GP Electronics - IC130 Mk2 Guitar Amplifier made in Bovey Tracey

GP Electronics IC130 Mk2 from 1977

Those that follow here may have seen a little while ago I made a blog about GP electronics Amplifiers made in my hometown of Bovey Tracey. Well I was contacted by a musician called Richard from Bath whom had recently acquired a GP amp that belonged to a friend of his whom had passed away.  We had a chat about it online and I told him about the amp and so on. Anyhow a few weeks passed and he decided he wanted to pass it on and offer it to me. I popped up to Bristol at a convenient spot and I purchased the amplifier from him. 

This is also an amp that I have seen before in a Combo version. The IC130 MK2 was very much designed as a Guitar amplifier rather than the more general purpose of its predecessor. The former owner of this amp was a Bass Guitarist and he had owned it from new and had used it for all his gigs from the 70s until he stopped playing.    

Parts I replaced capacitors and the
main inlet socket
That in itself is a great testimony to how well built Gerrys Amps were. 

This amp had in essence 2 effects built in to channel 1 a Fuzz labelled as sustain and a treble boost. Channel 2 was a basic input like the inputs of the IC130 but it had a link switch so you could have a mix of both channels with the same instrument. 


Like the other two amps I replaced all the capacitors in the power amp and the power supply. Like the other two amplifiers it had the same 130w power amp module and the pre amp circuits were quite similar based on the 741 op amp.  

I even found a spiders skin inside 
must have been busy inside! 

Amp in bits mid service


The sound of this amp, for a solid state, its pretty big. It could rival a HH any day and the fuzz circuit is not too far apart from an Electro Harmonics Big Muff. 







I made this video using just the amp though I did add some delay and reverb afterwards, but I didn’t adjust the tone in anyway shape or form. 



The combo version of this amplifier had a 15” speaker in it so you could use it for guitar or bass Guitar quite happily, and they also made an extension Speaker for it. Back in the day some guitar players sound have a cab one side of the stage and the combo the other to give a better spread of sound, as this was before the days that it was common for amps to all go through the PA. 

With my GP 'Stack' of amps cant wait to gig
with them all. 


I hope you like the sound of this amp and remember I am always on the look out for any more GP Electronics gear. 


Comments

Datacord said…
I have recently managed to buy a GP Electronics Amplifier. I need a repair on it, but I want to insure it before I take anywhere in case it goes missing. What would be an approximate amount of its value for a replacement?
Thank you
8:42 AM
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