its the bartolini or emg systems they have. And maybe its because the woods are better(e.g. bubinga body and mostly wnge necks....as opposed to ovangkl necks and either bubinga or ovanngkl bodies)...all i KNow is that the older ones sound great to me.

The body on this one was bubinga and the fret board was wenge but I don't know what the neck was made out of...it was mostly a yellow color with a fairly sporatic pattern.

As far as GC, I've liked Sam Ash for quite some time and I've grown to like their inventory considerably more. That and the GC here seems to have alot of morons working there that can't effectively answer my questions. This was just the first time I've been there when something actually caught my attention. Unfortunately, I have to go back home to find any decent small music stores...that's an hour drive...blah.

You never know what you'll find in any music store. GC in Ft. Myers has this cherry used Ric 4003 in a mello-yello color. B-e-a-utiful. They also have a Gibson Thunderbird signed by the members of Motley Crue.

I do prefer to lend my patronage to the mom and pop stores, but hey, you've got to be open later to have me come in when the money starts burning in my pocket. They do have a severe lack of acoustic choices, maybe two.

Davio, next time you come south, check out http://www.Real-Guitars.com in Punta Gorda or Ft. Myers.

ATM

Looks like I could have a good time toying with their git-fiddles, but it doesn't look like they have much to offer for a bass selection.

Here in DeeCee, (Rockville, actually), the GC is OK. Not as many 6-strings as I'd like, but plenty of nice basses to choose from - stock seems to change quite a bit every 6 months or so. They seem to concentrate on the under $1K market, but there is the occasional high-end bass - always Warwicks, often others.

Still, around here, Washington Music Center tends to have the best selection and most experienced staff. While huge, the store has kind-of a "mom-and-pop" feel, with a lot of dedicated customers - a real "mad-house" on weekends!

It is probably hard for a music store to maintain a good selection. Musicians don't generally have that much cash to spend, and per-capita, musicians are a small percentage of the population (at least ones that have a need for high-quality instruments). Add to that the mail-order/web stores, and it must be pretty hard to maintain a decent retail outlet.

As to the Warwick and SVT, while I'm personally more low-end (Ibanez & Fender), I've heard only good things about both.