Is Ampeg Making Guitar Amps Again
Having a conversation most the greatest bass amplifiers of all time that doesn't include Ampeg would be like trying to have a serious conversation about the greatest R&B singers without mentioning James Brown.
Ampeg's influence on the world of bass amps cannot be overstated, just their bold concepts had a humble start. The company was founded back in 1946 when a 42-year-old upright bass role player and jazz aficionado named Everett Hull stuck a microphone within his bass and connected information technology to a radio. His wife dubbed the invention "Ampeg" because the transducer, or pickup, within the bass was attached to the peg that supported the instrument. "Amp" + "peg." Go it? Clever gal.
Hull successfully spread the word about his creation to bassists in large bands effectually New York City, who became intrigued by the thought of using his new-fangled pickup to amplify their sound. Their burgeoning interest meant Hull needed to rapidly jump-get-go his production, leading him to class a short-lived company chosen Michael-Hull Electronic Labs with an amp designer named Stanley Michael.
In addition to selling Hull's "Ampeg" pickup, they also sold a product called the "Michael-Hull Bassamp." Although the company dissolved in 1948, Hull was convinced that he was onto something large and doubled down, expanding his rag-tag performance — now known as the Ampeg Bassamp Company — into a small New York Urban center midtown location that gave him close proximity to numerous nightclubs and studios.
Hull and his new amp designers continued to refine and heighten new, better-sounding and more powerful bass amps. As endorsers signed up for the original pickup and the new amps, up-and-coming players took notice, and by the early 1950s, the Ampeg name began to take root. Interestingly, around the same fourth dimension, a small number of companies started experimenting with related ideas for an electric bass. Simply Hull — whose musical taste was far more conventional than his inventions would suggest — didn't think the electrical bass concept had much of a chance. He was a jazz guy, after all.
The initial Michael-Hull Bassamp (aka the Model 770) slowly evolved through the early on 1950s, incorporating larger speakers, more ability, more expansive tonal control and cabinet porting. Innovative amps for guitarists and accordion players followed, but Ampeg'south first major success came with the arrival of designer Jess Oliver in 1956.
It took a while for Hull and Oliver to hit their pace together, just they knew they were onto something special with the 1960 nascence of the Ampeg B-15 Portaflex, with its unique "flip-top" blueprint. The B-xv was an immediate game-changer. Its blueprint and sound relegated all other bass amps that came before it (and arguably many others that came after) to the toy bin.
By today's high-powered standards, y'all might think this beautiful, indigestible-looking amp should never get out the bedroom, but equally thousands of recording studios and bassists throughout the decades can attest, the B-15 was and all the same is the gold standard for bass tone.
Although it went through many pattern changes and derivations between 1960 and 1980, all of the versions of the B-xv generally fit the same basic description: a tuned, double-bamboozle cabinet with a closed-back, featuring a sweet-sounding heavy-duty 15-inch speaker and a carve up, stupor-mounted tube laden amp caput crouched on acme of a dolly.
Still highly sought afterward past bassists young and old, the B-15 remains an important sonic criterion in the music world. Today, Ampeg carries on the B-15's rich legacy with the limited edition Heritage ™ Series B-ane 5 and the Portaflex™ Serial of individual heads and cabinets, both of which marry undeniably cool design with an overarching vintage aesthetic.
The B-15, which was before long joined by the less renowned SB-12 and B-18 flip-top models (which provided 12″ and 18″ speakers, respectively), was the nearly prominent bass amp that Ampeg offered during the 1960s. Thanks to an influx of greenbacks that came from taking the company public in 1963, other innovations for the lower clef were before long to follow.
Some were not exactly stunning successes. The Baby Bass, an upright instrument made from fiberglass that was small enough to be transported in a car seat (rather than tied onto the roof), wasn't besides received by symphonies equally Hull had hoped it might be, though it did meet favor with some Latin bands of the era. Notwithstanding, Ampeg connected to dabble with adding instruments to its line, including a series of "horizontal" basses with coil-shaped headstocks that never gained much traction, though they were used by Rick Danko of The Band and are prized past collectors today. But fifty-fifty after moving into a larger production facility to increase its capacity, the company remained poorly positioned to have advantage of the stone-and-roll craze of the '60s largely considering of Hull's preference for jazz's pure tone and his disdain for anything related to the rock genre.
By 1966, Ampeg's sales and ever-expanding product line were cracking nether the pressure caused by the company but being out of stride with the popular music of the era. Kickoff, Oliver left, and by the end of 1968, Hull himself had resigned from the company he had founded. New management was in place, new ideas were being bandied about, and in early 1969, a huge one took the music world past storm.
The Super Vacuum Tube amp, or SVT™ for short, was a 300-watt behemoth designed to sit atop a massive 8 x 10″ chiffonier to deliver one of the most breathtaking bass sounds imaginable. Prior to the SVT, Ampeg'southward most powerful amp had been the 55-watt B-25 (a tone monster in its ain right), but when the SVT debuted, all conceptions of ability and volume were shattered. The SVT was the first bass amp truly capable of treatment arena rock volume and tone, and it remains synonymous with that ethos today, every bit seen and heard in Ampeg's Heritage 50th Anniversary SVT as well as the Heritage SVT-CL amp paired with an SVT-810E chiffonier. In addition, the Ampeg Classic Serial offers a number of amp heads and cabinets inspired by the original SVT.
There probably aren't two amps that could be more different than the B-15 and the SVT — designed about a decade apart past two entirely dissimilar teams — nonetheless both are legendary in their own correct. It's a complex path from Everett Hull'due south mic on a stick inside his upright bass in 1946 to the luscious B-xv of the early '60s to the massive grinding sound of a modernistic-twenty-four hour period SVT, but that path is a glorious ane.
Ampeg changed corporate hands various times throughout the decades, and in 2018 the company became function of the Yamaha Guitar Group family. Withal the thread running through from 1946 to today remains intact. Ampeg'due south history is ane of building height-quality, innovative amps for serious bassists. You see it in the older amp designs just as you see it today in Ampeg'southward modern SVT Pro Series , Bassamp Series and ProNeo enclosures. It's the same unwavering focus on pure tone and ability that has my basement loaded with new and vintage Ampeg gear, and I know I'yard not lone. That would probably make Hull quite proud … just as long equally no one told him we are all using his amps to play loud stone music. Savages.
Desire to know more nearly the history of Ampeg? Check out the video:
Bank check out Michael's other "Back to Bassics" blog posts.
Click here for more information about the history of Ampeg, and also check out the volume "Ampeg: The Story Behind the Audio," by Gregg Hopkins and Bill Moore.
Click here for more information near Ampeg products.
Source: https://hub.yamaha.com/guitars/bass/back-to-bassics-the-ampeg-story/
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