Orange Overdrive OD120

[bclaire]

That is one sick deal!

[llcooljeb]

I pray every night to find one of these on ebay or craigslist.

hey I vacation in Myrtle Beach for 2 weeks or so every summer. Where is this true value/music store located out of curiosity?

[bclaire]

I pray every night to find one of these on ebay or craigslist.

hey I vacation in Myrtle Beach for 2 weeks or so every summer. Where is this true value/music store located out of curiosity?

No kidding. I'm thinking of vacationing there. Also, where is the nearest pizza shop or gun shop?

[Randy Bass]

Well, you might as well go to Bald Head Island if you're looking for a good vacation spot in that area. It's only accessible by boat, everyone has golf carts, and they filmed Weekend At Bernie's there . That was a great movie. You can probably get good pizza and guns in nearby Southport. It's a pretty cool area if you want to get away from city folk.

[timallensbluestime]

The True Value is in Loris

[baytamusic]

That better be some good f'ing pizza !

It was the new "golden crust" pizza from Pizza Hut. Haven't you heard of it?

[timallensbluestime]

Thanks for all the great comments, you guys are TOO funny....heading out to the first gig with the od120, should be a blast. Picked up a new cab today from a pawn shop and it sounds amazing !!

[Randy Bass]

Thanks for all the great comments, you guys are TOO funny....heading out to the first gig with the od120, should be a blast. Picked up a new cab today from a pawn shop and it sounds amazing !!

Let me guess - you traded a pocket knife for a vintage Orange 8x10 cab ?

[timallensbluestime]

yeah, I wish.....it's only got 2 10's........but it was a damn nice pocket knife.

Seriously though, I picked up a Peavey Valve King 16 ohm 300 watt 4 x 12 for 200 cash out the door and the damn thing looks and sounds brand new.

[Bandeapart]

I'll give you 6 pizzas for it, double the value.

[misterMagoo]

I'll give you NINE pizzas! And they will be some damn good pizzas! Seriously though, I will get into a pizza bidding war!

[fiveightandten]

I recently acquired my first Orange amp. It's a OD120 head. I just had it completely gone through by my tech and was surprised to find very little wrong with the amp other than just old worn out tubes. The only mod that I had done was to add a standby switch. The question that I have for everyone is why is there hardly any info on this amp anywhere. I have searched and searched and all I can find is just a few pages on the web. Most everything I can find pertains to the OR120. Anyway, it sounds incredible and has become my main amp for the blues ( I also have a vintage 72 Twin and a newer Fender Hot Rod De Ville ) . If anyone has any info on this amp that would be awesome!!

Congrats on the amp. It sounds like you're interested in learning about it. I can tell you a few things that may or may not have been mentioned.

First off, as Andy mentioned, that's a 90's reissue amp. It's electrically identical to the OD (Overdrive) amps that were built in the late 70's, though obviously built with different components. Orange started making the overdrive amps around 1976 or so. These were basically exactly the same as the "graphic" (non overdrive) amps, but with the addition of a post-phase inverter master volume. Note that the "Presence" knob on the Overdrive is the same as the "HF drive" knob on the Graphic amps. Same function, different name.

Orange went through a few different circuit changes in the early 70's, so not all of the graphic amps sound the same. But by the time the overdrives were introduced, the circuit didn't change again, and didn't change with the 90's amps.

With regard to the master volume. It's not all that useful, IMO. It works well to shave a little edge off of the volume when pulling it back from full bore. But it's still a loud amp, and turning the master down below 8 or so turns the amp into a shell of itself, IMO.

The tone controls are what's known as a Baxandall tone circuit, which by design doesn't have a mid knob. It allows a very wide range, sonically...though the inherent sonic signature of the amp remains present no matter what you do. FAC knob positions towards the left give more bass, more gain, and make the sound fatter, fuzzier, and bring in more of the Orange "fog". Positions towards the right will give less bass, more high end, more clarity, less gain, less fuzz, and less fog. You can use different combinations of different FAC positions and bass knob settings to dial in a lot of different variations on the base tone the amp puts out. The same is true of the treble knob and HF drive knob.

Additionally, the hi and low gain inputs do offer different sounds. The low is fatter and has less top end, and obviously a bit less gain. The high has a bit more gain, is a little more cutting and a little less fat.


As Andy mentioned, the transformers don't take kindly to impedance mismatches, so keep an eye on that. Additionally, they have a history of just blowing for no good reason at all. Keep this in the back of your head in case you ever notice any issues with it. A blown output transformer will manifest itself by yielding low volume, followed by no volume at all. I know the Orange AD-140 transformer drops right in and works well...I have one of these in my 90's head when the original OT blew. Mercury Magnetics also makes some very high quality replacements, though they're *expensive*. The weak output tranny is a good reason to make sure you always have trusted tubes in the amp. Buy from a good supplier, don't bias them too hot, and don't let them sit in a well used amp for years. They have the potential to cause harm if they partially short.


One more note about the 90's vs 70's amps. They both sound very good. The 70's amps were built with better transformers, better circuit boards, and better components over all. However, to be honest, the lead dress and soldering on a lot of them leaves a bit to be desired. My 70's amp was a little sloppy and I felt the need to clean up some of the lead dress and soldering in it. The 90's amps, in comparison, had better QC. The wiring is neater, wire is higher quality, and the soldering is better. However, the transformers are cheaper, the circuit boards are thinner and cheaper, and the components overall were a little cheaper. They are still far above the build quality of your average mass produced amp in 2010, new Oranges included.

I replaced a lot of the components in my 90's amp with better stuff and put that better OT in the amp. I cleaned up the soldering in my 70's amp. They were both great amps (I sold my 90's head a few years back). Don't let anyone tell you the 90's amps are inferior to their 70's counterparts. The amps have more variation in sound than many amps, and I think that's where some of that lore comes from. If you hear one 70's and and one 90's amp and the 70's amp sounded better, you deduce the 70's amps are better, right? I've played and worked on plenty of each and they're both great amps.

Enjoy it!

-Nick

[timallensbluestime]

Thanks for the outstanding information. I'm sending a copy and paste of this to my amp tech so he'll be ready if and when I need him agian. I played last night using the Orange and I was totally blown away by the tone. I'm used to playing through a 72 Twin Reverb and a Hot Rod DeVille. The Orange gave me the tone I've been seeking for years. It doesn't seem to like stomp boxes very much but my Digital Delay seemed to work just fine through it. Thanks again and take care...

Tim

[fiveightandten]

Thanks for the outstanding information. I'm sending a copy and paste of this to my amp tech so he'll be ready if and when I need him agian. I played last night using the Orange and I was totally blown away by the tone. I'm used to playing through a 72 Twin Reverb and a Hot Rod DeVille. The Orange gave me the tone I've been seeking for years. It doesn't seem to like stomp boxes very much but my Digital Delay seemed to work just fine through it. Thanks again and take care...

Tim

Tim,

No problem. As long as you're sending into over to your amp tech, you can tell him a few more things:

-Schematic of the amp can be found here: http://users.telenet.be/orangefg/OFG_SC ... post74.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It's the same at the post-'74 schematic.

-Some of the amps have a tendency to oscillate with the HF drive (oops, "presence") and treble in high positions. This can be cured by cleaning up the wiring for the OT. Pay specific attention to keeping the secondary leads tucked in the corner of the chassis. Twisting the primary leads and getting them pulled away from other wiring before they terminate at the power tube sockets helps as well. Additionally, make sure the negative feedback line (green wire, if I remember correctly, it's been a while since I sold mine) can be tied down a bit farther away from the board and sockets.

-Biasing the amp cold isn't necessarily a bad thing. They have a split load driver and a lot of crossover distortion, which is actually part of the tone of the amp, IMO. Some guys like them running hot, but many prefer them running cold. There were some non-adjustable fixed biased Oranges in the early 70's that run even colder than Peavey 5150's and other fixed amps. Under 10W per EL-34. I had a friend with one of these and it was running something like 9.5W per tube and it sounded GREAT.

-If the amp ever needs to be recapped, many of the new production electrolytics have leads that are too thick to fit through the holes in the board. This was a surprise to me when I ordered all new Sprague Atoms to recap my amp with and the leads wouldn't fit in the holes drilled in the PCB! He can *very* carefully use a tiny drill bit to open up the holes. Take the board up first and wick (or suck) the solder off the underside so the PCB traces don't get ripped from the underside of the board due to the pressure of the drill bit pushing down on them. Go slow.


Hope that helps.

-Nick

[bfitz]

If only i could get 3 large pizza's damn u apache pizza!!