Did you have any input from famous bass players when designing the Ampeg bass amps?
We had input from many famous players. Hull always felt free to sell retail sometimes because he had to, just to make the payroll (most manufacturers do not sell directly to retail customers). We had all the bass players (as customers) because nobody else made a practical upright bass pickup. What particular electronics design or type was used for the Portaflex combos? I believe I got the design for the Portaflex amp right out of the back pages of an RCA tube manual; that is for the power amp. For the preamp I used the circuitry common to some of the earlier models. (Tube manufacturers, in order to increase sales, would sometimes provide manuals for making circuits to be used with their tubes.) Were you aware at the time that bassists needed more power to compete with the electric guitar? I was aware of their need for more volume but we were under capitalized. We could only make the amps bigger, not more powerful. For instance, before the B-15 amp, we had made a few 835 amps with a dou
