“We’re not going to dabble in digital. Everyone else can do it better – we can’t beat them”: Why Orange won’t foray into amp modelling
While the guitar community’s collective appetite for tube amps remains strong, more and more companies are dabbling with amp modelling in 2024.
The likes of Kemper, IK Multimedia, Neural DSP and Positive Grid are among those leading the charge on amp modelling, but industry heavyweights like Fender, Line 6 and Blackstar also have products which incorporate modelling technology.
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But not every amp brand is interested in incorporating such tech. Orange, for one, says it isn’t interested in competing with the companies who are already established in the space.
As Charlie Cooper, son of Orange founder Cliff Cooper, explains in a new interview with the Lonely Rocker YouTube channel, “everyone else can do it better” already.
Speaking on how the company is still concerned with developing new technology outside of modelling, he says: “My dad’s always worried about it – he’s not a fan of Orange being called ‘retro’.
He goes on, “From our perspective, [working with analogue is] not even tradition, it’s just what we know. We’re not even going to pretend or try to dabble in digital amplifiers or digital modelling. Everyone else can do it better, we can’t beat them at that. So we just keep evolving amplifier technology, but [while keeping things consistent].
“I guess the thing that’s consistent is the tubes – that’s probably the oldest thing. But the design and how they’re pushed changes, how the circuit works changes.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Cooper recalls how Orange’s Crush series, which delivers analogue-driven tones in a compact practice amp form factor, was first conceived.
I used to work in my dad’s guitar shop when I was a kid… Whenever someone came in, they’d say, ‘This is little Timmy, my son, he’s getting into playing guitar, what can I get him?’ And I’d say, ‘I’ve got this Orange Rockerverb.’ And they’d say, ‘He might not keep playing, I’d rather get him something that isn’t so expensive.
“And my heart would break because we didn’t have anything in that price bracket. There was nothing that was an easy entry point for discovering the Orange tones and our company.”
He says from that pain point the Orange Crush was born, and the company then purchased a factory in China to ramp up production while keeping costs down.
“The idea was that, if you’re going to make amplifiers that are cheaper to allow people to have that entry point that other companies had and we just didn’t, you can only do that if you own your factory. So my dad made a huge investment and purchased the factory outright.”
Browse the latest Orange lineup at orangeamps.com.
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
