Every one of the forty heads is identified by a girls name and not a serial number, and each name was chosen only after the tonal character, playability and response had been checked out.
Ade Emsley – Technical Director
40th Anniversary Custom Shop
40th Anniversary – Roxanne
The 40th Anniversary series was introduced in 2008 as a limited edition of forty non-master volume 50 watt heads with a 30 watt Class A switch built in. Each amplifier has been uniquely voiced by the Custom Shop so that some are very close to the original Pics Only, whilst others sound quite different.
Every one of the forty heads is identified by a girls name and not a serial number, and each name was chosen only after the tonal character, playability and response had been checked out. Amongst the first to be shipped worldwide were Sally and Edith (to Germany), Michelle (Canada), Christina (Spain), Judy (Holland), Lina and Mia (France), Betty (Norway), Jennifer and Isabelle (USA), Roberta (Italy), and Diana (England).
The uniqueness of each of these hand wired, point to point, collectors amplifiers has been confirmed with a photograph of the underside of the chassis, recorded and authorised by the Custom Shop.
40th Anniversary PPC412-LTD
40th Anniversary half stack
The 40th Anniversary Limited Edition cabinet is fitted with four 16 ohm Celestion ‘Anniversary Edition’ speakers incorporating a baffle centre post just like the original Orange 4×12 cabs. Our 1968-2008 logo design is on a name-plate secured to the bottom right of the front grille cloth.
40th Anniversary OR50
OR50 40th Anniversary
The OR50 is a single channel production model which gives more than just a nod to the 1970s Pics Only. We have retained the best classic Orange design features and incorporated today’s more advanced features. The OR50’s construction is similar to early Orange amps – it is a mixture of point to point and PCB. We have also tried to make it as vintage as possible when the footswitchable master is either turned up to 10 or defeated, it then gives a considerable amount of overdrive when it is attenuated. This is because of the dual function HF Drive control.
The Thunderverb could be used as a bass amp or lead amp or both combined.
Thunderverb 200
Ade Emsley – Technical Director
The thinking behind the Thunderverb was to create an amp for guitarists who wanted to use a lot of preamp distortion – they didn’t want to work the power amp very hard. There is a breed of seriously heavy guitarists who use a 1×15 and a 4×12 – and maybe a 7-string guitar. They need power and preamp distortion and lots of end response. The Thunderverb is the amp we made for them.
Unlike the Rockerverb, with its two stage Clean Channel and a four stage Dirty Channel, the Thunderverb had two three-stage channels so you could get clean sound or overdrive out of each of them. This was the first amp that had the Shape control on Channel B – one way you get all mid-range and no bass and treble – and the other way you get the exact opposite. We launched the Thunderverb in the summer of 2006. This amp could be used as a bass amp or lead amp or both combined – the bass is clean right down to 30Hz. Another useful feature is that, should a valve go down, this amplifier automatically switched to the 100 watt mode and would see the guitarist through the rest of the gig. The Thunderverb also had a 100 watt setting which switches off two pairs of tubes and gives a great sound when the amp is cranked. We use that same preamp on a 50 watt amp powered by two EL34s – the Thunderverb 50 was launched in 2007.
Over 10,000 Tiny Terrors were sold in the very first year of production. It has become the guitarists’ ‘must have’ and a studio industry standard.
Ade Emsley – Technical Director
The concept of the Tiny Terror is an amp you can carry anywhere. You turn up to play at a gig and there are three bands playing. You turn up with your Tiny Terror in its gig bag and your guitar. Before the gig you’ve sorted out the use of a mate’s 4×12 in one of the other bands. Plug in with the volume on ten and the gain on about six and suddenly you’re into 1980s AC/DC territory.
Check out the band’s ‘Let There Be Rock’ video and you’ll see Angus playing an Orange Pics Only. The way we’ve used the tubes means that the Tiny Terror has a unique channel with only three controls – gain, volume and tone. But it gives you everything from clean to pretty ridiculous…. but still very much Orange in its mid-range punch. Plus there’s the 7 watt switch to give even more choice and studio versatility.
The original and still the best
Damon Waller – Former MD
After the Rockerverb and Rocker 30 we had lots of guitarists saying how much they loved the AD15 and why don’t we make another 15 watt amp. We thought there was no point in going backwards so we came up with the concept of the Tiny Terror. Instead of doing another combo we made a small, portable head. Although we decided to aim for a lower price bracket, in no way did this mean that we were going to compromise on quality. So we had the idea of a small head, but lose the bulky amp sleeve which adds cost and weight to the product. Instead, we would supply a quality padded gig bag tailored to fit the amplifier. So that’s how the concept came together. Worldwide sales were way ahead of even our best projections during the first year of its launch.
https://orangeamps.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Tiny-Terror.jpg20663000Neil Mitchellhttps://orangeamps.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Orange-Pics-logo-307px-279x103.pngNeil Mitchell2018-05-26 15:45:582019-08-20 12:52:122006 – The Tiny Terror
It was while we were designing the Retro 50 that we started taking transformers apart to see what made the good ones so effective. We wanted something that sounded like the original Pics Only Woden transformer..
Ade Emsley – Technical Director
Transformers for testing, research and development
The original Pics Only Woden transformer was stick-wound – it didn’t have a bobbin, and every layer of winding was done on waxed paper. The Woden was a very robust design. We eventually managed to source the only company in the UK that had a stick-winder which could help with our development.
After exhaustive prototyping and testing, we eventually decided on transformers where the windings were split into five sections, or even eight. Usually transformers in this application only have three, although the Wodens had four. We designed and made five-section and eight-section output transformers – these were very expensive, almost twice the price. We then fitted them to the Retro 50 and the AD 50.
The difference this has made to our amplifiers’ sound is quite incredible, and gives us the edge over our competitors.
We kept on testing and trying out different kinds of transformers to see what worked and what didn’t. Using different permeability laminations made of different kinds of metal made an enormous difference to the sound.
It took two years to finally come up with a combination of copper wire, metal, laminations and eight sections with optimum insulation materials – which now are incorporated as standard into our transformers. The difference this has made to our amplifiers’ sound is quite incredible, and gives us the edge over all of our competitors. The cost is high, but after hearing them and having followed their development, Cliff had no hesitation in approving the additional cost.
Our intensive testing and research produced the ‘Dual Snake Eight’ transformer design. All Orange amplifiers rated at 50 watts and above incorporate this. The Tiny Terror, AD30 and Rocker 30 have five-section transformers. All these new designs are exclusive to Orange Amplification.
I always wanted to do a channel with just one knob on it. Just one control that I call the ‘natural channel’, which is a one stage clean channel combined with a three stage lead channel. So that began as the Rocker 30 1×12 combo, and we brought out a head version about six months later. It had stripped-down design cathode bias, no effects, and was very straightforward.
Rocker 30 Combo
Rocker 30 Head
The Rocker 30 is an all valve 30 watt, Class A operation channel switching combo. The unit incorporates the Rocker 30 head in a high-quality constructed cabinet, and is loaded with a heavy duty 12” Celestion ‘Vintage 30’ speaker.
The Rockerverb came about because with the AD30 we continually received emails asking if we could incorporate an effects loop…
Damon Waller – Former MD
.. The short answer was ‘no’, because it would need a complete redesign and the character of the amplifier would change out of all recognition. So we designed the Rockerverb. The Rockerverb was the choice for Jim Root of Slipknot and for Madonna’s guitarist, Monte Pittman.
Rockerverb 50 Head MKI
Ade Emsley – Technical Director
When designing the Rockerverb, it was important that the effects loop worked properly. The old effects loops were fine with old pedals but they don’t really suit today’s modern effects in any way – there is way too much gain in them. We wanted a tube effects loop that was actually tube buffered, and the Rockerverb was the first amp to have that. It has a four stage ‘Dirty Channel’ and a two stage ‘Clean Channel’. The Clean Channel is slightly different and has a finer treble, but the Dirty Channel is very like a Pics Only in terms of the mid-range crunch that kicks in when it is cranked. We produced the Rockerverb as a 50 and a 100 watt head and 2×12 combo with the same preamps – all with tube-driven reverb.
Rockerverb 50 Combo MKI
The Rockerverb 50 combo is a twin channel all valve switching combo, with valve effects loop, and a valve driven reverb, loaded with 2×12 Celestion ‘Vintage 30’ speakers.
“Teleportation is the theoretical transfer of matter or energy from one point to another without traversing the physical space between them. It is a common subject in science fiction literature, film, video games, and television.”
Hi everyone, and welcome to the OMEC Teleport files,
My name is Danny Gomez and I designed and developed the OMEC Teleport with the Orange Amplification team. Let me tell you a little about myself and the circumstances that “teleported” me to here and now.
First of all, I´m a musician, I´ve been playing the guitar for 25+ years and working professionally the last 20; playing, touring, recording, demoing and producing. In 2014 I became partially deaf (left ear 1Kz -30dB), I couldn’t hear my wife Martha or my son Neio properly. Imagine trying to play with less harmonic content, there are notes that simply weren’t there.
That said, I recovered in a couple of weeks, but they were horrible days and due to the severe treatment and the fact that I hate needles (even being highly tattooed as I am), I hate them and I will faint during blood tests. So, imagine a week of being connected to a machine, trying to recover your hearing… You need to think about anything else, to keep your mind occupied.
The first day was horrible so, on the second day, I decided to win this battle, by both thinking about a way of not fainting during the session and improving my portable playing experience, just in case I couldn’t recover enough to keep playing professionally.
I dictated to Martha, my wife, the full block diagram and schematics of a new product, called the M1N1 (M.artha 1 N.eio 1). My plan being, to create a mini pedal with a retro-futuristic name, M1N1, sounded good enough. I got the file and sent it to one of our regular engineers to prototype.
A portable interface with a buffer and the right impedance to keep the playing experience. There was simply nothing like that around. There were big audio interfaces that sounded good (not very guitar-friendly or too complicated) and small portable toy-like interfaces (not sturdy enough for professional usage).
I needed the best of both worlds; tiny, simple, powerful and really musical (pedal to amp type interaction), something that can work with anything, immediately and with enough power to allow polyphonic MIDI through software (and no MIDI pickup installation).
When I received the first unit (that was a little larger than expected), and tried it, there it was! It sounded good, worked with Mac-PC-IOS-Android, reacted to my volume guitar control and was portable enough to take it with us to our first NAMM as Massive Unity Ltd (our UK based company). There we tried to find some alliances in L.A. to manufacture and distribute. It was a project that big that I couldn´t personally manage, while playing, touring and travelling around the world. We have an analogue pedal line that we can handle, but this was huge (I knew from the first moment).
2015 NAMM was great (once I felt confident enough to bring it out of my backpack at meetings) and we even launched the Cort-Manson Matt Bellamy guitar with Hugh Manson himself for several media titles (inc. Premier Guitar and Guitar World). We came back home with a bunch of business cards and some ideas. I immediately started to think about how to do it smaller, more pedalboard-friendly, while on tour (testing it live, well hidden under my monitors) I had the idea; same powerful chip, smaller enclosure. Solved.
2016 NAMM was even better, more demos, more meetings, evolved interface designs (in a 90´s Apple twist, we added iNterface to the project name), Cort, Kz GuitarWorks, Eventide, etc. All of them with the M1N1 iNterface. Some more meetings occurred. Once again I started my quest for the best and the tiniest interface ever !! Got it, same power on a mini pedal enclosure.
The same year, October, our family at Manson Guitar Works invited us to attend their Manson Guitar Show, to unveil and demonstrate their new Manson DR-1 and Cort-Manson MBC-1. The M1N1 iNterface rocked them all, but everyone was looking the guitars hahaha and playing right after legends like Bernie Marsden and Steve Howe never helps !! We joined Manson Guitar Works and Orange Amplification team and some artists for an Indian dinner.
Next year February, once again we traveled with Manson Guitar Works to the Birmingham Guitar Show. What an amazing show, amazing demos and amazing Indian dinner (the poshest Indian dinner ever) with Mansons and Orange´s Rob and James Deacon. During the night we chatted about music, gear and my demos, they seemed interested about the particular usage of their amps (I connected my interface´s outs to both amps effects returns to use them as powered speakers).
They asked me about that interface and my analogue pedal line and we agreed on a meeting at their booth for the next day. We spent an hour or so dissecting my designs and we exchanged our emails to keep in contact soon.
March, we were invited to Borehamwood Orange HQs to meet them all, including legendary Cliff Cooper and Ade Emsley !! We spent a couple of days there and we arrange a licensing contract… Orange Amplifiers would be manufacturing and distribute my interface worldwide !!
We started making some minor technical adjustments together (to work with the biggest boys in the industry, everything has to be highly detailed and it takes time). We decided to launch it as an OMEC product (O.range M.usic E.lectronic C.ompany) the 70s avant-garde division of the brand and John Dines came up with the Teleport name (retro-futuristic again… I loved it, thanks mate !!).
2017 NAMM !! More demos testing prototypes and new alliances (like our IK Multimedia deal that allow us to give you all this amazing Amplitube Custom Shop Orange edition with every Teleport unit purchased).
The Teleport was finished but it needed a route to market. We worked on all things marketing with the Orange amps marketing team, headed up by Charlie Cooper. That, plus the fact I was able to contact some of my idols with Alex Auxier (Artist Relations Manager) to get them on board, was amazing. Then getting their positive impressions about our new Teleport technology, was simply the icing on the cake.
2018 NAMM !! +20 private demos for media, dealers and pre-launch meetings. More supporters, more artists, more alliances, everyone is excited about the new Teleport technology !! Many brands offered their support on this pretty innovative launch: IK, Eventide, Joey Sturgis Tones, Cort, Positive Grid, MoForte, JamOrigin, T-Rex, etc.
Two years we´ve been working on this, absolutely no leaks and every proto better than the previous one, with the UK and overseas teams, testing prototypes on the road and international fairs (once again unlabeled and hidden from the public eye on my pedalboards)
… Now we are ready !! April 26th was the date, the date for launch!
https://orangeamps.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Dani-Gomez_Fly-17_0026.jpeg8531280Danny Gomezhttps://orangeamps.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Orange-Pics-logo-307px-279x103.pngDanny Gomez2018-05-22 14:00:552018-11-29 11:59:24The history of the OMEC Teleport
The Retro 50 and AD 50 amplifiers were the first to feature ‘Custom Shop’ on the front panel.
Retro 50
Ade Emsley – Technical Director
During 2001 – which was really the year of the AD140 – a number of people approached us asking if we could produce Custom Shop 30 watt and 50 watt amplifiers. We developed the Custom Shop Retro 50. This sounded very much like the original Pics Only. It had a concertina phase splitter, but it still had the EQ after the volume, which made it stable and very reliable, switching from 30 watts Class A, to 50 watts Class AB. We designed it to sound like a combination of all the best Pics Only amps, yet in a 50 watt package. The difference between Class A and Class AB is that the Class A tends to run hotter but gives richer tones, and is a more pleasurable play in guitar terms – less harsh and a bit more forgiving on the ear. Class AB has more clean headroom, and is better for clean sounds.
Retro 50 Wiring
Retro 50 Front
AD50
Whereas the Retro 50 was a combination of the best Pics Only designs, the AD 50 was designed to be a combination of all the AD models. The idea was to have two different hand wired amps – the Retro 50 and the AD 50 – each with different sonic characteristics, so that the customer had a choice of sound. The AD 50 has a bit more gain available, and it also has more clean headroom. Cosmetics-wise, both of them have the graphics back. We also used them on the Mk 3 bass amp. We made 2×12 combos of both models as limited editions.
AD50 Front Panel
Damon Waller – Former MD
Soon after we launched this pair as combos, Andy Dunlop of Travis changed from using his AD30 to using Custom Shop Retro 50 and AD 50 amplifiers – one of each.
The Crush Guitar Package featured an entrance-level solid body electric guitar and the Orange Crush CR10 combo….then came the Crush Bass range, with a black speaker grille.
Orange Guitar Pack
CR20B
CR35B
Damon Waller – Former Managing Director
It was really important to ensure that the Crush range should be seen to offer very good value for money and a good versatile sound – not just an okay sound, but something interesting for the entrance-level market, because that is where brand loyalty begins. If a young guitarist who has just started playing buys a Crush combo, likes it and finds it to be reliable, then naturally when it comes to upgrading his gear after a couple of years he is going to look favourably on the Orange brand and our valve amps.
We realised a lot of the smaller music shops were choosing not to stock Orange because they saw our products as being out of their league price-wise. At that time, we didn’t have an entrance level range of amplifiers, and therefore our sales team were not getting Orange into these shops. Combined, these smaller outlets represent a sizeable percentage of the market. We introduced Crush, which gave our sales team a new range of amplifiers to offer. To make our pricing competitive, we decided to manufacture Orange Crush in the Far East. This was the birth of the Crush 10, 15 and 15R. Mick Dines designed a robust case, which looked very attractive in the Orange livery. These three inexpensive bluesy-sounding entrance-level combos, of course, still had the basic Orange core values of a distinctive sound, reliability and value for money.
Our sales team were now opening accounts with shops that were not previously stocking Orange. The Crush Series was an immediate success and became a big seller. We soon added the 30 and 30R reverb models to the range. The next addition in 2006 was the Micro Crush – a battery-operated, 3 watt amplifier, with overdrive, built-in LED guitar tuner and quality 4” speaker. This proved to be incredibly popular, and over 20,000 units were sold in the first twelve months of release. In 2010 the CR6S was introduced – a 6 watt stereo micro guitar amplifier with a built-in tuner.
