The Second Coming (1997)

Noel Gallagher’s tone requests on the early Oasis albums gave rise to the crunchier, brighter-sounding OTR amplifier.

Ade Emsley – Technical Director of Orange, remembers the heady days of Britpop: “Noel Gallagher was using his Orange amp almost exclusively on the early Oasis albums and liked to run everything turned up to 10.

“We discussed what he’d want to improve his sound. Oasis were on tour with U2 at the time and were using Orange combos. I remember Noel simply said, ‘I want more crunch out of them’.”

From Overdrive to OTR

“As a result, we made some changes to the overdrive circuit. These included modifications to the phase inverter and preamp. We also added a standby switch, which replaced the output socket on the back panel.

“The sound tweaks Noel suggested gave the overdrive more sparkle, and those changes became the foundation of the new OTR amplifier: the Oscillatory Transition Return.”

When Oasis revealed the video accompanying the number-one single D’You Know What I Mean from their third, victory-lap album Be Here Now in July 1997 (still the fastest-selling rock album in British chart history), a pair of Orange OTRs sat proudly on their own Orange double 4×12 stacks behind Noel Gallagher.

Full of epic rock bombast — helicopters, crowd riots and aerial photography — it was the most expensive music video made by the UK’s last genuinely household-name rock band, and amid all the grey concrete and khaki parkas elsewhere in the video, that pair of bright orange monoliths stand proud. And so they should.