The Orange Guitar Cabinet – A industry standard.

The Orange cabinet, is a classic of the Orange range, it has been used over the past fifty years by all of the greats in music. But how did the Orange cabinet come into being and why is it different?

In the beginning…

The Orange shop in 1968 was building amplifiers for musicians and it became clear that there was a need for a cabinet to go with these amplifiers. In 1968, Mick Dines joined the company as a salesman in the Orange Shop, where he immediately became involved with the design of Orange cabinets. Mick was a young bass guitarist and understood how equipment could be mistreated on the road. So the priority was to make some of the most solid and robust cabinets on the market.

Mick in designing the first Orange cabinet, created a design which has stayed largely the same since the 60’s, some of the main features are unique to Orange cabinets.

Basketweave

The speaker front cloth was a major concern for the cabinets durability, Mick decided to choose Basketweave as it was a tough material. But with Basketweave also gave a “thickened” sound to the cabinet, which guitarists loved and gave them the “Orange” sound.

 

Skid Runners

The Orange skid runners, were the original idea of Mick Dines

 

 

Instead of fitting plastic feet, or castors which we found tended to rattle and roll, we came up with the idea of having tough wooden runners – which we called skids. The original idea was durability, making loading and unloading out of vans, or onstage, easier. It turned out that the skids dramatically improved the sound by acoustically coupling the cabinets to the stage or wooden floor.”