So I went to the music store today...

[_Sweet Willie_]

...and was greatly disappointed.

 

I did not go with the intent to buy. I went merely with the intent to explore -- perhaps even to self-educate.

 

I went to a local Sam Ash. The selection of basses was limited, very limited. I decided to play J basses. I like J basses.

 

I played a Ben Loy bass. The set-up sucked. The truss rod needed adjusted as did either the pickup height or the height of the strings at the luvlii BadAss bridge. The strings were smacking the pickup if you played more agressively than 80-yr old weakling w/ arthritis. It was missing the knob for the bridge pickup volume. Who's minding the store, I ask you?

 

I played a Mexi 4-string and an American 4-string. I decided that the S-1 switch is ridiculous. I decided that the store's tech likes high action. Neither bass sounded or felt particularly good to me.

 

I didn't even plug in the Mexi 4 fretless because the set-up was so far awry. Ugh.

 

I played a passive Mexi 5-string. B-string was nice. Bass sounded pretty good. Again, the strings were set up high enough to scare Barnum & Bailey's professional tightrope walker. There was some promise in this instrument.

 

I played a Marcus Miller 4-string. This one was actually set-up to my liking. The treble EQ sounded thin to me. The bass EQ was tasty. This was my favorite of the Fenders I played.

 

I played them all thru an SWR Super Redhead (same as what I've got at home). I wouldn't have bought a single one of them were I in the market for a J bass. The sad thing is, in almost every case it would've been because of the set-up -- and maybe not because of the bass itself.

 

For the record, I generally like Fender J basses. I've played MIA, MIJ, and MIM Fender J basses that I've liked. Usually I'm quite happy w/ your run of the mill J. Now I realize how spoiled I was by the local Evanston IL Fender dealer -- where the basses were set-up to play like buttah.

 

The best "J" bass of the bunch? That would be the only non-Fender I tried -- a Warwick RockBass Corvette. Niiiiice. A little thin sounding with the on-board 2-band preamp set flat, but pretty phat w/ some bass boost.

 

There was a sign outside the store indicating that they were hiring. I wonder if they were hiring a better store tech or additional staff for the bass dept to ensure that the stock didn't go to crap without anyone paying attention...

 

Usually these little adventures are so much fun.

 

Maybe it'll make me feel better to visit Guitar Center tomorrow. Maybe. At least the one near me tends to have a wide selection of basses.

 

Peace.

--SW

[ATM]

Damn man,

 

You should have come to Bass Central with us.

 

ATM

[tnb]

I find the set ups of most stores like GC and Sam Ash to be questionable at best. It's like they aren't even trying to sell them. You would think that a basic setup would be given to any bass that comes in the store.

 

Also, your tastes may have been tainted by the Nordstrand. As long that fish is swimming around your house, you can forget about buying off the rack.

[davio]

With the hours that the house tech at my local Spam Hash works, I doubt he has time to even notice that there are basses for sale in the store. He comes in most days. Not for very long at a time. Changes some strings and does a few setups and/or fixes on some guitars that were brought in and then leaves. I doubt that any of the instruments get any attention after they come out of their boxes. That's the joy of shopping at a musical Wal-Mart.

[saxofunk]

Maybe I'm glad there's not a Sam Ash locally. I visited one several years ago in Orlando. I didn't bother to tell them that there was a puddle of water on one of the Hartke heads. Maybe one of their grunts figured out that brown ceiling tiles above amplifiers is a bad sign.

[JPJ]

Maybe it'll make me feel better to visit Guitar Center tomorrow.

You don't really mean that, now...do you?

[Nicklab]

Originally posted by Dr. Sweet Willie:

Maybe it'll make me feel better to visit Guitar Center tomorrow. Maybe. At least the one near me tends to have a wide selection of basses.

We were talking about the very same thing last week. Sam Ash has turned into a wasteland full of mostly mediocre instruments. I hate to say it, but I think Guitar Center is surpassing them in terms of selection. That's not really saying a lot, either. The Guitar Center on Route 22 is actually pretty good as far as NY/NJ area Guitar Center's go. I still stand by NJ Guitar and Bass Center as one of the better stores in the Tri-State area for bass players who are into high-end instruments. The big-box stores don't really seem to cater to us anymore.

 

There's another store in North Jersey that's pretty cool for some more classic choices, too. Check out Lark Street Music in Teaneck, NJ. The only thing to be wary of is that they're closed on Saturdays. I played (or at least TRIED to play) a Chapman Stick there. They've also got a nice assortment of older Fenders and some other oddities here.

[_Sweet Willie_]

Originally posted by tnb:

I find the set ups of most stores like GC and Sam Ash to be questionable at best. It's like they aren't even trying to sell them.

You have very concisely summarized the point of my post.

 

Originally posted by tnb:

Also, your tastes may have been tainted by the Nordstrand. As long that fish is swimming around your house, you can forget about buying off the rack.

I agree with this -- generally speaking. However, I still love a good ol' J bass. For example, the one that 57pbass bought over to my place last weekend.

 

It didn't help that I had been playing my fretless MM 'Ray5 before leaving the house. I've had that bass for about 15 years. It just feels like home.

 

Peace.

--s-uu

 

 

And, yes, the GC on Route 22 is pretty good. I fell in love with a Spector fish there.

[_Sweet Willie_]

OK, I went to GC briefly today. Definitely better.

 

The basses were actually set-up pretty well. Their Geddy Lee was missing the same knob. Interesting, no?

 

I liked a used Fender J Deluxe 4-string. I also liked the Aguilar 1x12 combo amp. The channel w/ "saturation" didn't really do much for me, though. I liked the Aguilar 2x12 combo amp even better.

 

Overall, a better experience.

 

Peace.

--SW

[57pbass]

The thing that slightly concerns me is that Fender does not seem too concerned that thier products are out there for sale in such bad condition. As mentioned in this post its not just the Sam Ash stores in the NY / NJ area..It seems to be nationwide.

I bet Sam Ash is spinning in his grave as he looks in on the current conditions of his stores

It indicates to me that Fender is way too big to be concerned with such things and quality control is not important? With that said...is it Sam Ashes responsibility to set up Fenders stuff? It would make sense that they did since they will also profit from the sale..

[_Sweet Willie_]

Originally posted by 57pbass:

With that said...is it Sam Ash's responsibility to set up Fender's stuff?

I will assume that Fender ships their basses already set-up to some minimum standard.

 

During shipping I'm sure that that set-up doesn't hold, and at the very least some tweaking is needed at the store's end.

 

Something like a missing knob I would think a walk-by of the bass section at opening or closing would solve. If I saw a NEW bass hanging on the wall sans knob, I would pull out my bag o' knobs (doesn't every store have a "bag o' knobs"?!) and replace it pronto.

 

Peace.

--s-uu

[Luke73]

Originally posted by Dr. Sweet Willie:

..........The best "J" bass of the bunch? That would be the only non-Fender I tried -- a Warwick RockBass Corvette. Niiiiice. ................

Peace.

--SW

Nice huh

 

I've got one of these in the Warwick Rockbass Corvette Passive model and I love it I prefer the passive to the active model, but hey - that's just me. They're both nice

 

Very sweet instrument

[coyote]

You know, you could always borrow an Allen key and adjust an instrument yourself if you like the general look & sound but it doesn't feel quite 'perfect'. To expect every one of the 130 basses hanging on the wall to be set up exactly as YOU want them is (to put it kindly) naive, especially in the context of a high-volume vendor that competes mostly on price.

[57pbass]

Originally posted by coyote:

You know, you could always borrow an Allen key and adjust an instrument yourself if you like the general look & sound but it doesn't feel quite 'perfect'. To expect every one of the 130 basses hanging on the wall to be set up exactly as YOU want them is (to put it kindly) naive, especially in the context of a high-volume vendor that competes mostly on price.

Apply this logic to a car dealership?

They would go bankrupt.

I expect that when I go to a store to drop a few hundred or a few thousand dollars the instrument should set to factory standards... this is why I never shop at Sam Ash or Guitar Center for basses.. they will sell you anything they can for the commision...

[_Sweet Willie_]

Originally posted by coyote:

You know, you could always borrow an Allen key and adjust an instrument yourself if you like the general look & sound but it doesn't feel quite 'perfect'. To expect every one of the 130 basses hanging on the wall to be set up exactly as YOU want them is (to put it kindly) naive, especially in the context of a high-volume vendor that competes mostly on price.

Dig it -- for many of those basses at Store #1 it wasn't simply set-up problems for how I would want it. I do not expect all of 130 basses to feel "perfect" in my hands. For example, some folks like their action higher than me -- I can deal with that.

 

Poor relief in the neck to the point where the string lies against the frets in some places when not being pressed down? It's more than an allen wrench tweak -- you need to remove the neck to get at the truss on many (all?) Fenders.

 

Strings hitting the p'up pole pieces when playing with a very light touch -- that's a problem.

 

Also, it wasn't like one or two basses of many were set-up poorly. It's that I played in the n'hood of 8 Fender J basses (almost all the ones in the store) and only 2 were reasonably playable.

 

I don't expect the set-ups to be perfect for me. At Store #2 the set-ups weren't perfect for me, but the basses I played there did suggest that someone was minding the shop. I played about a half dozen basses there, and none had the degree of problems as the basses at Store #1 -- and Store #2 had far more basses hanging on the walls.

 

To be fair, had I really been shopping for a bass and not merely doing exploratory playing, and something grabbed my attention sonically and visually but felt off for set-up reasons (string height, neck relief, etc.), I would've sought to tweak the set-up.

 

I have been through many a music store in my day. I have played many a bass. This is the first time in a long while that I thought the general attention to the set-up and condition of new basses for sale was so poor for so many instruments.

 

Peace.

--SW

[coyote]

And car dealers do something different than this??? Since when?

Originally posted by 57pbass:

they will sell you anything they can for the commision...

A car ain't set up for you until you've actually dropped your $$$ on the table. Until then, it's just a fresh-smelling interior sitting in a showroom looking pretty.

[getz out]

coyote, you're wrong. Back off before you make yourself look stupid.

[Fred TBP]

Originally posted by Nicklab:

I still stand by NJ Guitar and Bass Center as one of the better stores in the Tri-State area for bass players who are into high-end instruments. The big-box stores don't really seem to cater to us anymore.

Willie, I was there a couple of weeks ago with morrischen from Taiwan. It even blows away Mandolin Bros (Staten Island) and Gary the owner used to live a couple of blocks away from where I currently live in Jersey City. What do you need, a fraggin' invitation? (Tell him Fred from Jersey City sent you so I can get a break the next time...) Stay away from those music supermarkets (unless it's an emergency) and check out a REAL store! PM me if you need directions.

[Nicklab]

If you are going to go there, make sure they're going to be open. That's the one thing with this store that's a little weird. Call to confirm their hours of operation. Other than that, they're all of 2 miles from the GSP.