Berklee guitar students from the late '70's: What brand were those amps?

Donelson · #1 01-26-2012, 02:45 AM

For some reason I got to thinking about the guitar amps that were ubiquitous at Berklee when I attended, starting in 1979. They were in all the ensemble rooms, guitar "labs", and a lot of classrooms. Bolted down. Several inputs, multi-speakers. Tube amps. Lots of grumbling about them, and they were replaced by Yamaha transistor amps around 1981. Those Yamahas sucked! NOT an improvement.

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone remembered the brand of those amps. It was not a name anyone would recognize today.

Thanks!

fws6 · #2 01-26-2012, 03:14 AM

Sorry I was just a toddler then and on the other side of the pond so cannot possibly answer your question. But I thought you might be interested in seeing my 53 Epiphone DeLuxe, which belonged to Berklee guitar Chair Bill Leavitt: niceguitar.eu

Donelson · #3 01-26-2012, 03:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fws6

Sorry I was just a toddler then and on the other side of the pond so cannot possibly answer your question. But I thought you might be interested in seeing my 53 Epiphone DeLuxe, which belonged to Berklee guitar Chair Bill Leavitt: niceguitar.eu

Nice guitar! I never studied with Mr. Leavitt so I don't remember it. But Leavitt was someone I saw just about every day; as chairman he was "known to all". He undoubtedly oversaw the acquisition of the amps I referred to above.

PTChristopher · #4 01-26-2012, 06:09 AM

The tube amps were "Oliver" amps.

>>> replaced by Yamaha transistor amps around 1981.

They were replaced by Crate solid-state amps.

Chris

Donelson · #5 01-26-2012, 08:33 AM

"Oliver" -- That sounds right. Thanks.

But . . . Crate? No way!

They were Yamahas, brand-new, in every ensemble room. Some (larger) rooms had the black Yamahas with parametric eq; the others had orange-ish colored ones. Seemed like an improvement at first, but those amps wore out fast and sounded terrible (worn-out speakers I guess) in a year or so.

The only Crate amp I ever saw back then belonged to one of my roommates. Yes, they were actually modeled after packing crates back then.

I last darkened Berklee's doors in 1983 so I don't know what's happened since then.

Franz 1997 · #6 01-26-2012, 08:45 AM

. The tube amps were "Oliver" amps.

Presumably made by Jess Oliver/ Oliver Jesperson of Ampeg??

PTChristopher · #7 01-26-2012, 09:02 AM

Hi Donelson,

Ya know, I 100% remember it as Crate amps going in, but I was pretty young at the time - I am wrong on this one. I worked for a company that got great terms from St. Louis music and wanted to replace the Olivers with Crates. I am sure that you are right and that I just remember the Crate pitch as having been successful when it in fact was not.

Yeah, that was still the first few years of Crate and they still had the pine "crate" look.

Franz,

Yes, they were that Oliver. I still have a 1981 amp (2 x 6L6 and loud n' clean) I made using the chassis and power transformer from one of the amps pulled out of Berklee.

Chris

stevedenver · #8 01-26-2012, 09:58 AM

from whats left of my very dim memory-i seem also to recall ampegs at berklee-circa 73 when i was there -

rickshapiro · #9 01-26-2012, 10:26 AM

Funny, I cannot remember any amps in those rooms but I am sure there was something there. I kind of liked the small individual fish tank rehearsals room. They would get rank, but they were good for containing illicit smoke.

Donelson · #10 01-26-2012, 12:14 PM

I remember a clinic/performance at the small Berklee recital hall, in the morning; I think the leader was Adam Nussbaum, not sure. Anyway, Mike Stern, who was sort of "the" guitarist to many in Boston back then, played through one of those Olivers. That was when Mike was playing a strat. Of the many dozens of times I saw Stern over the years, that was the worst sound ever for him! Not necessarily that the amp was no good; maybe being early in the morning he didn't take much or any time to set the thing.