STEP 3: SHAPING THE ORANGE SOuND
Cliff Cooper on the University Sound Lab Tests
“During 1969, we sampled the
sounds used by a number
of top guitarists—among
them, Peter Green, Marc
Bolan, and Paul Kossoff,
all of whom liked to spend
time in the Orange Shop
just chatting and playing
guitars. We asked these and
other professional guitar-
ists to plug into our mix-
ing desk, play around, and
find the sound that they
liked best. We were then
able to measure the sound
characteristics and decide
what changes were needed
to the Orange amp circuitry.
We would then send these
circuitry changes to Mat up
in Huddersfield so that he
could incorporate any modi-
fications into our amplifiers.
Basically, it was a question of
what our customers wanted.
“As Orange became more
established, we found that
a lot of people liked our
amps, but it wasn’t across the
board. Many guitarists told
us that our amps just didn’t
sound as loud as some other
makes, watt for watt. Using
signal generators, oscillo-
scopes, and other measuring
equipment, we measured an
Orange OR120 amplifier in
our workshop. It gave out a
true 120 watts RMS (root-
mean-square). We then mea-
sured another famous make
of 100-watt amplifier, which
gave 96 watts output—but
it still sounded much louder
than the Orange amplifier.
We just couldn’t figure out
why this was. At the same
time, we tested the distortion
levels. The other amplifier
had a far more distorted
sound than the Orange amp.
