Gearslutz.com - View Single Post - Stupid things you've been told at Guitar Center

woofersus · 5th January 2008

I get the irritation with these people being pretty stupid, but there a number of factors that play into it.

1. Commissioned Sales - not making any money for a couple of weeks can drive you to bs about something that's really beyond your expertise when you need to sell something. Not lying. Just giving an uneducated opinion

2. High turnover - a lot of these people have only been there a few months. They're young and have a limited scope of experience. They know all about the mackie mixers and the sm58's, but when you ask them about something really nice they're likely to have never used it. Don't expect educated opinoins on gear from most of them

Sometimes you're seeing lack of experience with the exact scenario you're talking about, or they've only worked with like three different mics and 1 mixer, so they don't understand some of the terminology you're throwing at them. I was there. I worked in the Sam Ash in Cleveland years ago, and I had a basic understanding of pro audio, but little real experience. It usually didn't matter because the customers knew far less than myself. I got asked for all sorts of ridiculous patch cables that don't exist, bands would come in and tell me they have $500 for a complete PA system or they'd want to know how to run their vocals through the lead guitarist's amp. They'd ooh and ahh about the great sound of the EV eliminator speakers or some other such piece of crap. If somebody came in looking at studio gear, however, I was on the other end of the snooty chuckles.

Some of them are really idiots. I'm just saying take it easy on the ones that are young and learning.

That being said, I was at a different Sam Ash a few weeks back and noticed somebody telling a customer that the EV ND767a they were buying was better than any of the expensive mics in the studio room for laying down tracks, in his opinion. *sigh* There were some decent mics in there.

5th January 2008	#606
woofersus Gear nut Joined: Sep 2007 Location: Mount Vernon, OH Posts: 107	I get the irritation with these people being pretty stupid, but there a number of factors that play into it. 1. Commissioned Sales - not making any money for a couple of weeks can drive you to bs about something that's really beyond your expertise when you need to sell something. Not lying. Just giving an uneducated opinion 2. High turnover - a lot of these people have only been there a few months. They're young and have a limited scope of experience. They know all about the mackie mixers and the sm58's, but when you ask them about something really nice they're likely to have never used it. Don't expect educated opinoins on gear from most of them Sometimes you're seeing lack of experience with the exact scenario you're talking about, or they've only worked with like three different mics and 1 mixer, so they don't understand some of the terminology you're throwing at them. I was there. I worked in the Sam Ash in Cleveland years ago, and I had a basic understanding of pro audio, but little real experience. It usually didn't matter because the customers knew far less than myself. I got asked for all sorts of ridiculous patch cables that don't exist, bands would come in and tell me they have $500 for a complete PA system or they'd want to know how to run their vocals through the lead guitarist's amp. They'd ooh and ahh about the great sound of the EV eliminator speakers or some other such piece of crap. If somebody came in looking at studio gear, however, I was on the other end of the snooty chuckles. Some of them are really idiots. I'm just saying take it easy on the ones that are young and learning. That being said, I was at a different Sam Ash a few weeks back and noticed somebody telling a customer that the EV ND767a they were buying was better than any of the expensive mics in the studio room for laying down tracks, in his opinion. sigh There were some decent mics in there.