Low End Of Love

Joe Shooman signs off each issue by celebrating an iconic bass guitar. This month: the unique Ampeg Scroll Bass

Joe Shooman’s column devoted to iconic bass guitars. This month: the Ampeg Scroll Bass

Instruments don’t get much more iconic in our world than the beautiful Ampeg Scroll Bass. With its intriguing and beautiful blend of classical music-style headstock and F-holes through the body, it is instantly recognisable, visually and sonically.

Master luthier Bruce Johnson of the Extremely Strange Musical Instrument Company is one of the world’s leading experts on the Ampeg. “The Scroll Bass really does sound distinctly different than a [standard] Fender electric bass, for technical reasons,” he explains. “Ampeg was working on new design ideas in the 1960s that wouldn’t be seen in the electric bass world for another 25 years.”

Key was the purchase of the company Zorko in 1958, including their small, electric upright bass which involved into Ampeg’s (SSB) Baby Bass. Johnson says that this demanded innovations in pickup technology. “The Zorko and Baby Bass used a bridge similar to an upright bass,” he says. “Each pickup was a round rod magnet surrounded by a coil of fine wire. On top of each coil was a thin steel disc in a frame, like a small drum head. The bridge foot pressed on the centre of the disc. Plucking the string caused the bridge to rock and bounce, which flexed the two discs, creating an electrical signal in the two magnetic coils. This brought out the attack curve of the notes, the pulse and warble and bloom, that are so much of the character of an upright bass sound.”

In 1965 Dennis Kager designed a horizontal electric, plus the Ampeg Mystery Pickup, an example of what Johnson calls a ‘Mechanical Percussive Pickup’. Chicago bassist Gordon Patriarca of Chicago, who has appeared on around 40 albums and gigged about 5000 times in his long career, says: “I did not like the sound. Each one I owned was modded with different pickups and a modern bridge. As my concept of ideal tone has evolved over the years from brighter to much darker, I would probably be amenable to the sound of the Mystery Pickup more now. I do love the necks, though. They are like a slightly flatter 60s P-bass neck.”

Kager was also responsible for a drastic redesign of the body, explains Johnson. “The big F-holes all the way through the body aren’t just a visual design element,” he says. “They’re a functional part of structurally weakening the body. This flexing of the body added warmth and richness to the midrange and extra harmonics in the background. These days we call this technique ‘chambering’, but Ampeg was doing it 50 years ago.”

The AEB-1 and its fretless variant, the AUB-1, were manufactured between 1966 and ’68; in total there were only around 2000 Scroll Basses of various kinds produced including the ‘Devil’ bass. Johnson is now the leading manufacturer, with his AMB-2 custom-made ‘sequel’ version in high demand, albeit in a rather niche market.

“They’re complicated, expensive and risky to build,” he says. “Most builders today are focused on a different type of instrument for modern bass playing with lots of fast notes, a super low action and a bright, pingy sound. The Scroll Bass is designed for an older style of playing, with smooth flatwounds, and slower, longer notes, where you can hear the warm overtones and the percussive attack curve. It’s the bass sound you’d hear in a 1940s swing band or jazz combo.” Sounds like a refreshing change to us…