Orange Amps - what is missing?

ac88 · Post by **ac88** » Fri Jul 08, 2011 7:14 pm

Until my friend brought his Dual Terror + Orange 112 cabinet up to his apartment I had never played an Orange. My amp is a Fender DeVille, and I love the thick clean sound I get from it. My playing is more rhythmic, and I like to play big open chords with some verb.

He has a telecaster, and runs it through an EP booster and a nano Holy Grail. After playing with this setup for a while, I was startled at how different our rigs sounded. I was trying to replicate the cleans I get on my DeVille, but no amount of wetness or EQ adjustment would do it. What the terror seemed to do well was a grinding overdriven british sound. I felt as though the Dual Terror had a more defined frequency range (i.e. MIDS galore) that didn't express as many Highs and Lows as the Fender would. This would be useful in a band setting where a guitar has to fight for its space in the mix, but playing alone I felt the amp was very dry and sterile sounding. Furthermore, I felt the EP booster's effect on the amp was adding more to the amps dirty, gainy sound, instead of fattening the chords the way it would through a fender amp.

I believe quite a few of you have this amp, and I was wondering if this has been your experience with it? Do you use the orange for its britgain or have you found a way to charm the cleans out of it?

Haze · Post by **Haze** » Fri Jul 08, 2011 7:30 pm

Fenders have scooped mids, Oranges have boosted mids. Simple as that. You'll never [through normal means] get your Fender clean sound to come out of that Orange, the amp is just voiced differently. Boosting it just pushes the preamp tubes harder which, in an Orange, won't introduce wild amounts of bass like on a Fender, plus the EP preamp is a nice bit of kit

Another thing that people don't take into account is what your amp will sound like in a mix. You need to give each instrument plenty of space in the frequency range, if too many instruments sit in a particular range and they drown each other out

SGJarrod · Post by **SGJarrod** » Fri Jul 08, 2011 7:55 pm

got the DT and love it.... Comparing it to a Fender amp is apples to oranges ....no pun intended

I love it for clean and dirt but my idea of clean is not really super clean.... Fat, Warm and a touch of break up

there is just no comparision between the two... its cats and dogs

as for adding more Fatness/ volume to a DT without tons of gain or shizzle...well the answer for me is the Salt Booster...

iblastoff · Post by **iblastoff** » Wed Aug 03, 2011 9:10 pm

not sure why you'd be surprised at the sound difference. they're completely different amps. american fender cleans vs british crunch.
oranges tend to break up early and are definitely not known for having shimmering cleans.

slight grit/chimy almost vox-like though? yes.

i sold my fender hot rod deluxe, got a dual terror and never looked back. i have a ton of other amps and the dual terror is hands down the best amp head i've ever used.

Haze · Post by **Haze** » Wed Aug 03, 2011 9:14 pm

I know the Tiny Terror is based off an ac15 fwiw

Medicine Melancholy · Wed Aug 03, 2011 10:37 pm

Technically all amps scoop the mids to some extent as pickups are naturally mid-heavy. Marshall tends to do so in the upper mids and Fender in the mid-mids. Both are useful for cutting in a mix. Marshalls(and the Bassman before them) are probably more "balanced" sound wise, unsure. A lot of traditional Marshall sounds still have quite a bit of upper mids though(esp. when boosted with an OD), so it depends how you dial them in.