Orange Amps AD30R: Ben Felker Don't Have Time For Chime
No one enjoys driving on the left side of the road, drinking warm beer and paying ludicrous income tax like Ben Felker of The Fervor. At least, that's what we've determined from his choice of gear: his ax is a Beatles-tastic Rickenbacker 360, and his amp of choice is the Orange AD30R. Ben would have gone for the VOX, but some dirty anti-Jacobites shipped production of those majestic amplifiers overseas (we won't say where).
BEN FELKER: All right. I’m Ben Felker from The Fervor, and I’m going to talk a little bit about my Orange Amplifier. Whart I’ve got is an AD30R, which is the single channel version with the reverb, 212 Celestions I think in there, and 30 watts of tube power.
I really like the simplicity of this channel that it’s just a volume, a master, treble, bass, mid, reverb, and that’s it.
PATRICK OGLE: It doesn’t have 47 knobs on it that you have turn to get a sound out of it.
BEN FELKER: Right. And that’s really what I was looking for was kind of just a good, pure tube channel, you know, so and this was certainly one of the nicest things in my budget anyway.
PATRICK OGLE: Does this weigh a ton?
BEN FELKER: Yeah. [LAUGHING]
PATRICK OGLE: [LAUGHING]
BEN FELKER: I mean it’s about like less than a Twin I’d say.
PATRICK OGLE: So it’s not that bad.
BEN FELKER: Yeah.
NATALIE FELKER: It’s not that bad.
BEN FELKER: Yeah. It’s just more thanit looks like, you know, from its compact size. Maybe kind of specifically for what we’re doing, this definitely has like a lot of nice mid range to it. It has a really beefy kind of very present sort of amplifier, and I’ve loved the Fender stuff, particularly the Fender tube stuff but the Twins can get really kind of chimy sometimes a little bit, maybe a little more in the high end to my ears anyway. [LAUGHING] So, I kind of wanted to stay away from that and do something that was just a little bit fuller and maybe something that you just don’t see as much though. I guess these are starting to make their rounds. You know, at that time I was also looking at the Vox AC30 which is a pretty comparable circuit I do believe, but they had just switched the manufacturing on those over to China I believe kind of right when I got into looking at it, and I wanted something that wasn’t made in China.
There really wasn’t too much to figure out when I got it. Like I said, it is a pretty simple channel. As far as problems with these knobs, these big old knobs are easy to break. I’ve cracked them and I’ve had them come off on me so, you know, if you’re going to gig with it all the time like we do, a flight case would be in order. It’s been in circulation for what maybe eight months with us I think to the point that, so you know.
PATRICK OGLE: That’s a relatively minor problem.
BEN FELKER: Right. Yeah. I mean I’ve had it only for 10 years so I don't know, you know, what may come in the long term but, and I bought it used to, so.
arrgh I waited forever to
arrgh I waited forever to see the amp being played and nothing happened.
I will never buy an orange amp,
nor will i let anyone i know buy an orange amp
until they fix the issue with the plastic connectors.
unless it's been changed already. in that case, go orange!
the issue is this:
orange, a number of years ago, switched their solder points inside amps to be plastic connectors; ie, plugs. the problem is, the plastic they used is only rated for about 108 degrees F (you can call the company and ask, that is what they will tell you), and being a class A design, it gets up to around 135 degrees F inside the amp. SO, the plastic plugs expand and pop out of their sockets, but you can't just plug them back in. this means you (or a technician) has to pull the plugs off and solder them by hand. the problem with THIS, however, is that orange started using a protective coating around all the wiring inside amps, so you have to get sandpaper and very slowly and painstakingly sand off the tips of the wire before you can re-solder. and that's just for ONE connection.
again, if this issue has been resolved, then i highly recommend orange amps for their sound. also, cabs obviously do not have this problem- they are excellent.
thanks...
now THAT is an interesting comment (as opposed to "why did no one JAM OUT"...once again..YOU CANNOT JUDGE AN AMP OR INSTRUMENT LISTENING TO IT OVER THE INTERNET, RECORDED ON A SHOTGUN MIC whew...glad I got that out...I think I tore my colon electronically shouting). Seriously...where it will sound good I promise to get recordings of the amps or whatever.
This, however is a great comment. I wonder what the folks at Orange would say to this...
i agree
those tiny mics cannot (and WILL not) do it justice. however, an experienced listener should be able to hear past the qualities of the mic and assess what they DO hear about the cab accordingly. a spongy-textured crunch, even if the room is bad and the mic distorts on peaks. but i suppose that if you're going to do something, might as well do it right the first time, rather than try to satisfy anxious viewers' need for NUW VEDEOS NAO and ultimately let them down because they don't know how it's supposed to sound, nor do they realize the consequences of recording using a shotgun mic.
you're welcome, mr. ogle. your colon is going to be just fine.
Post new comment