West LA Music

Zero pressure and nice salespeople, peace and quiet, easy parking. What else could you want from a music store? They all match each other’s prices so $ is not an issue.
It’s a great store except of course for the selection. They just don’t have as much stuff in stock as GC and Sam Ash. So you can special order anything but that makes me nervous, I wish it was just there already.

This place sucks. They pay their workers below minimum wage and expect them to hustle products to compensate their wages with bogus commission rates. Not too mention cold calling people who don’t want to be bothered.
DON’T SUPPORT THIS COMPANY, THEY’RE DRIVING AMERICAN LABOR AND THE ECONOMY IN THE GROUND!

I’ve always dealt with Gadget (salesman) at this location and I have had good experiences. I had a horrible experience at RSPE, the same item was over $ 500 cheaper at West LA Music so thats where I got it. The other reviews are a bummer but I’ve never dealt with any other salesman.

On March 3^rd of this year I went into the store in LA to purchase 2 sets of speakers for a studio I was building. We decided on a mid to high end speaker and was going to drop about 2k in the store that day. The sales person that helped us out was nice enough however he had no ability to set up the speakers we were interested in so that we could here them. 20 minutes later after they had 3 guys work on it the got them up and running. We decided to purchase 2 pair and wall mounts. This is were it gets frustrating. The sales guy said they only have 1 set in stock and the mounts would also need to be ordered. He said that they would arrive the following week. The next week rolls around and I hear nothing from West LA Music. 2 Weeks roll around… nothing…I call them they can not find me using my name/​my companies name… I go to store and speak with a manager. What do you know they find my info and order. Speakers should be in but they can not find them. Mounts still MIA. I say I do not want drive back out to the store so please ship the speakers and mounts. The next week the speakers arrive at my office. No mounts. I call up and they again they can not find me or my company in their system. I ask for them to call me back when they find me. I do not hear from them. I call them the next day and go through the same process and this time they find me. Guess what the mounts were never ordered. Effing great! They say they will expedite the order and drop ship the items to our office and they should be in the following week. Again no mounts… I call them again they can not find me. This time they call back the following day. They found me and the speaker mounts are on back order for 4 weeks. WTF! Ok 4 weeks later… I call again yesterday. Guess what they can not find me in their system. I get a manager on the phone and forward him the email from the original sales guy saying he was ordering the parts. He says he will look into it and call me back. No call! Today he calls my office and says… hey I looked into it and the mounts are back ordered! They will be here in June! You just can not make this shit up!
DO NOT GO HERE UNLESS ITS AN EMERGENCY AND THEY HAVE THE PARTS IN STOCK. BE WARNED!

I’m totally with the other bad reviewers on the hopelessness of this black hole of musical equipment sales.
One time I walked in with $ 400 cash in my pocket ready to plop it down on the counter, to buy a couple of microphones that I needed for a gig that night. I sauntered over to where the microphones were on display and stood near the counter where a salesman was on a phone call. He never greeted me either verbally or with sign language and wouldn’t make any eye contact with me, as I stood there and stood there and stood there.
After around 5 minutes of being ignored (is it so hard to put your hand over the receiver and say «I’ll be right with you» or «I’m going to be tied up for a while, why don’t you go talk to Scooter, wherever HE is…» but I guess this rude piece of crap didn’t have such phrases in his vocabulary) So, I started thinking of a Plan B.
I started looking around for another member of the endangered species of competent salespeople in this store, when I suddenly remembered a few months earlier in the same store trying to test out a Kurzweil keyboard and having THAT salesman unable to hook it up and get any sound to come out. This would be like finding a McDonald’s employee who doesn’t know how to scoop the french fries into the little cardboard fry-​holder. Rather than just hooking the keyboard up to a normal amp, which would require plugging it into an outlet and sticking one cord into it, he was trying to plug it into some computer and sequencer set-​up that looked like Dr. Frankenstein had configured it while an 8.5 earthquake was rattling the laboratory. I asked him half a dozen times to please bring a regular amp over but he wouldn’t do it, so I walked out on his incompetent ass.
And buying stuff here is a nightmare like the other reviewers said. People are poking at the computers, cash registers and credit card machines like ancient scribes counting the stones being used to build the pyramids, for so long you feel like throwing your arms in the air and screaming: «HEY, I’M BUYING A FREAKING GUITAR PICK HERE.»
Then you try to leave and a security guy who looks recently homeless looks you up and down suspiciously and then they have to buzz you out.
Criminey’s sakes, I never thought I’d find a store that makes Guitar Center look like heaven on earth, until I saw this place.

I’ve gone in here several times and each time leave wondering why I came back again. They usually don’t have anything in stock I need and their staff is not very eager to help out. A few of them are downright condescending and arrogant. Also their prices are usually full retail MSRP and their website is weak. I guess that explains why the store is always so empty compared to other music stores.

Buyer Beware! The worst retail experience i have ever had recently occured at this store. My story: Walked in and asked to play a Gibson ES –335 (natural finish) that had been sitting on their display wall for 3+ years– per the saleman. I noticed a 2 – 3 inch crack through the wood, on the back side of the guitar. I was told by the salesman that the guitar was returned to Gibson to repair the crack. Gibson refused and blamed the store for the problem, citing poor humidity control within the store. Well this semi-​hollow body guitar sits right under an air-​conditioning supply vent (smart!) The salesman said, «I’ll make you a stupid deal ’cause times are slow and we would like to sell this guitar.» I ask how much? He says $ 1000.00. I play the guitar which sounds nice and figure that the $ 1000.00 may be slightly high since there is no warranty from Gibson and a crack that is very visible. I tell the salesman i will think about it and left the store. The next evening i called back and made a counter-​offer of $ 800.00. Salesman talks to his manager and i’m told $ 1000.00 firm. I counter once again with $ 900.00. Salesman says he will call me right back. It was 7:00pm. No return phone call! The next evening… i call back again. I talk to the same salesman. I agree to the $ 1000.00. He says come on down to the store. Ok. I get there in 10 minutes. The guitar is taken down off the wall. Salesman comes back after searching for the guitar case for 10+ minutes and says he can’t find the case. Then a mystery manager from one of their other stores across the street just happens to wander in to the store and is asked to inspect the guitar and the crack (after the verbal agreement was made where i offered to pay $ 1000.00 and the store salesman accepted my offer). The mystery manager said that the owner is very attached to his instruments (what bullshit– he just wants to sell this crap like any other retail store owner). Mystery manager then says to the four salesman standing around (store is empty of any customers) that they can sell the guitar; however, if the owner finds out and feels the price was too low for this «defective» guitar — he may take the difference out of one of there paychecks. At that moment i say «you are all dickin’ around with me and i don’t appreciate it. I came down to your store in good faith after your salesman told me on the phone that i could have the guitar for $ 1000.00 + tax.» I was then told that they needed to speak to the division manager who was out of town at some convention. I said, «call him!» They said they couldn’t reach him. I said how about calling the owner. I was told he was in Hawaii and could not be reached. At this point, i was now in the store for about 25 minues. I told the manager… «you have 5 minues to reach you boss, or i am leaving and you can take your cracked guitar and stick it back up on the wall under the air conditoning unit and let it rot for another 3+ years until somebody else wants it. 5 minutes passed. I left. I will never return to this disfunctionally run music store to be humiliated like i was. It boogles my imagination how they continue to remain open in this economy with such poor people skills. I am not a huge fan of the Guitar Center, but i am at least treated respectfully at GC and when they give me a price, it means something. Full tone Music and McCabes in Santa Monica are other boutique music stores with very knowledgable sales people.

The most frustrating shopping experience of the year and I have no clue how they stay in business. Id love to see them go down with their hands tied behind their back!
It wasn’t the dipshits working in the place of business, though they did bungle everything, but its the process of transactions.
I walked down to the guitar department and quickly picked out a few accessories. Capo, picks, strap, and a pack of strings. Put them down on the desk in less than 3 minutes. Simple. What followed was 15 minutes of entering god knows what kind of information on their antiquated computer. Fine, heres my credit card, what do I owe?
Basically the service guy had to hand-​write everything on a slip for me to take to the cashier upstairs. This dildo was a slow mother so I was getting real agitated after that 15 minutes.
Finally after he escorted me to the cashier with my gear in his hands, the cashier charged WAY TOO MUCH. I find out its because of the capo. $ 25 for a basic grip. Fuck that, take it off the bill. ‘Sorry sir, youll have to go downstairs and have your sales guy redo the order’.
WHAT?!
He came up quick after my yelling in the store about him, and offered it to me for half the price.
Fine.
After another process of typing it in with the cashier (and asking for my personal information — no!), next up was the nerdbot rent-​a-​cop next to the front door who had to check off every item i bought, SKU number by SKU number.
By this time, I grabbed my purchase out of his hands and told him to fuck me. I was there for a half hour.
But if thats not enough, the real reason for this negative review was the discovery on my bank statement the next day that they had swiped my credit card twice. Once with the original capo price, the second time with the discounted price. I had to deal with this miserable experience the following day as well
Worst Music Store I’ve ever been to. Go elsewhere.

This is for the Cahuenga store.
This shop is great. They don’t have the overhead that the bigger GC and SA have, and they really know there stuff. I called on a recommendation from a friend, at first for a small piece of cheap gear. They were more than happy to deal with me even though I was only going to spend $ 200. After some other deals went through I ended up spending much more, but they always gave me better prices than I could find anywhere else.
A real pleasure to get gear from. I will most certainly be back, and now I don’t even see much reason to use my old standby sources for difficult to find stuff like B&H.

Ok, they have a annual deal here where it’s buy one guitar get another for a penny! I got 2 kick ass dean electrics for $ 200.01! I was fricken stoked! I even got gig bags, cables, straps, and picks… I had an amp.
They may seem like they don’t care so you may have to go in knowing what you want.
They do have better deals than other places and the building has a huge keyboard painted on the walls so that’s what got me interested in going in and that was the day that they had the deal! So go there, get a guitar and enjoy rockin out!

Simple review: Do your research. Go in prepared.
You’ll have to prove to the sales staff that you know what you should be charged for a given item – and you *know* you know – before getting a reasonable deal. That’s *after* you make use of your assertiveness training course to capture someone’s attention (they’re on their phones suspiciously often).
I’ve had better experiences, more often, with nearly every other gear store in town. WLAM has an excellent selection, especially when it comes to pro gear… and their staff *is* more likely to be knowledgeable than the average warm body at GC (GC Pro, on the other hand, is a real pleasure).
But on the rare occasion that I darken the door of WLAM, it inevitably feels like I’m getting worked over – and I’m a music pro with 13 years in the business. If you’re a hobbyist, I imagine you’d have the same feeling that you get when you go to a car lot… raw meat in the water. Urk.
Parking is miserable. Santa Monica meter-​police patrol the single available parking lot behind the store like angry bees. Hours of operation are a little on the skimpy side – you’ll want to plan your next gear meltdown well in advance.
Good luck, and have fun with that research.

This is the sister store to the one that actually is in West Los Angeles. This place is across the 101 from Universal City. I like this place over GC. The staff seem better informed and the place has a better local vibe. It’s not quite AS big as a GC, but they have a pretty good selection and carry brands and models that GC doesn’t.