Gallien-Krueger 300GT Head

For it's time, the features were cool.

I first also need to say that the post from the guy below mine keeps referring to this head as a tube head. Unless GK went from solid state to tube in the space of a year and never bothered to change the name of the amp, this amp is solid state. I bought mine new in 1980, solid state all the way. I'd be interested to know if someone out there really does have a GK 300GT amp that is tube. Bet you don't though.

So, I'll give you some back ground, talk about my heroes, then I'll talk about the amp and the cabinet it came with.

I'm a solo singer songwriter now, 4 CDs out, touring full time in the U.S. the past 12 years, mostly acoustic, making a real living on the folk festival and songwriter club circuit. I only have a few waning licks and dreams left over from my Michael Shenker days, but I still love visiting them (don't tell my folky friends this, they'll have a PC conniption). So I don't use this thing at all in live situations. But I still have it for old times sake, it's 3 feet from my desk, sitting on top of it's matching 2x12 cab.

I used this with a '71 Gibson SG, walunt finish, spring loaded whammy bar that I disabled, during my garage band days in highschool. We were pretty dam good for a band that played nowhere but a few parties. I was heavily into german guitarist Michael Shenker of UFO back then. Scorpions, Blue Oyster Cult, Montrose, VH, Aerosmith too. Drummer loved ACDC, and the bassist loved Rush and Queen, so we mixed it up that way. The vocalist entered the picture after the 3 of us had our chops and tastes blended together, so he had no decision power over the tunes whatsoever -- he had a PA, he was desperate to use it, so we just told him what to sing and he did his best not to wreck the material.

But Michael Shenker ruled the roost for me, so that was the sound I was after. Read up on some of Michael Shenker's history with either the Scorpions (he started that band in the early 70s, with his brother Rudolf who is STILL in the band), or UFO (his main claim to cult status began when he left the scorps and joined that English band in mid to late 70s - wonderful work, molded many future guitarists who dropped the needle on his LPs to learn his solos), and then he ventured into solo work with "MSG" (Michael Shenker Group) in the 80s. He's a Marshall man who plays a flying V, but he's also a devoted GK man as well, as least according to an article he did some years back with one of the guitar rags. That surprized me, and made me think, cool - I bought an amp my hero likes before he even knew he liked them. He likes the distortion, and the reverb, and if you know that guy at all you know he's picky, a taste and tone monster with his sound and that the reverb has to be to his liking as well.

The 300gt is a two channel amp. Each channel offers volume and master, treble, hi mid, lo mid, and bass - typical knob spinning there. The reverb knob applies to both channels, as does a 'contour' button. Channel A (labeled as "hi gain" channel), has a gain button. Channel B, labeled 'normal gain', has a bright button. That got less use with me since it was primarily a clean channel with no hope of a metal drive in it. You can run both channels at the same time also for interesting effect, but I was a metal head back then so I never did that much either. There is No reverb tank, its all solid state built in.

This amp comes with a 4 button foot switch that controls the on/off of a contour button, the reverb effect, and the A and B channel switching. On the face of the amp, you can set the dial on the reverb and turn it on/off with the FSwitch. The contour is just a button with no dial, but at least you can switch it on/off with the Fswitch. The 'gain' is also just a button with no dial - but no way to flip it on and off except visiting the amp and pushing the button. They call it "gain" but it isn't a gain at all, just a distortion effect. FYI - s

still ticking!

No problems, so never had to deal with them. I hear good things though?

I picked this amp up used at a Guitar Center in Boston. I have no clue when it was made, but I'd guess the 80s judging by the wear and tear on the thing. Reverb pot is busted (which just means a $15 trip to the store for me), everything else works fine. This amp gets some mean tube distortion when it feels like it, although it's incredibly noisy (playing through a Strat, I have to cut the signal with a tuner pedal or turn the guitar volume all the way down in between songs to avoid ear-splitting feedback). I really like the tube distortion and like having control of the the tone from my guitar's volume knob rather than a channel switching button, but it takes some time getting to know this amp like a moody friend. Four tubes. Two channels that run simultaneously, although i usually turn the "clean" channel down. I don't know much about this amp technically, so I'll look forward to someone else posting about the thing. In the meantime, I plan on ordering a schematic off the net, because I can't find ANY info on it anywhere else.

Fender Strat 50th Anniv. w/ gold and silver lace pickups--fairly noisy
Fender Squier (Mex) with crap pickups--extremely noisy. All environments. I play it through a Marshall 1960 cab.

I play in a noise-rock "art-punk" type band and it's suits that band just find (Melt-Banana/Butthole Surfers/Birthday Party kind of band).

Variety is average, for a tube amp like this.

The distortion is basically a warm overdriven tube kind of distortion, but if you drop the lows it's a pretty convincing metal amp. The longer it's on, the better it sounds, from my experience. When I'm setting up to play, turning the amp on is the first thing I do, before setting the cab up, plugging in pedals, tuning, etc.., I don't know how to make the thing quiet, though.

Amp has never broken down, but I've only had it for a few months, so I'm not really qualified here.

I've been playing for about 8 years, and own a Marshal Valvestate 100w combo that I absolutely love and am trying to find the Head version of this amp (which I've seen a few places and actually owned for three weeks until it broke). This amp is nothing much like that one.

Doubt I'd buy this one again, it's just a kind of an experimental amp for me to try and widen my comfort zone, i guess.

It's pretty loud, i like that. It's really noise and forces me to do a lot volume control when i'm not hitting the strings, which i really hate--in effect, i have to play the guitar even when i'm not playing the guitar (on top of singing).