"This bass isn't designed to have a low action"

[mcgraham]

I had a similar experience with a music shop in Coventry. Took my (then) brand new Geddy to them for a set up. Got a call a few days later saying 'the truss rod's maxed out, you should send it back to where you got it from'. Roll on a few days and I take it to another guy (Noiseworks in Coventry) who I hand it to and says 'Ah, I see where they went wrong' He points out that this truss rod nut needs to be adjusted by a screwdriver, but that it is often hard to get enough torque into it using a normal screwdriver, and that this is what they probably tried to do. He then produced a T-bar handled screwdriver and instantly adjusted the neck with little difficulty.

Lets make sure we continue to support the music stores who do look out for the best interests of the customers.

[dave_bass5]

Lets keep an eye on the setup forum for him to appear lol.

[Mykesbass]

[quote name='Mokl' post='690199' date='Dec 20 2009, 09:52 PM']This is a modern 70`s re-issue which are generally very good basses. The irony is that I have an original `77 Jazz that is an absolutely fabulous playing and sounding bass. Some of the 70`s stuff was very poor, I have seen quite a few examples! However, these modern reissues are usually good.[/quote]

Sorry, did mean to be supportive - was just being lighthearted in suggesting they had been very authentic in making a 70's reissue - remembering the days when Lion House on Tottenham Court Rd was full of some really nasty stuff!

[krispn]

Mokl

The tone, professionalism and lets be honesty the quality of your writing skills, I think would attest to your integrity and Im confident were I to be a local in your area you would be setting up my bass!

There is a guy here in Edinburgh, Axe Management, who is humble and decent and I would imagine to be equally on a par with you in terms of knowledge and professionalism and he summed it up best. I mentioned that I'd recommended him to my old guitarist (before having went myself but due to the quality of the email comms we'd had he seems very genuine) and he just rolled his eyes. "Ahh yes...the SG guy!" This tech is a huge SG fan and has 3 70's models that virtually play themselves!

This guitarist had asked for a set up on his guitar which he thought was already great (it had never been set up since it was bought and played really bad) "I just want it tidied up before a gig" and then couldnt
't understand why the set up took more than a few minutes! He also needed a repair to a blown power amp. He was quoted a price and then went off to find the internet forum etc and see if he was getting ripped off by the tech???

Martin from AM is a qualified electrical engineer who has worked as a roadie for many bands and been round the country on tours as the tech on tour so to speak. The guitarist then barraged the tech with emails and phone calls saying "I have found this on the net and this...... and this........."

Fortunately he was happy with the set up but his first thought was he was being ripped off.

Sounds like the guy in you initial post was a little defensive that he bought a piece of crap and rather appear like a fool and admit that he had bought a stinker, ignored your advice and sided with the shop to save face maybe??? However he will now be cursed with a crap set up.

I'd ask one thing from your experience if you EVER see that bass appear in the for sale section on this forum PLEASE give us a warning


I'll finish by saying don't let one mans lack of foresight mar all the satisfied customers you have. He who choses to ignore good advice, often ends up on his ass!

Edited December 21, 2009 by krispn

[spinynorman]

My daughter's a hairdresser and she gets these idiots all the time. Her attitude is she refuses to do anything she knows is wrong and risks damaging her customer's hair or even burning their scalp. She tries to explain this, but if they insist, she asks them politely to go back to the salon that said it was ok and get it done there. On the other side, she gets new customers who come in literally in tears because of what's been done to them elsewhere, and she sends them out smiling.

So, you probably don't get too many tears in your workshop, but you must see a few smiles when you hand back a perfectly set up guitar and they try it out first time. Those are the ones you do it for, forget the others.

[mrcrow]

bad call from him and the other shop
i bet fender dont agree

[Mokl]

Thanks for all the words of encouragement, I am slightly surprised but also touched by your faith in me. I am not going to name and shame the other shop involved, I'm sure they had their own motivation for saying what they did. You must also bear in mind that I only have this guys version of events, and I am certainly not overly confident about the accuracy of the things he was saying. Ultimately if he is happy with what he ended up with then that's fine with me. In the end that was all I was aiming for!

[Mokl]

[quote name='mrcrow' post='690916' date='Dec 21 2009, 07:26 PM']bad call from him and the other shop
i bet fender dont agree[/quote]

That's the thing... I feel sure that Fender would have rectified this for me had it been one of my stock guitars (we are Fender dealers). They certainly have done so in the past.

[wombatboter]

If there's one thing which is clear to me is that you love instruments and take your job very seriously...I have faith in your skills and I think you are an honest person who tries to make musicians happy and get the best out of their instruments. The fact that you get so emotional about this just is more proof that you seem to be the right man for this job.
Nice to know that there are still people like you around...

[oldslapper]

[quote name='wombatboter' post='691361' date='Dec 22 2009, 11:19 AM']If there's one thing which is clear to me is that you love instruments and take your job very seriously...I have faith in your skills and I think you are an honest person who tries to make musicians happy and get the best out of their instruments. The fact that you get so emotional about this just is more proof that you seem to be the right man for this job.
Nice to know that there are still people like you around...[/quote]
+1
I am a lazy so and so who has lived with bad necks/set ups because I've been too embarrased or ignorant of what needs to be done to sort them out and have experienced being "palmed off" by shops.
A good tech is worth the money and time. I recently bought a Spector bass from a BC'er here and it was the best set up bass I have ever owned in 30 years of playing. He knows what he is looking for though, and has his set-ups done by a guy in his home town.
In the "service industry" you will always get a numpty who doesn't appreciate good service, and as someone has already said, he's probably embarrased about buying a bad guitar and you are taking the heat, unfortunately.
Keep going dude, and think of all the guitars out there you've set up that are being played by grateful guitarists.

On a similar point...Perhaps a seperate thread already exists about what to look for when buying a guitar for people like moi?

[leftybassman392]

[quote name='BurritoBass' post='690208' date='Dec 20 2009, 10:03 PM']I have a 1978 Fender Precision with the lowest action of all my bases and it plays beautifully. I've played a couple of other 70s Fenders which were also really good. Your post may be meant light heartedly but I feel the balance should be redressed.[/quote]

I have a '77 Jazz with an excellent action too.

[Bay Splayer]

[quote name='iconic' post='690354' date='Dec 21 2009, 07:08 AM']or simply IQ [b]chall[u]a[/u]nged[/b][/quote]

[DarkHorse]

[quote name='wombatboter' post='691361' date='Dec 22 2009, 11:19 AM']If there's one thing which is clear to me is that you love instruments and take your job very seriously...I have faith in your skills and I think you are an honest person who tries to make musicians happy and get the best out of their instruments. The fact that you get so emotional about this just is more proof that you seem to be the right man for this job.
Nice to know that there are still people like you around...[/quote]

+2

Don't let the ******* get you down.

Cheers,
Rob

[Chris2112]

Leave this bellend to his awful bass! Your goodwill has already been insulted enough, think no more of it!

[maxrossell]

This is the "Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" thing, isn't it. If you own something, if you don't learn enough about it to service it yourself, then you should at least know enough about it to know when someone's giving you a line of bullsh*t about it.

Hindsight is a beautiful thing, of course, and looking back to my youth I can recall a number of occasions when some guitar store "tech" has told me something about a guitar that was blatantly false, and I was too ignorant to realise it. On one occasion I took a bass into a store to get a setup, and went back a week later to collect it, paid them well for it, and ended up thinking that they hadn't put it the way I wanted. I now realise that they hadn't actually done anything [i]at all [/i]to it, and were just relying on my inexperience to rip me off.

That being said, even at the time I think I was savvy enough to realise that the advice of a guy who didn't want to take my money was going to be more valuable than the advice of someone who had already taken it.

[JTUK]

[quote name='spinynorman' post='690645' date='Dec 21 2009, 02:16 PM']My daughter's a hairdresser and she gets these idiots all the time. Her attitude is she refuses to do anything she knows is wrong and risks damaging her customer's hair or even burning their scalp. She tries to explain this, but if they insist, she asks them politely to go back to the salon that said it was ok and get it done there. On the other side, she gets new customers who come in literally in tears because of what's been done to them elsewhere, and she sends them out smiling.

So, you probably don't get too many tears in your workshop, but you must see a few smiles when you hand back a perfectly set up guitar and they try it out first time. Those are the ones you do it for, forget the others.[/quote]


Good post

[umph]

been there done that! except mine was with a guitar amp footswitch which the owner had done some "modifications" to which has resulted in all of the switches in the case being broken beyond repair, but he was quite adamant that the footswitch was fine but it was the switching on the amp that'd gone wrong and that i was bull shitting him!

[WHUFC BASS]

Is there any written documentation saying that these basses aren't designed to take a low action? I'd wager there isn't. I would have confronted the person who said this and asked him where he'd gotten his information from. I then would have embarressed them by saying that THEY didn't know what they were doing, were a bad salesmen and quite frankly a fraudster.