Getting To Know The Orange OR15 Guitar Amp – That Pedal Show

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Life too short for long YouTube videos? Please see the ‘Interesting bits and go-to sections’ information below.

CORRECTION: Mick says Orange Music started in Charing Cross Road, London in the late 1960s.
It actually began in New Compton St in 1968 – Happy 50th Anniversary to Cliff Cooper and everyone at Orange!

In this video we plug in the Orange OR15 for the first time to see what we can learn. Dan has very limited experience of Orange amps; I have a little more – Mick here – but we’re essentially starting from scratch.
Even if you don’t have an OR15 there are some goodly amp basics in this video, for example the relationship between gain, master and headroom at 7:44 and delays used in the front or in the loop at 15:02. Full timings below…
Apart from all that, we use a selection of common gain types and a new pedal or two to get some tones going. We hope this kind of approach will encourage you to try stuff and raise some questions that will help you with this specific amp and indeed others that might share common features.
Now, we managed to avoid the 7-watt mode entirely. It wasn’t exactly intentional, although may be influenced by the fact that we tend not to use low power modes in any amps. Which doesn’t mean it doesn’t sound good - apologies for the omission. In 7-watt mode you simply get less headroom and more power amp overdrive at lower levels. It’s still plenty loud!

Please enjoy the video…

Pedals in this episode…

• TheGigRig Three2One

• Ibanez Tube Screamer Mini

• Kingsley Page Boost

• Fulltone OCD V1.7

• J Rockett Melody EQ/Drive

• Walrus ARP-87 Delay

• Empress Reverb

• TheGigRig G2

Interesting bits and go-to sections…
- Intro playing, background and context: 00:00
- What are we doing today, and what is the Orange OR15? 1:30
- Let’s learn together, with Mick’s Guthrie tangent: 2:50
- What about the cab – it’s not Orange! 4:45
- Everything at 12 o’clock: 7:17
- The preamp gain and master volume relationship: 7:44
- …and the Les Paul? 9:00 (9:31)
- Not much headroom? 11:40
- And with the Strat? 13:20
- Are Orange amps better with humbuckers? 14:26
- Delay in the front, or in the loop? 15:02
- And with gain? 18:48
- Exactly as expected? 19:58
- We never use effects loops: why? 20:30
- Cleaning up off the guitar volume pot: 22:30
- And finally Dan is feeling it: 24:00
- Mick’s mid-1990s Orange memories: 27:00
- And a Silverface Twin tangent: 29:10
- Overdrive pedals and the OR15: 29:50
- Ibanez Tube Screamer Mini: 31:50 (33:55)
- And with more amp gain? 36:55
- Kingsley Page Tube Boost: 38:35
- Fulltone OCD v1.7: 42:00
- J Rockett Melody EQ/Drive: 47:15
- Summing up? 58:43

Guitars in this episode:

Amps in this episode
• Orange OR15 Valve Head
The cabinet used today is a Marshall 2061cx 2x12 with Celestion G12H Anniversary speakers

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[redmcmannus]

Whether it was the wine, the pizza, or just being tired, this was the most fun episode of TPS I have seen for a while.

[Adamhauk]

19 minutes in when you guys were comparing Delay in front or in the loop. “Give her some love in the front end “ then mick turns up the preamp gain. OMG what a badass glorious sound that was. Great playing mick. It’s so obvious to me when you like a sound you immediately break into some sick blues lick.. great show guys

[EdoCFH]

I'm so glad you now play Orange stuff! PLEASE try to make an episode with Matt Pike!!!

[YMESYDT]

Hear me out: one Thursday per month, “That Amp Special” where you take an extended look at an awesome amp. That way you have pick n mix on Tuesdays, regular show Friday, once a month amp Special Thursday

[stratmatt]

Years late to the party, but that tele into that Orange is godlike...

[frank_gappa]

The 2 overdrive pedals I have are the OCD and Tube Screamer!! I play an Orange Rocker 32 it has 2 channels, the clean is incredible. You guys should give it a try!
Thanks for making such great videos! Very helpful and entertaining.

[djc]

Just bought tye OR15 with a 1x12 cab sounds so good!

[GitShiddy]

If you're going to have Rabea on again might I suggest having him demonstrate how he uses fuzz with his high gain sounds. Cause some of the fuzz tones he gets are obscene, over the top, too much, and f'n glorious.

[SeanPierceJohnson]

This is one of the most under-appreciated and underrated amps in the Orange catalog. It can do SO MUCH it's not even funny.

[Earthwormjimm]

Before we moved, I used an amp switcher to go through my amps and cabs in my studio for recording. I would love flipping through my Mesa Boogie dual rectifier, my Hughes and kettner tm36, my krabk rev series 1 original, and my peavey 6505+, as well as my or15.
But something’s changed this year. And last year as well. So last year I rebuilt my entire pedalboard. I used to use a pedalboard as an addition to my amp. So noise gate, overdrive, delay, chorus. That way any time I switched amps I had a board for my distorted or clean tones. But I started watching shows like this and jhs pedal show, and I wanted to experiment with getting all my tone from pedals. I rebuilt my entire board with some crazy cool gain stages. I noticed my orange or15 was my cleanest amp, very robust and thick midrange. It took pedals so well. That was last year. This year? We moved to a two bedroom and all my amps are in the closet. Except for the or15, which is run clean with a little bit of gain and runs all my 17 pedals.
For gain, I start with the mxr Timmy which is always on. That goes into my mxr phase 90 for fun, and the gain continues with my animals fishing is as fun as fuzz which is a Soviet big muff. Then a nux fet boost (amazing pedal please buy one it’s only $35), which pushes my fuzz into crazy places. But then there’s a screaming blues set up as a deep distortion, and then a blues driver as a creamy overdrive. Then there’s a Wawa ds1 as either full rhythm distortion or a lead, all depends. Also a big muff nano. All of those gain pedals sound so good and clean with zero noise on my or15. Not to mention all the reverb and delays with zero effects loop. I just went straight in, honestly this has changed my playing and my writing. All because I chose the or15 as my amp. I said “no matter what I build this amp will be my foundation.” Solid.

[gsmeeuwsen]

Might have to buy this amp. So simple and sounds GREAT...

[NormanWoods]

No apologies needed for the tangent. That was awesome.

[ThePedalBored]

The depth of field on the two shot in this video is lovely. Looks like a work of art.

[MurrayWilliams]

The best part about this video is watching you guys find a good tone in an amp. It’s reassuring to see you find bad tones but then stick with it and find the good tones. I’m learning a lot here. Usually, if I plug into an amp and it’s too overdriven or I don’t like the tone immediately I decide it’s a bad amp... I’m reevaluating that.

[Tomsdrawings]

I laughed so much and smiled all the time with these post-pizza stories. Thanks! So much funny stuff, so much legendary quotes, so much friendship.

[Nicklowend]

I am into clean sound and I love orange. The "dirty" channel or the natural distortion of the single channel amps is very usable for me.

[johnw]

I was at that gig with the Andys and Mark. Fun times! I saw Dan talking to some folks there, and didn't want to interrupt to say hello. Hope to see you again at NAMM next year! You guys are a wealth of information and inspiration! Cheers!

[dvg]

Got this little gem shortly after seeing this awesome vid of yours. 6 years later and I still comeback to review the tips and tricks when trying new pedals! Haven't got the OCD yet though hahaha. Thanks a lot guys!

[DeadHandBlues]

Man thats some juicy tones. The great thing about Orange is they are quality at all price points.

[justinnycity]

Thanks for the shows, you guys are great! I see the DB meter was set for C weighting. That's generally used for measuring machinery (like power tools) where it is flat across the full frequency spectrum which will result in a higher DB reading. "A" weighting is more tuned to what the human ear hears and it's generally what we sound engineer's use for PA system sound measurements etc.... The DB measurements in the room may sound more accurate to what you're hearing if you switch it from C to A.

Technically speaking: The "A" weighted sound level discriminates against low frequencies, in a manner similar to the response of the ear. In this setting, the meter primarily measures in the 500 to 10, 000 Hz range. It is the weighting scale most commonly used for OSHA and DEQ regulatory measurements.

The "C" weighted sound level does not discriminate against low frequencies and measures uniformly over the frequency range of 30 to 10, 000 Hz. This weighting scale is useful for monitoring sources such as engines, explosions, and machinery. The sound levels measured with these two weightings have units of "dBA" and "dBC", respectively.