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We’d like to congratulate James Williams witch his latest victory in the Isle of Man rally!

Welshman James Williams won his first ever rally outright last weekend (10/11 May) by sealing victory on the Manx Rally on the picturesque Isle of Man. The Orange Amps driver expertly guided by co-driver Ross Whittock dominated the two day rally in their Hyundai i20 Rally2, finishing the rally four minutes clear of their nearest rival.

The Manx Rally was to play host to the second and third round of the Protyre Motorsprot UK National Asphalt Rally Championship and the trip across the Irish Sea to the motorsport haven was to be a three pronged attack for the team. Extend the lead in the Championship, gain important Tarmac mileage ahead of the next round of the British Rally Championship and the final goal was to try and win a first event outright.

Baked in glorious sunshine, James and Ross left the TT Grandstand in Douglas in confident mood. Seeded at car two, the 26-year-old who hails from Newcastle Emlyn rocketed out of the blocks winning the first four stages to open up a 48.3 second lead going into the evening lop of stages. As the sun set – the action got red hot as James and Ross pushed on in their turbo-charged, four-wheel-drive Hyundai to extend the advantage to 1m18 seconds at the end of the first day. Maximum points for Round 2 in the championship. Just one more day to go.

The Welsh wizard woke up in fine form, full of confidence – the Hyundai driver was almost untouchable as he went on to extend his lead with every stage – recording another three fastest times through the Saturday stages to lead the field home by over four minutes at the end of the rally.

“I am over the moon, pretty speechless if I am honest. We were really looking forward to this rally with no real pressure and we just loved every mile of this rally. Ross and the whole team did a phenomenal job all weekend and without all by sponsors and backers, and my parents and family for backing and believing in me – this wouldn’t have been possible.

“I was a little nervous before SS1 as I haven’t been here in over five years, so just wanted to get into this rally quickly. After SS1 and seeing the timesheets, I relaxed and from there I really felt in the groove, and just felt at one with the car and pacenotes. Everything was perfect!

“I wanted to get that first win monkey off my back as it has been there for a while and I am delighted to do it on the Isle of Man – such an iconic motorsport location. It still feels strange – but I love that feeling and I really want to repeat it very soon! I am delighted to also extend my lead in the Asphalt Championship and that’s now three wins on the bounce. I hope to make it four next time out.

“The British Rally Championship is the next event for us and I hope to take this form forward and challenge for a podium up in Scotland.”

The next event for James, Ross and the Orange Amps Rally Team will be the Jim Clark Rally, the third round of the Probite British Rally Championship and round four of the National Asphalt Championship at the end of May.
 

James would like to thank his team of loyal partners: Orange Amps, Fast Forward Logistics, Hyundai Power Products, Rally Cover, Pirelli, Performance 1st Coaching, Composites Cymru, West Wales Lubricants, Palletline, Craftric Technology, Speedline Corse, Castle Designs, Charlies Stores, ND Civils, Progressive Safety Equipment, Huw Morris Plant Hire , Hide Away Wales, West Coast Finance, Ceir Castle Motors and Vital Equipment. If you would like to become a partner, get in touch with the team today –[email protected]

Photo by Ross Whittock

James Williams and co-driver Ross Whittock battled the elements on the North West Stages – the opening round of the Probite British Rally Championship and Prototyre Motorsport UK Asphalt Rally Championship last weekend (Saturday 23rd March) to claim fourth overall in the BRC and first in the Asphalt series.

The Welshman was fresh off the back of a busy few weeks, which included driving 5000km into Europe to pick up his new Hyundai i20 Rally2 car last week. The North West Stages added another 45 miles onto the clock, with the fast and furious action played out on the closed public roads around Lancaster.

The Orange Amps driver battled with some of the best in the business – against former British, European and World Champions – flying the flag for Hyundai in Britain’s premier rallying series. The Newcastle Emlyn-based driver was on the pace from the off despite very limited mileage in his new machine.

Williams and Whittock threaded the four-wheel-drive, turbocharged car through the winding, bumpy roads around Garstang. A troublesome morning, soon progressed for the better in the afternoon despite being caught out on slicks whilst battling intermittent rain showers. James and Ross set top two stage times in the mixed conditions to climb the order to fourth overall, just missing out on a podium on his return to the series. The British pairing were duel registered for two Championships and were the class of the field in the National Asphalt Rally Championship – taking the win by 49.5 seconds at the end of the event.

“It was an up and down day, we learnt a lot in the morning and had to get on top of things very quickly. We had a really good run in the afternoon despite being on slicks with a few sudden downpours to content with. Our pace was right up there – it was good to feel confident and good to feel comfortable in the car – I absolutely loved it!

“We had podium pace today – but we just ran out of stage miles, but it was good to be in the thick of the action and mixing it at the front. We wanted a top five and we hit that – so a very solid start to the year.  To get the Asphalt win as well is always very special to me – so we lead that series which is nice. We will miss the next round – but we will be back for round three in that series to see if we can take another win.

“We head to the gravel next  for us– which will be exciting. I think some of the drivers this weekend have a lot more Tarmac knowledge – so I think it will be interesting to see how they get on, on the loose and I think the order might have a little shake-up… we will see. A big thank you once again to all the team, Ross for dong a great job on the notes, Orange Amps and all the supporters and the #OrangeArmy – I wouldn’t be here without them and I am pleased to get a good result under the belt for them as well.”

The next round of the championship sees James, Ross and the Orange Amps team switch to gravel for the Rallynuts Severn Valley Stages around Mid Wales in April. This will be James’ home gravel round of the championship, and he will be keen to press home the advantage over his rivals in the next bout of the championship. Highlights from the opening round of the Probite British Rally Championship will be broadcast on ITV4 at 17:45 on Tuesday 2nd April. 

James would like to thank his team of loyal partners: Orange Amps, Fast Forward Logistics, Hyundai Power Products, Rally Cover, Pirelli, Performance 1st Coaching, Composites Cymru, West Wales Lubricants, Palletline, Craftric Technology, Speedline Corse, Castle Designs, Charlies Stores, ND Civils, Progressive Safety Equipment, Hide Away Wales, West Coast Finance, Ceir Castle Motors and Vital Equipment. If you would like to become a partner, get in touch with the team today – [email protected]

The Orange Amplification festive tradition of granting Christmas Wishes launches today. For the 2023 giveaway, expect the biggest and best prize range ever and it’s free to enter!

For many years it has been the custom to place an orange in Christmas stockings because they were considered a rare treat and the juicy segments could easily be shared. So in keeping with tradition, Orange Amps would like to share its products with their many followers and put an Orange in the bottom of Christmas stockings across the globe.

Anyone can make a wish, however big or small, by commenting with their preferred Orange product on any Wish Granted themed post on any Orange Amps social media platforms – Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube – using the hashtag #orangewishgranted. You can also enter the competition via the form on the Orange Amps website.


Entrants can state their wishes on any #orangewishgranted post starting on the 15th November 2023. Entries close at 8.00am GMT on the 23rd December 2023. Winners will be announced daily from the 12th to 23rd December on https://orangeamps.com/.


Orange Amps will grant more than hundred Christmas Wishes with a prize value in excess of $25000. Up for grabs are amplifiers, guitars, speaker cabinets, pedals, merchandise, headphones and new for 2023 the Orange BOX’s. All shipping and customs charges will be covered by the company.

To me Christmas is a time of giving and sharing,’ said Cliff Cooper, CEO and founder of Orange Amplification, ‘I have fond memories of finding an orange at the bottom of my Christmas stocking.’

Good luck to everyone who makes a wish!

Orange ‘Where Magic Happens®’.

The Orange Box and Box-L will be available June 1st 12PM (UK time) direct from orangeamps.com

“One of the biggest things that you learn from 50-odd years of experience,” begins Cliff Cooper, founder and CEO of Orange Amps, “is the ability to listen to something and just say no to a sound—and to keep saying no until you can truthfully say yes.” Although that seems, on the face of it, like a fairly simple requirement, Cooper, who started Orange Amps in 1968 with modest means and an exacting personality, is only too aware of the pratfalls of such pickiness: “But the problem with saying no to a sound or a product is that it costs time and money”, he explains. “Each time, you’ve got to work out why you’re saying no, and go back to the drawing board to fix it—and that’s the difficult part.”

That iterative loop—of listening and tweaking, pouring over schematics and components, then listening again, each time getting slightly closer to that resounding “yes”—has been a pattern played out throughout Orange’s history, and is perhaps the cornerstone of its success, with musicians returning again and again for the past five decades, knowing they’re going to get a piece of equipment that sounds perfect and is built to last.

Today, however, for the first time in the company’s history, Cooper is explaining that development process not in the context of a new guitar amp or effects pedal, but of a product built for both musicians and non-musicians alike: a premium Bluetooth wireless speaker called the Orange Box, which is also an Orange first—specifically, the first consumer-facing product designed entirely in house by Orange’s engineering wizards, from the ground up.

Since the initial blueprints were drawn up back in 2017, Cooper and the team have said “no” to a lot of Orange Box sounds. Now, however, they’ve given it a yes, and the Orange Box is available from tomorrow, starting a new chapter in the history of Orange Amps. Accordingly, this is a story of how over half a century of guitar-amp expertise can be adapted to something more universal; a story of trial, error, patience and success; and a story of what Cooper describes as one of the most important products Orange has ever made.

The new Orange Box: the premium Bluetooth speaker was designed 100% in-house, and is manufactured in the same factory as its guitar-amp cousins

“When we had the first prototype back for testing,” recalls Cooper of the early days of Orange Box development, “it just wasn’t better than anything else. It was fine—good, even—but it just didn’t stand out, and one of the things Orange has always been proud of is that anything we do has to be better than what’s already out there.

“So that’s why it took so long,” he continues, with a wry smile, knowing not only how six years stretches out in the world of research and development, but also knowing now that the Orange Box really does stand out. And it was clearly time well spent: listening to that initial prototype—then nicknamed the Juicebox—at Orange’s development laboratory is simultaneously a revelatory and lacklustre experience, with test songs of various genres selected for this article to put the unit through its paces sounding tepid and distant. Only Madonna’s ‘Hung Up’ has the faintest flicker of life (Bowie’s ‘Modern Love’ and Led Zep’s ‘Black Dog’ are pale imitations of their true selves), but the reality is that this particular Juicebox contained a far-too-diluted, watery recipe.

The second and third versions fared slightly better. For these, the R&D team experimented with weight-saving neodymium speakers and a more lozenge-shaped form-factor, and as a result, all three songs started to resemble their imperious selves. There was still something off, though—a sort of drab fizziness, like day-old soda water, with strangely scooped mids and muffled bass.

Thankfully, the fix was at hand: “After several prototypes,” explains Cooper, “we decided that the only way to improve the sound was to use active electronic crossovers, which our previous prototypes didn’t have.”

The active crossover in a unit like the Orange Box splits the incoming audio signal in two based on frequency range, with the different signals being sent to different amplifiers specific to those ranges, and then on to appropriate speakers custom-tuned to those frequencies. An active crossover has the advantage of perfectly matching the respective specialist amplifiers and speakers, making sure all parts of the path work together holistically, and each part of the sound is dealt with by the most appropriate equipment. An active crossover also prevents loss of information in the splitting process, meaning that all the audio in your favourite records is retained, all the way to the speakers’ cones.

Getting that split-point right, however, is always the key, and this is where the expertise that Orange technical director Adrian Emsley, amp-design genius and brains behind virtually every Orange product for the past 25 years, shone through: “Frank and I changed the crossover so that just the amp dealing with the bottom end was Class D,” explains Emsley of his work on the Orange Box, alongside colleague and Cambridge academic Frank Cooke. “Then, the two amps dealing with the midrange and treble, on the left and right, were Class AB, which ends up much more musical in the area it needs to be.”

And musicality is exactly the watchword here. Listening again to those same songs on the first Orange Box prototype to implement such a crossover is a lightbulb moment, like a jump from black and white to colour: suddenly, Bowie’s vocals carry genuine anguish and Jimmy Page’s guitar a tangible bite. The arpeggiating synths on ‘Hung Up’, too, sound almost three-dimensional.

“Unlike a different guitar amp company’s wireless speaker, which is only stereo above around 3 or 4 kHz,” continues Emsley, referring to a frequency range in the very highest octave of a concert piano, “our version is stereo above 300 Hz [the middle of the piano], which works especially well with AC/DC-style guitar music, where Angus is on the left and Malcolm is on the right.

“Those other wireless speakers all sound pretty bad with AC/DC,” adds Emsley, ever the rock purist, “which I think is a very poor result.”

Rogue’s gallery: an assortment of Orange Box prototypes, each of which made progress towards the sound that got the “yes”

“The other thing, of course,” continues Cooper, “is that we use a wooden box. We could have used a plastic cabinet, to make it a bit more cost-effective, but it would have sounded dreadful. Putting the speakers inside a wooden cabinet would sound much better, and we spent a lot of time making sure that the actual wood resonates correctly given the internal volume. If the cabinet resonates at the wrong frequencies, it just doesn’t sound right, you know.”

This level of perfectionism is evident upon examining the works-in-progress: each rejected test model had a different shape and heft, some including holes covered with rubber plugs, others with curved sides. Myriad porting options were clearly investigated, auditioned and tweaked. Every possibility was covered, it appears, before landing on the finished design. Then, finally, Emsley hit on the idea of making the crossover itself interact with its surroundings: “I put a hole in the active crossover at the frequency of the enclosure,” he reveals. “This ‘de-boxed’ the box, if you like, and gave the whole thing a more balanced frequency response.”

In short, it made you want to play these songs again and again, and this repeat playability—that potential for long-term listening—has become an obsession of Cooper’s over the years: “One thing we kept an ear out for when testing was controlling for ‘listening fatigue’, which is when you listen through a product for a long time, and after a while it just doesn’t sound nice,” he explains. Any music lover will recognise the condition, and although exact causes of listener fatigue are still being explored, the latest research suggests that imperceptible sonic artefacts arising from non-musical aspects of a song’s reproduction, such as compression or artificial spatialisation, can cause listeners to lose interest.

“It’s difficult to design an amplifier or a speaker to control for listening fatigue specifically, because there are so many factors to take into account,” confesses Cooper, “but with the Orange Box you really can play it for ages—I have done!—and it doesn’t grate on your ears to the point where you think, I need to turn that thing off.”

A level of product testing this meticulous and drawn out, coupled with a love of making something that’s built to last, feels familiar to Orange’s approach to amplifier and cabinet design. But Cooper wouldn’t have it any other way: “It’s important that any amplifier we bring out is fully researched by us and at the top of its range, and I think everybody in the company accepts that—Adrian in particular is fussy about everything!” he laughs of his colleague for nearly half of Orange’s entire existence. “It not only has to be really good, but it has to be bulletproof, and everything has to be built to last in terms of the components.”

The Orange Box’s control panel features and all-analogue EQ and an innovative warning light to show when the speakers are being driven too hard

Indeed, product longevity is another characteristic that Cooper and the team have carried from guitar-amp manufacturing over to the Orange Box: in a Bluetooth speaker marketplace saturated with disposable gadgets destined for landfill before the end of the summer festival season, Cooper was insistent that the Orange Box had to have premium staying power. That means the rechargeable battery had to be replaceable years from now when it naturally degrades (like all lithium-ion batteries), and all components be made available for replacement well into the next decade, therefore also ensuring that the box was as green as it was Orange.

On top of that, the Orange Box comes with an audio-safety feature from designed to lengthen the lifespan of the product: a tiny circuit between the crossover and the amps continuously monitors the volume of the signal going in, prompting a small LED to light up whenever the speakers are being driven too hard and potentially harming them. “It’s there to tell you when you should back off the volume so you don’t damage it, sure,” acknowledges Cooper, “but it’s also there to improve sound quality, to help you listen without any distortion, which in turn lessens listener fatigue.”

This audio-limiter light is a simple innovation from yesteryear that will keep the Orange Box in its prime for years, but it’s also a dead giveaway of a product designed not with the bottom line in mind, but with a genuine and enduring love for music, and for building tools for spreading that love. After all, no one would ask for such an attentive add-on, but plenty will be grateful once it’s there.

It’s a feeling that sums up Cooper’s attitude, too: “Within the company,” he explains, “there’s an old-fashioned need to do things properly that’s run for 50 years, and if we can put it over to consumers that when they buy something with the Orange brand on it, it’s going to sound good, then that’s an achievement, and I think the Orange Box can do exactly that.

“After all, we don’t have any shareholders or venture capitalists to answer to,” he continues, proudly. “I’m the only shareholder! so any money that we earn goes straight back into developing new products—and I love doing that.”

It’s an approach that’s stood Cooper, and Orange Amps, in excellent stead since the 1960s, with countless iconic guitar amps—and world-famous fans—to show for it. As the company branches out into the middle of the 21st century, and to music connoisseurs, players and non-players alike, it’s also an approach, you sense, that will future-proof it too.

You just got Rick Rolled – bet you didn’t see that one coming.

The “Voice of Rock” for an entire generation of music fans, Hughes was recruited to Deep Purple in 1973 and became the band’s lynchpin bassist and singer until their initial split. Since then, Hughes has pursued a critically acclaimed solo career as well as collaborations with acts as diverse as Black Sabbath, Gary Moore and the 90s acid house group The KLF, before joining The Dead Daisies on bass and lead vocals in 2019.  

Radiance is The Dead Daisies’ second album since Hughes joined the group. Described by Razor’s Edge magazine as “an unstoppable force in the world of hard rock” and a “thick and meaty deep-in-the-blues rocker that satisfies on every level” by Metal Injection, the immense bass tones on the album come courtesy of Hughes’ array of Orange Amplification gear, including the OBC810 cab, AD200 MKIII head, Crush Bass 100 combo and, of course, his signature purple Crush Bass 50 combo. Talking about his signature amp, Hughes said: “When you can go in the studio, take that bass combo and make your album with something like that, it’s truly outstanding. It’s gritty, it’s punchy: sustain is so important and it’s certainly got all that.” He added: “Orange all the way… It’s the future, it’s the way to go, you heard it from me!

Catch rock legend Glenn Hughes fronting The Dead Daisies with his Orange equipment at the following venues this December:

Date          Venue                                Location

3rd Dec    Rock City                           Nottingham

4th Dec    O2 Ritz                               Manchester

6th Dec    O2 Forum Kentish Town    London

7th Dec    KK’s Steel Mill                    Wolverhampton

10th Dec    The Academy                    Dublin

11th Dec    Limelight                            Belfast

13th Dec    O2 Academy                     Edinburgh

Orange Amplification is delighted to welcome JJ Julius Son, frontman and guitarist with the worldwide phenomenon Kaleo, as an ambassador for the company.

Kaleo are one of Iceland’s biggest musical exports. Their breakthrough album, A/B, took their music around the globe with its three hit singles, the Grammy-nominated No Good, All The Pretty Girls and the chart-topping Way Down We Go, which have featured in more than twenty hit TV shows including Suits, Orange Is The New Black and Grey’s Anatomy. The band’s Fight Or Flight tour, supporting the release of their critically acclaimed third album, Surface Sounds, has taken them across the USA, including appearances at Coachella, and seen them opening for the Rolling Stones in Europe.

Jökull Júlíusson, better known as JJ Julius Son, is the frontman and guitarist for Kaleo. As the primary writer for the band, as well as lead singer, guitarist and pianist, he leads the blues-driven group with passion and musical skill. Demonstrating a wide range of musical genres and influences, the diversity of JJ’s music moves from cinematic, classic rock through soft, folksy blues, into hard-hitting stomp rock. JJ appeals to a mainstream audience with his grungy guitar riffs, crying leads and electrifying performances.

JJ Julius Son uses an Orange AD30 on tour, in the studio and at home. Speaking about the amp, he said ‘the Orange AD30 is the only amp I’ve found that can handle the wide variety of tones and instruments that I use in a single show’.

The Orange AD30 is a one-stop shop for all shades of pure British chime and crunch. From shimmering cleans, edge-of-break-up jangle or fire-splitting classic crunch, this amp has it all, in a simple, road-proven package.Check out orangeamps.com for an interview with JJ Julius Son coming soon.

Today, Orange Amplification announces the return of three iconic effects pedals — the Orange Phaser, Orange Sustain and Orange Distortion — with the trio’s vintage characteristics reworked for the present day. 

The modern story of these classic units starts in 2019, when an Orange message board went crazy for a photo of the long-discontinued Sustain pedal from the early 1970s, with its outsized form-factor and art nouveau typography. Not long after, a hand-drawn schematic diagram, complete with teacup ring marks, scribbled-out Biro and wobbly writing, emerged following an online call for help about what was inside the sturdy orange box. 

The rest of the story writes itself: as more evidence was unearthed about the Sustain and its two brothers the Distortion and Phaser, the wizards in the Orange workshop set about remaking these beasts, retaining their most-loved qualities and incorporating the contemporary features — LEDs, DC inputs etc — expected on 21st-century effects pedals. The result is three seasoned UK-made pros retuned and ready for the modern age. 

First up is the Orange Sustain, which smooths and regulates guitar sounds, acting like an overdrive for clean tones with added chime and warmth. Boosting volume without scuffing purity, and making soft parts louder and loud parts softer, it offers an expressive, nuanced and three-dimensional take on the sustain/compressor effect. 

Then there’s the Orange Phaser, the most elegantly simple of the reboots, with just one knob and one job: to bring sweet psychedelic swirl to any rig, its dial modulating guitar tones from woozy sweeps to choppy stabs via kaleidoscopic insistent, whirling pulses. With four-stage circuitry rebirthed from the original schematics combined with modern techniques inside the box to reduce the noise floor, the Orange Phaser adds maximum spin with minimum fuss. 

And finally there’s the Orange Distortion, with vintage appearance up top but all-new circuitry below deck, replacing the original’s back-to-back diode design with an amp circuit and tone stack with a user-adjustable treble. New design doesn’t mean new sound though — the Orange Distortion retains all the bite and growl and warmth and howl of its 1970s forefather, from fat gravelly textures to red-hot screamers and maximum saturation.

That’s quite the box set: together, they make up a trio of effects pedals that’s not just a perfect homage to one of rock’s golden ages, but also ripe for any modern set-up. With a large-footprint, tank-strength aluminium chassis and classic looks, a mere glance at the pedals will offer a 50-year-back teleportation. Then, stomping on the footswitches completes the time-travel: these might be new for 2022, but with the Orange vintage pedals, the song remains the same. 

For more information about these new UK-made pedals, view the launch video at https://youtu.be/zwi3AZT_xts and learn more at orangeamps.com.

Contributing to environmental conservation and restoration across the globe

London, UK, 31st May 2022 – Orange Learn (part of Orange Amplification), a global music education provider leading the way in the use of sustainable learning and assessment methods, has today announced a partnership with One Tree Planted, who are working to restore forests and rebuild habitat globally. For every course purchased, Orange Learn will plant one tree.

Photo by Ben Hemmings.

 “Sustainability and environmental awareness is at the very heart of what we do at Orange Learn. Our revolutionary approach to learning music and taking exams online was deliberately developed to help reduce carbon emissions and paper wastage. We are always looking for ways to deepen our commitment to sustainability and our partnership with One Tree Planted is one of many ways we plan to join the global effort to protect our planet.” [Cliff Cooper, Founder, Orange Amplification]

The objectives of this new partnership include:

·        Raising awareness of deforestation and habitat loss

·        Supporting a key global reforestation initiative

·        Giving our customers an opportunity to further contribute to sustainability as they learn

 

This partnership is designed to make it easy for  customers to contribute to global reforestation and a sustainable future. For every music course purchased from Orange Learn’s website, Orange Learn will donate $1 to “One Tree Planted” to plant one tree. The trees are planted by local partner organisations and community volunteers in areas where there has been deforestation. To learn more about this partnership, please visit https://www.orangelearn.com/one-tree-planted/

Orange Amplification is delighted to add VENOM INC and former ATOMKRAFT frontman TONY “THE DEMOLITION MAN” DOLAN to its artist roster. Dolan recently announced a new album with VENOM Inc, due on 23 September 2022 through Nuclear Blast Records.

Says Dolan:
I use my Bo-El Big Generator basses which are pure power with the right touch of finesse but as I’m the Demolition Man I need that overwhelming punch that only the combination of Orange and my Bo-El can deliver… To become a proud Orange artist is beyond my words except to say I’m honoured to represent old-school & new-school values wrapped in the harmonious and sustainable weight and power torque of Orange! The skies are now literally not the limit!

Says Orange:
Tony recently joined the Orange roster as an official ambassador, and we are thrilled to be working with him and supporting him and VENOM INC both on the road and in the studio.’ – Orange Global A&R Manager Ella Stormark

Tony is using the AD200 & OBC810, and you can find his artist profile here.

Full press release via Lords of Metal can be found here.