Sales of Guitar Starter Packs are seriously down

Bridgehouse

richardhomer said:

Bridgehouse said:

Do Bass starter packs come with a personality bypass and a cream that makes you unattractive to women?

My guitar starter pack came with those....

You chose unwisely...

Sassafras

Bridgehouse said:

Do Bass starter packs come with a personality bypass and a cream that makes you unattractive to women?

No, it's those traits that make people want to play bass.

Bridgehouse

Sassafras said:

Bridgehouse said:

Do Bass starter packs come with a personality bypass and a cream that makes you unattractive to women?

No, it's those traits that make people want to play bass.

Actually I decided to play bass when I realised I was shit at guitar.

richardhomer

Bridgehouse said:

richardhomer said:

My guitar starter pack came with those....

You chose unwisely...

Fate intervened....

blobb

There's a trend . ...... 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-02-12-guitar-hero-live-failed-to-do-the-business-too

Freebird

The concept of starter packs sounds horrible, buy cheap, buy twice! My interest in guitars only took off when I played a decent one. I used to mess about on friends "starter" guitars, but they never once made me feel like buying one, in fact they put me off!

jeztone2

Just something to think about.

My wife spent 19 years as a Primary teacher. But quit last year & has started a new career. 

In reception classes in her old school the amount of non toilet trained children arriving in the school tripled in the last 3 years. It used to be one or two. They had 11 in 2016. 

Maybe there’s a wider issue with whose actually breeding these days? 

thomasross20

Is it also because kids enjoy playing computer games more, and they're also less hard work? Instant gratification etc.

thomasross20

Just saw "instant gratification" was already mentioned!

bodhi

thomasross20 said:

Just saw "instant gratification" was already mentioned!

Dude, people have been complaining about that for like hundreds of years.  How dare you?

Freebird

thomasross20 said:

Just saw "instant gratification" was already mentioned!

I was one of the the first 300,000 people in the world to get connected to the internet. I initially saw it as a tremendous force for good, but by around the year 2000 when big business started to move in, I had already changed my mind and things have more or less played out like I thought they would.

bodhi

Sporky said:

bodhi said:

Well, we do seem to live in an age of pretty much instant gratification, which doesn't really apply that much to learning how to play guitar.  So it wouldn't surprise me at all if the younger generation(s) generally couldn't be bothered.

Just quoting this before you retcon it.

You'll note that you accuse "the younger generations" as a whole of lacking stick-to-it-iveness. If that's not a lazy stereotype then I don't know what is!

I've been more than willing to clarify, and had no intention to "retcon" anything in my original post, so you wasted a quote click there.  But anyway, I do take note of the veiled insult (as I interpret it), and it's frankly uncalled for (if my interpretation is accurate).

If you're going to continue to accuse me of making imaginary accusations (as you interpreted it) despite my best efforts to clarify, then perhaps you're just being obtuse (as I interpret it) for some form of self amusement you like to indulge in and I don't really care for.

So I shall this time finally leave it at that.  We can't agree all the time, but I'm not here to get embroiled in this kind of nastiness.  Thought we'd recently all already learned that lesson.

I'll also keep in mind that forum posts are notoriously easy to misinterpret, so perhaps this whole thing is mountain/mole hill stuff and we can all continue to be forum buddies.

sweepy

JerkMoans said:

Once she'd learned a couple of chords on an acoustic I hauled my daughter down Denmark Street, went into every single shop, and got them to pull virtually every left handed guitar they had out so she could try different necks and bodies.  Any clown that said 'teach her right handed' got one of Paddington's Hard Stares.  Ended up coming away with an Epiphone SG and a wee Marshall combo that she then played the hell out of for years.  Happy memories

Not a starter kit, and I suppose having a Dad that takes an interest makes a bit of a difference, but there are kids still interested in this stuff.  Even if she does want to play Taylor Swift, she also does a mean Joan Jett.  I do fear for music in schools, though...

Why ? It’s actually very good advice for a Southpaw to learn right-handed,  not only in price and availability of

sweepy

JerkMoans said:

Once she'd learned a couple of chords on an acoustic I hauled my daughter down Denmark Street, went into every single shop, and got them to pull virtually every left handed guitar they had out so she could try different necks and bodies.  Any clown that said 'teach her right handed' got one of Paddington's Hard Stares.  Ended up coming away with an Epiphone SG and a wee Marshall combo that she then played the hell out of for years.  Happy memories

Not a starter kit, and I suppose having a Dad that takes an interest makes a bit of a difference, but there are kids still interested in this stuff.  Even if she does want to play Taylor Swift, she also does a mean Joan Jett.  I do fear for music in schools, though...

Why ? It’s actually very good advice for a Southpaw to learn right-handed,  not only in price and availability of guitars both new and secondhand plus you have the most dexterous hand on the fretboard. There have been many left handed people that play right handed, Gary Moore, Mark Knopfler to name but 2

impmann

Starter packs, let’s be honest, were a marketing dept lead way of generating cheap profit at Xmas. For years they were utter shit - remember the fucking terrible Hohner LX90 starter pack with the Panther amp. I returned at least 50% of them to Hohner for being unrepairable - there were entire batches with locked truss rods and frets that would not grip the (badly dried) roseweed fretboard.
Prior to that - the Marlin Sidewinder pack with the Ross amp. Or worse the Marlin Slammer - which was a Sidewinder without the class, quality or kudos. Plywood planks with a genuine turd of an amp - many wasps, very small jars.
Or the B.B. blaster? Jesus that sucked.

Frankly, they were all terrible. So I don’t think I will mourn their passing.

And yes, I too started with a Woolworths guitar that had previously been used as a target for a B.B. gun in Andy’s Guitar Workshop purchased for £10 and an Audition practice amp bought at a dreadful Little s/h shop in Woolwich. It didn’t put me off - in fact, when I was able to scrape the money for an Antonia Les Paul copy and a Sunn ST15 amp, it was only then I realised what I’d been missing.

Voxman

guitars4you said:

Had a visit on Friday from an area manager of a major distributor - got talking about trade, etc and the beginners starter pack market came up - He quoted they are down by 75% over the last 5 previous years - Larger stores and chains that would buy 200 or 100 packs are buying 50 or 25 - independents who purchased 10 are buying 2/3/4

ditto for the 1/2 3/4 and 4/4 classical packs and even the acoustic/dreadnought starter packs are down

He did admit that non branded lines via E-bay/Amazon have had an impact - but this market is seriously down on previous years and youngsters just don't have the same interest as before

Might not be a reflection of interest - it could be that with the internet and forums like this plus you-tube, there's more awareness and knowledge, especially re buying used gear, whereby better quality can be found for similar prices. Might not account for the whole drop, but just a thought.  

stickyfiddle

Like most here, I don't think it's a reflection of a declining market - I think it's a reflection on how all markets have changed. 

I'd venture that only about 5% of starters go for these packs these days, because the first thing *anyone* does before spending 200 quid on something new to them is to google it:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=best+starter+guitar&rlz=1C1GGRV_enNG770NG770&oq=best+starter+guitar&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.4236j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&safe=active&ssui=on

That, like all other similar searches, nets you a bunch of articles from blogs and guitar shops, all of which recommend some variation on the following:

- Squier Strat (bullet/affinity/std)
- Mexican Strat/Tele
- Epi LP Specials and Dots etc 
- Vintage brand stuff
- entry-level Ibanezes 
- Yamaha and Tanglewood acoustics

The point is those old-school starter packs are shite, and people have access to a huge amount of information that corroborates that, so why would anyone buy one?

ICBM

impmann said:

Starter packs, let’s be honest, were a marketing dept lead way of generating cheap profit at Xmas. For years they were utter shit - remember the fucking terrible Hohner LX90 starter pack with the Panther amp. I returned at least 50% of them to Hohner for being unrepairable - there were entire batches with locked truss rods and frets that would not grip the (badly dried) roseweed fretboard.
Prior to that - the Marlin Sidewinder pack with the Ross amp. Or worse the Marlin Slammer - which was a Sidewinder without the class, quality or kudos. Plywood planks with a genuine turd of an amp - many wasps, very small jars.

I actually quite liked the Sidewinder and the Ross amp! The "Tube Blaster" switch was hilarious .

The Hohner Panther amp wasn't bad either - possibly slightly better than the Ross - although I agree that the guitars were total crap.

The buzzy distortion on the amps could be quite usable if you set it right - gain and treble low, volume and bass high. It was never going to sound like a cranked Marshall, but given that these followed simple late-70s transistor horrors with only a volume and tone control and which I fail to get even a clean sound I like out of, they were really quite an improvement.

Jalapeno

I can see how a guitar rep would have that view - mirrors the decline in music shops in general. Be interested how many starter pack Amazon shifts ?

JerkMoans

sweepy said:

Why ? It’s actually very good advice for a Southpaw to learn right-handed,  not only in price and availability of guitars both new and secondhand plus you have the most dexterous hand on the fretboard. There have been many left handed people that play right handed, Gary Moore, Mark Knopfler to name but 2

That's how she'd started on a battered old Spanish guitar at school, so that was how it felt 'natural' to her.  And there's one or two lefty players who've managed to knock out a tune or two despite their peculiarities.  Plus from my own perspective I've always been keen to encourage both my lefty kids to embrace the way they're made.