Bedrock Amps?

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NikLaw1

NikLaw1

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I was working for Rod Stewart today and the guitarist Stage Left was using 2 Bedrock amps.
I've never heard of them and can't find any info on them online.
Anyone able to tell me anything about them?

Thanks,
Nik
 
Bedrock amps went out of business quickly. they started off making like AC30/hiwatt copies, PTP wired, then they got PCB to speed things up, huge defect with the PCB board, they sent it to a gear magazine to get reviewed and got eaten alive, they went out of business.
 
I had a friend who had a 2X12 combo it was killer :thumbsup:
 
Yeah, they didn't last long. Joe Perry endorsed them in about 87, 88 or so. Saw him use them on the PUMP tour. Couldn't tell if he was actually using them though. I heard they sounded good. I was thinking that it was Kitty Hawk that had all the problems. Reb Beach endorse them back in the day. Evidently, they broke down so much that they knicknamed them "Shitty Hawk". :lol: :LOL:

Schaf
 
We've got one in the store right now. Looks just like an AC30 but sounds more like a Marshall...cool amp! One of the first 'boutique' amp companies.
 
not to bring a thread back form the dead but i was just working on my bedrock 1200 head and was sending out the probe for info and found myslef here.
wanted to add that the 12oo heads sound really good.
cool gainy warmer marshall ish sound.
kinda its own small corner of the room.
 
I remember seeing ads for those in the late 80's.
 
There was a great forum on them years ago. Just type "Bedrock Amps" in a google search and you should be able to find it.

In the MA/NH area, every now and again you can come across some of them. I scored a Lead 50 (except it turns out this was a custom one-off). It was 100W and was a fire breathing dragon. But like some above have mentioned, it was extremely inconsitent.

Here's a clip; not too fond of my playing but you get the gist.
Hope to have something with my Friedman amp soon haha.

 
I played a bedrock half stack recently and I hated it. It was like a quasi-jcm800 but really thin and raspy sounding.
 
Sorry to dredge up an old thread.Bedrock's were built for around 10 years or so,up until '97.I've owned a 1400 head,a 1600 head,a 621 combo and still own a 651 combo and 625 head.In fact,the 651 was a Winter NAMM "one off" from '97 [custom teal finish,salt/pepper grill with script logo,etc...],the company's last year of production.I really like the 600 Series stuff for it's British classic rock flavored gain tones and punchy cleans.


Ed
 
Bedrock did NOT "start out copying" ANYTHING. Their first amp was a totally unique circuit, which morphed into the 1200 series; 5/12AX7's, 2/EL34's - NOT EVEN REMOTELY similar to any Marshall or Vox. First amps were PTP, they did go PCB once they ramped-up production. Early 1200 was panned by Guitar Player, it arrived broken; Bedrock management was more into building amps than cowtowing to magazine writers, so errant/troublesome reviews were never a top priority - these guys were into making TONE, not strutting pretty with the image-crowd. Most early Bedrocks' power tubes are run at mucho-high voltages, which unfortunately results in more than their share of failures, due to tubes more than any design or build defects. Bedrock used super-high quality componentry, far superior to any other manufacturer at the time, thick boards with large traces, mil-spec pots, rugged cabs, etc. The MASSIVE trannies in their 1200/1400/1600 series resulted in output and dynamics unmatched by competitors before or since - if you ain't played one, you dunno what yer missing! 1600 combined two preamps in one amp, had separate discrete controls for both channels, AMAZING 1x12 pro amp! BC75 was modeled cosmetically after the then-dormant Vox, but went more generic after copyright infringement action. Ken Fischer of Trainwreck Circuits told me the Bedrock (1200) was a good amp, he liked the folks at Bedrock. Their 600 series amps (621/651) are presently enjoying decent popularity when available on the 'Bay, these 2 and 4/EL84 amps have amazing flexibility, snarling high gain, bodacious cleans, and great features in a small 1x12 package (also had heads & 2x12's), with a really nice reverb. The Lead series was a brutal machine in a Hiwatt vein; 1000 series had 3 channels, 6L6's, and deluxe 4-button footswitch; swan song Royale series used some very original/unusual circuitry for rich Old-School Blues tone TO DIE FOR. They were around for several years, personnel changes and restless inventors combined with fickle editors' reviews to wear the fun off, and Bedrock's fate scattered to the winds (Brad Jeter went on to JetterGear).

Yes, many Bedrocks unfortunately suffer the fate of many other one-off amp makes: hard-to-find schematics resulted in lots of shadetree techs monkeying around where they didn't understand, and I admit some of the 600 series tend to be plagued with occasional gremlins; but in my book they are ALL great amps and they TOTALLY BLOW AWAY any garden variety Marshall, Fender, or other Big Name Amp! Marshall and Fender, in particular, blush with shame when their chintzy bean-counted guts are compared to the solid construction of Bedrocks! Just had to chime in here, when I read the high falutin and ill-informed slags posted previously. Any raspy or thin sounding Bedrock is sick; a healthy Bedrock will utterly SHRED any other mass-produced amp by anyone - just ask all the 100-watt Marshall users HUMBLED by a 50-watt amp that actually has enough iron and voltage to deliver where the ho-hum cookie-cutter amps wimp out. Go ahead and keep on kickin, I'll keep shopping for the bitchin amps nobody ever understood. Oh yeah - Bedrocks are great for those enjoying lots of different tones, Marshall is a one-trick pony by comparison; but since everyone wants to sound like Johnny MTV, I guess it's little wonder there's a small market for an amp with tones beyond the masses.
 
We're their massive trannies bigger than what Mesa was putting in their Mark series?
 
You want to know how much I love my Bedrock? So much that I registered here just to make one post.
I bought a 1200 head new in 1989. It's the PCB board type. I think the originals were PTP, but I'm not sure about that. Anyway, this is the best amp I've ever owned and I've owned over a dozen, rented a few more, tried even more. Whether clean or dirty it sounds amazing, and so responsive to playing. I will never sell this amp. Everything else has left me wanting, in comparison. But I'd really like to convert it to PTP if I could find a schematic. I do have a schematic for the PCB type that I got off the Bedrock Appreciation site long ago - thankfully. Just tried to track down Brad Jeter but can't find a connection (Is he in hiding?). He was one of two originators of Bedrock. Sure wish I had a PTP schematic. BTW, Jeter makes pedals now and has a 1200 pedal. The company is called Jetter Pedals, however.

Dude above who called his a POS must have had a broken one or maybe one that wasn't a 1200 - I've not heard the other models. The 1200, IMO, is an all-time great amp, and super loud. I run a Les Paul with EMGs into it and it absolutely crushes rich cleans to heavy blues to hard rock tones. It's not a high gain amp, though.
 
Today I was checking out the used amp section in Guitar Center Andover, and I spied a small 1x12 bedrock Combo. Could it possibly be? Probably not, because this amp was clearly new and unused, it still had the factory patina and looked as new as any amp in the store, newer than most of them. I remember seeing Aerosmith with Bedrock amps in the early 80,s so they must be decent right? Perry and Whitford were early endorsers, probably one of the first deals they had, as both started in Framingham MA. (5 miles from me). I thought they may have been resurrected or reissued, this amp does not have a SCRATCH, A SPECK, even the cord was still twisted up unused with a twisty tie! I plugged it in and it sounded excellent, had great reverb, effects loops and levels, 25 watts essentially a new amp. it is a 621 model, unplayed, paid $599.00 for it and I LOVE this amp! I also own a Matchless Spitfire and a Boogie MK 5/25 and this amp holds its own tonewise against either. Reliability??? Time will tell, but as I rarely take my amps out anymore I dont imagine I would have any issues with it. I feel like I scored bigtime, I figure a new amp of this quality and specs would be around a couple grand. The guys in GC really had never heard of Bedrock. Sometimes, being old pays off!
 
Jay Abend was one of the principles ar Bedrock, he runs Guitar Fetish since closing up Bedrock, but he wasn’t/isn’t a tech guy, Evan was the tech guy (can’t remember his last name), he did great Marshall mods and repairs. Great amps, but kind of misunderstood.
 
paulyc said:
Jay Abend was one of the principles ar Bedrock, he runs Guitar Fetish since closing up Bedrock, but he wasn’t/isn’t a tech guy, Evan was the tech guy (can’t remember his last name), he did great Marshall mods and repairs. Great amps, but kind of misunderstood.
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I still remember the Guitar Player review of the Bedrock amp. What a debacle that turned into. It was great that GP was doing ACTUAL gear reviews and weren’t letting advertisers dictate the end results. Too bad it didn’t last long.
Bedrock certainly didn’t handle the criticism very well from what I recall? I bought a used Bedrock at one point and it was pretty unremarkable IMO. Could have needed maintenance though to be fair.
 
HobbyBobby said:
Today I was checking out the used amp section in Guitar Center Andover, and I spied a small 1x12 bedrock Combo. Could it possibly be? Probably not, because this amp was clearly new and unused, it still had the factory patina and looked as new as any amp in the store, newer than most of them. I remember seeing Aerosmith with Bedrock amps in the early 80,s so they must be decent right? Perry and Whitford were early endorsers, probably one of the first deals they had, as both started in Framingham MA. (5 miles from me). I thought they may have been resurrected or reissued, this amp does not have a SCRATCH, A SPECK, even the cord was still twisted up unused with a twisty tie! I plugged it in and it sounded excellent, had great reverb, effects loops and levels, 25 watts essentially a new amp. it is a 621 model, unplayed, paid $599.00 for it and I LOVE this amp! I also own a Matchless Spitfire and a Boogie MK 5/25 and this amp holds its own tonewise against either. Reliability??? Time will tell, but as I rarely take my amps out anymore I dont imagine I would have any issues with it. I feel like I scored bigtime, I figure a new amp of this quality and specs would be around a couple grand. The guys in GC really had never heard of Bedrock. Sometimes, being old pays off!
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Hey man, if it sounds good it sounds good!!!
 
gtrwun said:
I still remember the Guitar Player review of the Bedrock amp. What a debacle that turned into. It was great that GP was doing ACTUAL gear reviews and weren’t letting advertisers dictate the end results. Too bad it didn’t last long.
Bedrock certainly didn’t handle the criticism very well from what I recall? I bought a used Bedrock at one point and it was pretty unremarkable IMO. Could have needed maintenance though to be fair.
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The amps certainly weren’t hi gain, and they weren’t supposed to be. They were really just rock amps, not really hard rock and for sure not metal. They were toneful though if you kept that in mind. In my younger years I didn’t, everything was judged by the amount of gain on tap, and looking back on it, that’s really not a great way to look at it. The GP review incident didn’t help them, but that could happen to any small volume manufacturer. I don’t remember how they handled it.
 
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