The B-15 was the first in the companys Portaflex series, and after becoming the preferred studio amp of session musicians like James Jamerson and Chuck Rainey. In 1959, the company was incorporated as The Ampeg Company, Inc., with Everett Hull as President, Gertrude Hull as Secretary, and Jess Oliver as Vice President. Oliver didnt join Ampeg on a full-time basis until 1956, the same year that Ampegs name was simplified to The Ampeg Company. Michael left the company in 1948, leaving it to Hull, who relocated the company the following year to 42nd Street in Manhattan, above the New Amsterdam Theatre, renaming it The Ampeg Bassamp Company.Īdditionally, Eddie Safranski signed on with Michael-Hull to promote Ampeg products, receiving a royalty payment for equipment sold by their influence.Īfter Michaels departure, Hull continued to leverage connections with well-known musicians to increase awareness of his products within the New York jazz community Ampegs new location between Carnegie Hall, NBC Studios in 30 Rockefeller Plaza, and the Paramount Theatre helped establish relationships with bassists like Oscar Pettiford, Joe Comfort, Amos Milburn and Don Bagley. In 1946, they established Michael-Hull Electronic Labs in Newark, New Jersey, to sell their two products. The Hulls relocated to New Jersey, and Everett met electrical engineer and amp technician Stanley Michael, who was selling a bass amplifier of his own design, soon renamed the Michael-Hull Bassamp. Patent 2,430,717 was awarded the following year. On February 6, 1946, Hull filed a patent application for his sound amplifying means for stringed musical instruments of the violin family, for which U.S. Hulls design placed a transducer atop a support peg inside the body of his instrument, inspiring his wife Gertrude to name the invention the Ampeg, an abbreviated version of amplified peg.

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