Coming soon to St Leonards, Hastings & the south Coast
Sickamps On sea
Born and Bread in Harlow Essex, a popular new town of lush green fields and easy links to London you may wonder why we are looking at a 2nd workshop in a seaside town on the south Coast?
My wife has a strong link with Hastings, her parents owned a static caravan just off the Ridge for several decades, her grandparents lived in Pett and her auntie still lives in Pett and is an artist locally known.
I have spent many a week in Hastings with family holidays as many other Londoners and greater Londoners do throughout the year. It is a 2nd home, completely different to Harlow not just in looks, but I find Hastings and St Leonards has such vibrance and community feel many other towns would never be able to achieve.
Currently I see a good proportion of repairs from people driving up to us to drop off their boutique valve amps for repair because Sickamps is well known, trusted and established brand having earned the reputation from many prestigious brands.
Harlow would be the main repair workshop with stock, with a satellite repair workshop for small repairs on the Coast where I could shuttle several amps back and forth in a month for specialist repair and return.
Over the years we have established ourselves as one of the UK’s leading repair centres for musical stage electronics and boutique amplifier repair. We are regularly recommended by US manufacturers to people enquiring about repairs and servicing. Being on first name terms with many brand owners and support staff we can often gain information and parts far quicker than any other repairer locally.
We’ve worked on many products and amps before they have been officially launched to carry out last minute mods and fed back issues we notice on warranty repairs to build quality and instill trust in our work.
Sickamps isn’t a big company, we don’t have call staff waiting to take your calls, nor millions of pounds of stock of spare parts. But what you do get, is the ability to have every equiry answered by somebody technical who knows what they’re talking about, you get the reassurance of manufacturer backing, and above all our honesty. We’ve turned down many repairs if we do not think they will last or if the equipment is too far beyond repair.
Our aim is simple, to repair to component level, reducing e-waste and providing a quality value service. Sickamps is a specialist independent and well established and regarded musical electronics repair workshop with it’s main workshop located in Harlow. Due to demand and recommendations we take may repairs from customers from Brighton, Lewes, Hastings and Rye and are now looking to open a smaller workshop up in St Leonards as an upcoming and vibrant town for musical services.
We don’t repair white goods nor home electronics and specialise in stage electronics only.
We serve musicians from Leicester to Southampton, and Southend to Bristol. With easy transport links via train and car with free onsite parking, we are well positioned and look after some of the worlds most prestigious and highly rated amplifiers and pianos. We also have many visits from musicians from Central and Greater London due to our workshop being outside ULEZ, and congestion zone and has free parking. Trusted by manufacturers and musicians alike we off transparent and clear reports of work carried out backed by a 2 month warranty.
Our mission is simple, reduce electronic waste by repairing to component level where possible and providing solid reliable repairs ready to the toughest tour.
Over the years we’ve found our niche and is fairly defined, supported by our followers who have used and entrusted us for years with their equipment.
With many success of reviving older vintage synths and production pianos we carry a large stock of Yamaha parts. We also service many Korg and Casio pianos. Vintage equipment has also included old drum machines, sequencers such as the Korg NS10 where we have the skill and parts to remedy the older analogue circuits. We have vast arrays of schematics and service documents and limited spares of vintage synth parts.
We cover most commercially made valve and solid state amps and the majority of hand built and custom higher end brands, Badcat, Fuchs, Bartel, Two Rock, Friedman, Carr, Cornell, Mesa / Boogie
We have great relationships with most of the boutique builders and are one of only a few companies left who take on the more complicated Mesa repairs, things like the Triaxis rack unit, and some of the more complicated amps such as the MK V. We’re also one of few UK warranty centers for Badcat, and also look after a few high end music shops who sell high end amplifiers.
From the success of repairing many vintage equipment and frankly preferring the quality and ability to repair older equipment we have found a market after our own heart, supporting many drum and bass artists, bedroom DJ’s and northern soul wedding DJ’s we repair and service Technics decks of all varying ages and conditions. Most have the same story of being in the loft for 20 odd years having had a family and they found them recently and have got back into vinyl.
Coming soon to St Leonards, Sickamps will be perfectly located for easy access to all customers on the south coast.
Some people may see a ticketing system as a cold fronted non caring customer interface used by large organisations to get lost in.
As a small business and in an effort to keep up with demand, we use a ticketing system. Our difference is that we use it as a tool to help speed up repairs and keep you informed at all times! The result, faster, better value and clear precise information at every step!
Communication is key
At every step you’ll get updated with an email or online ticket, from dropping off your amp, to when it’s on the bench, if we’re waiting for parts and to let you know it’s repaired.
We like visuals and the picture to the right is a typical day for us, much like a traffic light system we can easily see what is outstanding, what needs doing. Not only do we see the overall state, but you can too for your individual repair!
What does this mean for customer service?
As long as we have the parts and spares on the shelf we can generally repair most equipment within a week. If we can’t repair it you’ll know straight away that we’ve ordered parts or awaiting for manufacturer advice.
