Trivia question on Galiien Krueger and GMT

gfab333 · #1 01-01-2005, 12:11 PM

A trivia question regarding the name of this company. Hopefully, GK man Dan Elliot will chime in here.

GMT was the forerunner name of what we now know as Gallien Krueger. What did GMT stand for? it was a very cool amp for the mid 1970s.

You still hear about President Robert Gallien (there's a message from him in all the owner manuals), but you never hear anything about Mr. Krueger who I'm sure is no longer with the company. Who was Krueger, and how did they start the company? was one guy the electronic brains and the other guy the marketing and sales guru?

I think many TBers would appreciate this bit of trivia.

Thanks in advance.

Woodchuck · #2 01-01-2005, 12:24 PM

Great question!

Hambone · #3 01-01-2005, 03:08 PM

I've often wondered about this early stage of GK.

In 1976-1978 around the city where I was playing, another bassist had a GK system that fascinated me. It was GK by then because I asked. Anyway, the cabinet was a pair of back firing 15's in a folded horn with 2 front firing 10's mounted in a closed cabinet right in the middle of the taller folded horn cab. The inside was all white with just the black 10's visible. Best sounding cab I had ever heard at the time. This guy was from a pretty well off family so I'm sure this piece was pricey. I've always wanted a cabinet like this.

gfab333 · #4 01-01-2005, 04:57 PM

I saw the same cab down here at about the same time. It was a top 40 / funk / disco band. It had a nice GK style sound.

Daniel Elliott · #5 01-04-2005, 10:48 PM

GMT. G was for Gallien, M and T were a couple of other guys names, I can't remember who Bob said they were. M and T left pretty early on. There were only a couple hundred GMT amps made. When the company switched to Gallien Krueger, they still used GMT for a little while, but Gallien-Krueger was added to the logo. Eventually they dropped GMT completely. Bob Gallien is an electrical engineer and was responsible for the internal design of the amps while Rich Krueger was a mechanical engineer and was responsible for the physical design. There was some overlap, but for the most part that's how it was. Rich also handled a large portion of the sales and artist relations. I also have some old ads in my files that were hand drawn by him. He's an incredibly talented artist (the drawing kind) They both worked together at Hewlitt Packard. About 7 or 8 years ago, Rich decided he wanted to get out of the business and sold his share of the company to Bob. He went to work for Guitar Center Corporate for awhile and I have no idea what happened to him after that. I had heard a rumor that he was teaching somewhere. Bob still handles all of the engineering with the help of a couple of engineering assistants.

gfab333 · #6 01-05-2005, 01:40 AM

Thanks Dan. Great info!

Digital Larry · #7 01-04-2007, 11:52 PM

Well this is from fading memory but I think M & T were "Martin" and "Taylor". I worked at G-K from 88-92. I designed the long forgotten 100MPL MIDI guitar preamp and a bass version that never saw the light of day. I imagine the prototypes are either on a shelf somewhere or (gasp) ground into industrial scrap (weep).

In retrospect I'd say moving directly to a bass version first would have been a better idea. I don't think they ever recouped the investment on the 100MPL. But it wasn't my company! Hi Bob!

prismacolor2 · #8 03-01-2007, 11:54 PM

I have a 300B. I love these amps. I'd really like to get a 600B.

I BINed this one on eBay today - very clean

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...6607&rd=1&rd=1