1998 Ampeg AEB-2 Bass

This is an Ampeg AEB-2 "Series I" built by Bruce Johnson. SN 021. Bruce sent us a detailed description on Howie's AEB-2 (Thanks Bruce!). Please see description following photos.

In 1996, I met with the folks at Ampeg/St. Louis Music and proposed an idea to them. I had been collecting and researching Ampeg's Scroll Basses for many years, and had been building up my own small musical instrument company. I offered to develop and manufacture a new-generation version of the Scroll Bass, and they agreed to distribute and market them under the Ampeg name. We showed the first two prototypes in Ampeg's booth at the 1997 NAMM show, and I got started getting them into production. I struggled with development and production problems, and by the end of 1998 had only produced 25 instruments. At that time St. Louis Music and I ended our agreement on a friendly basis. I couldn't build them fast enough, and it wasn't working out financially for either of us. Since then, I've continued refining the design and selling my Scroll Basses directly to customers. All of my Scroll Basses are built by me personally, including most of the metal hardware.

The first 22 instruments are what I now call my "Series I" model Scroll Basses. They have the Ampeg logo on the pickguard, and have a single rectangular black pickup which was custom made for me by Rick Turner. Of those 22, I later upgraded 9 of them to the "Series II" configuration with modifications to the bodies, new pickups, and pickguards without the Ampeg logo. Today, there are only 13 remaining Series I models in existence, and I own 3 of them. Last I knew, 5 of them were still owned by St Louis Music, or had been given to employees. The other 5, including #021, were sold to individual customers. AEB-2 s/n 021 was originally intended to be the standard red/black sunburst model and go to Ampeg, but it ended up as a unique experimental instrument. I did most of the woodworking on instruments 011 through 022 as a batch , starting in mid-1997. I was having  terrible problems figuring out how to paint these instruments, and  the bodies of  several of  them  were effectively ruined, in particular #012 and #021. At the same time, I wanted to experiment with using different woods for the bodies. The original bodies were ash, which is what I still use today. So, I decided to make up replacement bodies for instruments 012 and 021 in mahogany, to test the effect on the tone. I used Honduras mahogany for 012 and Phillipine mahogany for 021. Both were given simple clear finishes. The lighter weight and lower stiffness of the mahogany gave those two instruments a much sweeter high end than the solid ash bodies, but they lost some of the rich low-mid warmth that's a natural characteristic of the ash. I ended up staying with ash for the bodies in later instruments, but adding internal chambering that brought the high end sweetness close to the mahogany ones. Those two instruments, #012 and #021, are still the only ones I've built with mahogany bodies. AEB-2 #021, with the Phillipine mahogany body, is the lightest weight Scroll Bass that I've built. Its body is so light that, if I remember correctly, it's slightly neck heavy. The neck is maple, which is now finished in clear polyurethane. The body has a light cherry stain and clear polyurethane.

I finished #021 on 5/28/98, and kept it around my shop for about a month while I tested it against other instruments. Sometime in early July 1998, I took #021 out to LA Bass Exchange in Tarzana, a local store specializing in electric basses. I knew the guys there, and I had been taking some of my early Scroll Basses in occasionally to get their opinions on them. Ampeg didn't want #021 because it was a one-off, so I left #021 in the store on consignment to see what would happen. Just a few days later they called me and told me that Howie Epstein had stopped in and had immediately taken a liking to #021. He was friends with Long Ly, the owner, and had bought a few instruments there over the years. A few days after that, he came back and bought #021 for $1400, which was a bargain. If I'd known it would sell that quickly, I would have set the price higher! Unfortunately, LA Bass Exchange closed its doors in 2002. I never met Howie. Long gave him my number, but he never called with any questions or comments. When I heard that he had died, I wondered what would happen to his instrument collection and whether #021 was still in it. That's the story.

Bruce Johnson