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1970 – Product Placement on German National TV

Beat Club Logo

Cliff Cooper – Founder & CEO

After we set up Orange Hire in 1969 we supplied Orange equipment to a lot of English and American bands when they worked in Germany and the rest of Europe on tours organised by the major German promoters, Lippmann and Rau.

People working in the German music business soon began to notice these orange-coloured amplifiers on stage. Out of the blue, I got a phone-call from Mike Leckebusch who was the producer of the Beat-Club television show which was broadcast nationwide from Bremen. Mike asked me whether we would provide Orange backline equipment for his show, and I was only too pleased to oblige.

This was an important development for Orange because although bands who appeared on Beat-Club had the option in the studio of using their own equipment, fortunately for us most of them chose to use Orange and many of them then placed orders for equipment with us soon after.

Beat-Club gave Orange television exposure throughout Germany and orders began to flow in. As a result of this we decided to form a German subsidiary – Orange GMBH

 

 

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In the studio with Fire Fences

It’s not all sunshine and roses being a young musician in this day and age, juggling work, education and music all at once…it ain’t easy. Because of this, it was important for Firestone to make funding for recording a part of the prize for last year’s Firestone Battle of the Bands winners, Fire Fences. Based in Bridgend, Wales, Fire Fences decided on Northstone Studios, beautifully located within the Court Colman Manor, and conveniently ten minutes down the road from their homes.

The studio, which is a modern-vintage residential studio, was built by Welsh musician and producer Jayce Lewis, who, funnily enough used to be managed by David Prowse, the original DARTH VADER, so let’s just leave it with that – he had us at Darth Vader.

This is a such a beautiful studio, how did you find it?
We randomly came across it while looking for places to record and couldn’t believe how close it was to home, which is about ten minutes down the road, and it just had the most incredible sound! As we had a bit of money to play around with at the time, we decided to splurge out and give it a go. The first time we recorded here we got quite close with Jayce, who’s almost become some sort of mentor for us. He’s helped us a lot, and now that he knows the band and the music he’s really stepped up as an important figure for the band. It really means a lot to get that help and input from someone like him with where he’s at in his career. He’s done it all before, and wants to support us to be the best we can be, which is great! Finding a place like this and a guy like Jayce so close to home…we’ve been incredibly lucky.

As I sit back to observe the recording and producing process, I discover the love between Jayce and the band – no sugar coatin’ anything here, in the best possible way. He pushes them to be their best selves, and it’s clear that they’ve already built up a strong relationship. Meanwhile, the band all have different approaches to recording, communicating and playing, with James taking his time to think things through, explain things and do everything to perfection, while the other three will boil the kettle, drink tea, have naps and go for long walks on the beach while James will go into detail to answer all my questions. For example, why did the back of his drumsticks look like they had been chewed to pieces?

“I haven’t chewed them, I played them the other way around. Ironically these are Buddy Rich sticks, and they got like that from playing a technique I learnt from watching Buddy Rich play. As a jazz drummer he would play using a traditional jazz grip, but when watching videos of him playing I noticed that when he went onto the floor tom, he’d quickly flip his sticks around for more power and force, which is a technique I ended up picking up on myself.”

“Ya could have just given her the short answer ya know? “I play ‘em backwards for more power”…”

Luckily, writers love a long answer, as short ones make making journalistic pieces pretty hard.

How long have you got here to record?
We’re here for a full week, Monday to Friday, which is the longest we’ve ever been able to be in the studio for, so it’s allowed us a lot more time to experiment with drums and all that. We recorded our last EP here as well, but had to get it all done in three days strictly due to financial reasons. Luckily Firestone’s helped out a lot this time around, so we get to take our time to actually enjoy the recording process and experience, and not just rush right through it. We’re able to take our shoes off, put our feet up, and rip into each other. We got some tinnies for the day as well, a couple of Red Stripes to keep us hydrated. We’re all firm believers that hydration is key.

What can you tell us about the upcoming release and the foreseeable future?
We’re doing four songs this time around, two are already done and we’ve got two to go, and honestly, the two we’ve got down so far are too good to be ours. We’re so unbelievably excited for the release and to see what the future brings. Firestone’s helping out with the artwork as well which is great, and we’ve got some very exciting things coming up over the next couple of months. For example, Noel Gallagher’s playing Birmingham Arena May 1st, and we get to play in the foyer before the show on the Firestone Unsigned Stage, where everyone will be passing through to get inside the main venue – that’s 20,000 people, to most of which we’ll be completely unknown, such an amazing way of getting out there and reaching a new audience. The added media presence of this and playing on the same night as an act like Noel Gallagher is an honour, and will probably make a lot of people take us more seriously. Having Firestone and also Orange on our side really helps a lot as well, and we reckon we’re gonna get to do some great things with their help and support!

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1969 – The Orange Comic Strips

In early 1969, we introduced cartoon comic strip advertising, which was very successful and after a short time, attracted a devoted following – many fans actually wrote to us with their own ideas for the cartoons. They had a tongue-in-cheek humour, and often exposed emerging situations in our business.

 

The comic strips were popular in Germany too!

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1970 – Orange Product Branding

Cliff Cooper – Founder & CEO

Turntables

Orange Strings – They actually were orange too!

In the early years we used our name on all sorts of selected products which were music-industry related and which we believed there would be a demand for. We started with the Orange DJ Consoles. Then guitar and bass strings, which sold very well. The microphones came next: anti-feedback condenser microphones with a hypercardioid pattern to give a more directional response. These microphones were virtually indestructible and initially silver in colour. We later had them enamelled in four different colours and supplied carry cases for them. They were made for us by a company called Calrec, who were based in West Yorkshire. These microphones were also used for studio recording.

Orange Microphones

Drums were added to the range and were made by our French distributor, Capelle. For the first set delivered, we had the hardware plated with 24-carat gold. This immediately gained the attention of the press, and the Orange Drums were launched. More products came, including stroboscopes which were very popular in those days. We sold huge amounts of T-shirts and caps, which of course helped promote our brand.

Drums

Strobe

We also designed an Orange guitar [below], which we had built for us by the famous American luthier, Randy Curlee. We only sold six of these guitars, and to date we have only been able to trace one of them, which is owned and still used by John Miles. These guitars were beautifully made and sounded great. I wish I’d kept one for myself.

Only 6 of these guitars were ever made.

Orange Guitar

In the late 1990s we introduced the Orange computer tower.

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Interview with Mary Spender

My name is Mary Spender, I play the Orange Rocker 32 and most recently, the Rocker 15 head with a 212 vertical cab. I started playing guitar when I was 12 because I saw some boys at school with a Squire and I was very envious because I was doing classical music! Although i was enjoying it – being in orchestras, playing the viola and singing, playing violin – I found it restrictive in some ways because I wanted to write songs. I was listening to pop music (if I can be honest) as my mum introduced me into things like Jodie Mitchell and I just wanted to sing and accompany myself so I played guitar. I started on electric and bought a Yamaha Pacifica 112 and it’s kinda just gone from there.

I chose the Rocker 32 because of the stereo features but I’m totally guilty of not having stereo pedals right now! I also chose it because of the 3-band EQ on the dirty channel. Aside from the set-clean tone, it’s useful to change between the two channels for my style of playing. Orange was a strange choice for my style of music but then it’s very complimentary in the same way… it’s just cool having my Rocker 32 on stage. It was on stage for my UK tour most recently and everyone just said how good the tone sounded so I’ll take that as a compliment!

My Vigier GV Rock in revolution green is my favourite guitar. It’s short-scale, I love it, it has a very slim neck and it’s just beautiful. I’m a singer/songwriter and I’d describe my musical style as intricate, slow guitar playing with a little chicken-picking… but not quite… there’s a mixture of influences such as Mark Knopfler… so that sort of style… but sort of failing at it… so I just came up with my own thing!

The Rocker 15 Terror was released in January,  so seeing the Rocker as a head (rather than a combo) was great… and to be honest, It’s all down to the bedroom/headroom switch. Being at home, you don’t want to annoy the neighbours… too much! Although I love the Rocker 32, especially those 2 stereo speakers, I just loved the idea of having a vertical cabinet and a head!

I first saw the PPC212V at NAMM and Charlie (from Orange) actually told me it was lightweight. I tested it, and obviously carrying amps is bad for your back if they are too heavy. That’s why I chose the Rocker 32 rather than a cab and head before hand… but picking up the 15mm ply-wood vertical cab was better… it was so light. Now I just need to buy a bigger car!

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1970 – Creating the Orange Identity

Cliff Cooper – Founder & CEO

Our amps were covered in orange, but I believed that we should also make claim to the fruit. The Orange tree was the first thing that came to mind, so the Orange World Tree was included in the design – its roots encircling the world.

We came up with slightly different visuals for the World Tree as we developed the idea.

Evolution of the Orange Tree

Creating the Orange Crest

Crests and coats of arms are very British, heraldic and expensive looking – everything I wanted our amps to be. I decided we should design our own crest – it would certainly make our amps different. One of the things that I never understood about the music equipment industry back then was that everything looked so similar.

We were a very small business with very small money but we tried to appear bigger, hence slogans such as ‘Voice Of The World’ – we did even consider ‘Voice Of The Universe’ – and our advertising tried to project this. The photo [below] was taken of me in early 1970 in the back of the Orange Shop with early artwork for the Orange ‘Voice Of The World’ tree idea. This ended up on the crest as well as a stand-alone logo. In the early days I used to live and sleep in that back office using a Vox column speaker cab plastic cover as a sleeping bag.

Cliff lived in this small room at the back of the Orange Shop

The Crest: Forever part of the brand

Some four decades later, the Orange Crest remains an essential part of our brand’s livery, and I’m pleased that it has stood the test of time and still attracts interest – as the cheeky 2003 press cutting from Playmusic Magazine shown below illustrates.

Press cutting from Playmusic Magazine, 2003

We spent a lot of time designing and creating the symbols used in our crest. To promote our new company, in 1970 we created a different style of advertising for our music equipment retailing – the cartoon comic strip. The comic strip shown below explains what the Orange Crest symbolises, but in other cartoons, we took good-humoured swipes at our rivals. These ads appeared regularly in the trade press and were extremely successful. The artist who sketched these cartoons was Brian Engel, who was in a band called Mandrake Paddle Steamer, and was also a talented songwriter and vocalist. It was Brian who painted the previously mentioned psychedelic fascia on the front of the Orange Shop.

These cartoons were scanned from an early advert in Beat Instrumental

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1972 – Orange launches AMITY SCHROEDER Professional Audio Equipment

Cliff Cooper – Founder & CEO

Very soon, 8-track recording studios had become the new industry standard. I formed Amity Schroeder as an Orange affiliate company with Roger Jeffrey as chief designer. We started to build our own tape decks, starting with an 8-track. I invested a lot of money in Amity Schroeder, and soon found out that it was a struggle to introduce a new brand into the highly competitive studio equipment market. Nevertheless, we managed to keep our heads above water with our early range of analogue tape recorders and ‘spot’ cartridge machines built for radio broadcasting studios. Our clients included the BBC and a number of independent radio stations.

Amity ‘Spot’ Cartridge Jingle Machine

From left: Cliff Cooper, Jenny Murd and Roger Jeffrey. Amity exhibit their professional studio equipment at the APRS trade show

Amity Schroeder then designed and marketed the world’s first 16-track tape recorder, and built a 1-inch tape deck . This was cast in aluminium and machined to exacting tolerances, and was really ahead of its time. We had the tape heads specially designed for us by Nortronics in the USA. These had an excellent crosstalk specification. Later, we introduced a 24-track recorder that utilised our newly designed 2-inch tape transport .

Amity 1” Tape Transport

Amity 24-Track Tape Recorder with a 2” Tape Transport

At that point we really needed to manufacture these machines in larger quantities. Due to other business commitments, I couldn’t devote the time it would have needed to open a new facility and develop this specialist market. It would also require a huge financial investment, which would have weakened the other businesses. It was time to sell. The company that bought Amity Schroeder was Trident Audio.

Amity ‘Spot’ Cartridge Jingle Machine

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1969 – Orange Agency

Being able to perform well on stage ensures longevity of record sales

Cliff Cooper – Founder & CEO

By forming the Orange Agency, my plan was to string together the other music-related activities we had already started. There were some vacant premises above the Orange Shop at 4 New Compton Street, so I acquired an existing agency run by Bob Anderson and Bob Hurd and we moved them in above the shop. They immediately started booking bands and artists into venues up and down the country.

Joe Cocker

The business grew rapidly, and before long we were booking tours. We booked Joe Cocker into The Pheasantry club in London’s Kings Road, Chelsea, and as a result we became sole booking agents for that club. We also booked groups into the Speakeasy, The Marquee Club and other famous London venues. We flew in huge acts from America and toured them throughout Europe. These were very exciting times for us.

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OMEC Teleport – Painting with Tone

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens,
Bright copper kettles and warm woollen mittens,
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favourite things …

… and technology.

Yeah, technology is a personal favourite of mine regarding music. For everything else I´m basically an analogue dog, but when playing or recording I like to get the most and as many colours as possible to paint sonically.

Over the years my rig evolved from a very primitive (and cheap) pedalboard that I even made myself with some hand shaped rough plastic, an IKEA frame and velcro, loaded with some of the cheapest pedals ever, to a VERY elaborated and expensive rig during my most intense session work years, to a two floor stereo pedalboard that came back to a pretty deceptively simple Pedaltrain NANO mini board 4 years ago.



Since I developed M1N1 (later Teleport) my palette became second to none and (even on early days when it was hidden on my monitors) I was thinking about the next App or software to download and include on my rig. It first appeared on my pedalboard 4 years and a half ago and the first premise was to integrate it as part of my analog guitar rig (no amp. involved thanks to my analog amp. sim. T.A.E. technology based preamps), so a bunch of my beloved analog stompboxes (Wampler, Keeley, T-Rex, BOSS… “you_name_it”), my Eventide H9 and M1N1 both for sonical adventures with digital rig emulation (amps of extra effects pre or post analog T.A.E. amp. sim. thanks to Eventide H9´s PRE/POST mode) and MIDI guitar (with no MIDI pickup thanks JamOrigin technology). This is my 2018 NAMM demo board.

In use:

As you can probably notice, there are two Teleports on the next picture… Why? That´s a good question. I was using the first one both to get polyphonic MIDI and pedal simulations (like a tremolo or a phaser that work better before my Massive Unity analog 1964 amp. sim.) and a second Teleport at the end of my signal chain both to enjoy stereo flexibility on my laptop plugins (imagine having Eventide´s studio algorithms like Physion on your pedalboard) AND to record directly to any software with my whole signal chain (boosters – 1st Teleport – 1964 – H9). Portability with myriad options, that’s absolutely me !!

Some personal favourites are:

– JamOrigin MIDI Guitar

MIDI Guitar 2 is one of the most ambitious guitar processors ever made. It really listens to you and recognizes your playing. Add any synth or virtual instrument to your guitar effect arsenal with seamless integration with your DAW’s that will improve your workflow when recording or composing, loading Virtual Instruments, Effects, Impulse Responses, Samplebanks.

– IK Multimedia Amplitube

A classic now, the game changer when released, always crunch amp. simulation heaven, with some of the best pedal emulations ever.

– JamUp

Many versions came after it, but it was never defeated, original Positive Grid iPad App was my first love… and it’ll be my last (or not), but I still love their simple amp. sims and pedals (that sound great in conjunction with “real” pedals on my pedalboard).

– Physion

Physion (formerly known as Fission) based on Eventide´s ground-breaking Structural Effects technology allows you to split a sound into its transient and tonal parts, independently manipulate and then fuse them back together. Apply it to any instrument for a no boundaries effects

– ROLI

ROLI´s synths (both App and Mac versions) were key factors when I turned into MIDI Guitar possibilities. Not being able to play the keyboard I had to find a way to get that A MA ZING sounds under my fingers. OMEC Teleport was the AD/DA door and MIDI Guitar was the bridge.

– MoForte / Wizdom Music

Being a HUGE Dream Theater fan, to have Jordan Rudess samplers on my guitar was a must !! And I did it !!

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1969 – Orange Publishing

Publishing is the bank of the music business and songwriting is the lifeblood that sustains it.

Cliff Cooper – Founder & CEO

Orange’s publishing division started in late 1969. After reading a standard publishing contract from my lawyer, Nick Kanaar, I had a basic grasp of how publishing worked. Nick, who was and still is a famous lawyer specialising in publishing, helped me to understand the craft. I learned that music publishing is very involved and far more complex than just contracts. It is an international business and a knowledge of all the world collection societies and the territories in which they operate, is essential. I now needed an expert to head the company.

I asked Dennis Sinnott to join Orange. Dennis had worked in music publishing ever since he left college and was Head of Copyright at EMI before joining us. He still runs Orange Publishing from St. Louis in America. Dennis has also written a book called ‘Masters of Songwriting’, which is essential reading for anybody who is keen to succeed in today’s ‘Digital Download’ music industry.

A Rose’ The Musical. Orange Publishing signs deal with Bill Kenwright

Dennis Sinnot – MD Orange Publishing

EMI Publishing was in Dean Street Soho, and then later Charing Cross Road, just around the corner from the Orange Shop. At EMI, I was working on deals with bands and artists such as Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, Wishbone Ash, Queen and Bob Dylan. I then discovered that a lot of our artists were laying down demos or doing finished masters at the Orange Studio. It was a very good studio in a great location, because you had all of the best writers and the big artists – such as David Bowie and Rod Stewart – coming to Denmark Street. Sometimes they came looking for good songs. It was a very exciting place to be, and my Orange Publishing office was on the third floor of 22 Denmark Street. My first impression of Cliff was that he had so much energy, and everything about his attitude was positive. Then, the next thing I knew, he was offering me a position at Orange Publishing. Over lunch, Cliff told me that, basically, I could do whatever was needed to establish Orange Publishing.

At EMI, I was in charge of about fifteen people and a catalogue of over one million songs. EMI Publishing was massive but everything there had pretty much already been done for me. I saw Orange Publishing, on the other hand, as a huge challenge – almost everything there still needed to be done, and it was down to me to get it organised. I remember I had this gut feeling that Orange was really going to go places as a company – and it was not long before I was proved right.

Over the next five or so years Orange Publishing signed an incredible variety of bands and artists, ranging from punks and rockers like Cock Sparrer, and The Little Roosters, right through to The Tremeloes and Kenny Ball. Many of them had records out on Orange’s AMI subsidiary label. Orange Publishing (now Orange Songs) currently has a huge catalogue with numerous copyrights including the Grand Rights to several musicals and film scores.”

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