Orange Amplifiers

Orange Music Electronic Company is a British electric guitar and PA amplifier manufacturing company, famous for its distinctive bright orange tolex covering on amplifier heads and speaker cabinets.

Orange was founded in 1968 by Clifford Cooper of London. Orange amps and P.A. (public address) were made by Clifford Cooper. Orange started as a recording studio which featured an IBC mixing console originally owned by Joe Meek, as he was recorded by him in the mid-60s with his band The Millionaires.

In autumn 1968, Cliff placed an order with Huddersfield-based Matamp (named after founder Mat Mathias) to make some 100-watt`valve amps for Orange. The manufacturing plant in the United States signifies that only the US-distributed Oranges cabinets are made in the States, while valve amps are still manufactured in England.

Orange amplifiers are primarily mid to low-gain valve (or vacuum tube in North America) amp heads, designed to be coupled with a matching speaker cabinet. Their most popular guitar amplifiers were the OR120, usually referred to as the "graphic" model for its use of graphics instead of text to indicate each knob's function, and the later OD120 overdrive model which was equipped with a master volume control. Most guitar amps were based on output circuitry which used the EL34 tubes popular among British manufacturers like Marshall Amplifiers and Hiwatt, and were available in the separate amp head and speaker cabinet format.

In the 1970s, Orange also made 'hybrid' PA amps that coupled a solid state mixer stage with a tube (valve) power stage. In recent years, Orange has also produced guitar combo amps (speaker and amplifier in one assembly), as well as amplifiers for bass guitar and other audio products.

Orange Amps have been used and endorsed by many rock guitarists, including John Jared Bowes of Ultra Sonic Edukators, Ryan Siegel and Keith Allen of The Rivalry, Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, Joe Perry and Brad Whitford of Aerosmith, Andrew Stockdale of Wolfmother Ben Cline of Sob Mech, Thomas Erak of The Fall of Troy, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez of At the Drive-In and The Mars Volta, Wata, guitarist for Boris, Alice Austin of The Lavas, Tim Young, guitarist of The Youngs, Zony Mash and David Sylvian, Cody Votolato, guitarist for The Blood Brothers, Jim Ward and Keeley Davis of Sparta, Matt Sharp of Weezer, Jeremiah Cooper of The Awesome Miami, The Edge of U2, Andy Dunlop of Travis, Ryan Jarman of The Cribs, Tom Linton of Jimmy Eat World, James Bowman of Against Me!, Guitarist of Broken Teeth, Josh Newton of Shiner and From Autumn To Ashes, Jake Hawley of The New Transit Direction, Alex Turner of Arctic Monkeys, Bryant Williamson of Cinemechanica, Stu G of Delirious?, Chino Moreno of Deftones, bass player Chris Dekker of Boilersuit and Noel Gallagher of Oasis.

In the late 90's and early 00's, Orange also made a range of very successful all-tube combos, such as the AD 15/12 and the AD 30R. The AD 15/12, a Class A, single speaker, 15 watt model, is now out of production and highly sought after.

Orange introduced the Solid State Crush series in 2001 and in 2004 they introduced the new Rocker series. This series consists of five different amp models. These are the Rocker 30, which features a classic British rock sound, 2x EL34 power tubes working in Class A and today being the only amp available as a 1x12 combo. The Rockverbs uses similar circutry, but has an extra gain stage and much more modern voicing. They also feature a reverb. The Rockerverb comes as a 50 watt head (featuring 4x 6V6 power tubes) and a 100 watt head (featuring 4x EL34 power tubes, but these can be switched to 6L6 or 6550 power tubes). In 2006 Orange introduced two new amps. The small and portable Tiny Terror, which has received big popularity for it's ease of use, good tone and low price. The other is the Thunderverb 200, which is a guitar/ bass amp with 200 watts of power (6 x 6550 power tubes) and an inbuilt attenuator, this one is aimed more for modern sounds. Orange also revealed a smaller version of it, the Thunderverb 50 which has a 50 watt output.