Ampeg
American company of musical instruments and amplifiers
Ampeg ("amplified peg") is a manufacturer best known for its bass amplifiers.
Originally established in 1946 in Linden, New Jersey by Everett Hull and Stanley Michaels as "Michael-Hull Electronic Labs," today Ampeg is part of the Yamaha Guitar Group. Although specializing in the production of bass amplifiers, Ampeg has previously manufactured guitar amplifiers and pickups and instruments including double basses, bass guitars, and electric guitars.
History
Early years (1946―1959)
Everett Hull (born Charles Everitt Hull), a pianist and bassist from Wisconsin working with bandleader Lawrence Welk in Chicago, had invented a pickup for upright bass in an effort to amplify his instrument with more clarity. Hull's design placed a transducer atop the inside of the tailpin (or endpin, attached to the tailpiece), a peg for holding up the instrument while it is played. This inspired his wife Gertrude to name the invention the "Ampeg," an abbreviated version of "amplified peg." 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. patent 2,430,717 was awarded the following year. 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. In 1946, they established Michael-Hull Electronic Labs in Newark, New Jersey, to sell their two products. 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."
Michael-Hull advertised in DownBeat magazine, listing bassists like Chubby Jackson and Johnny Frigo as endorsers. Additionally, Eddie Safranski signed on with Michael-Hull to promote Ampeg products, receiving a royalty payment for equipment sold by their influence.
“Ampeg” enters the record as american company of musical instruments and amplifiers. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Ampeg, American and company can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q474442. The first chronological checks are 1946, 1959 and 1948.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ampeg” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.