I bought a AD30 but I prefer my Dual Terror. Is this normal?

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DiabloS
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I bought a AD30 but I prefer my Dual Terror. Is this nor

Post by DiabloS » Thu Jan 03, 2013 11:57 pm

tremolo arm wrote:I got a bit lost in that debate between the Rocker and he AD30.
So what's the consensus in terms of cutting through and sound sitting best in a band mix? Rocker or AD 30? Or other for that matter?

I gotta say - I have no issue cutting through with the Dual Terror. I tried the AD30 at high volume tonight. The sounds I was getting before the band started playing were fantastic, really nice classic crunch. However as soon as all the instruments came in together, my tone was completely lost in th mix. I never had that happen with the Dual Terror.
The Dual Terror cuts better than the Rocker 30. I owned both at the same time for about a year, used them both through all the same gear with the same band. It's the main reason I kept it over the Rocker 30, that and I prefer the 2 channel setup of the DT. Honestly, it sounds like you should just stick with the DT from what I've heard so far. I went through the same thing of thinking the grass could be greener with all the love for the Rocker 30 on here, and while it's truly a great amp and beats out the DT in some other ways, the DT stands out in a mix more.... but has less bass/beefiness. It cuts better than my TV50 too fwiw.
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irish_admiral
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Re: I bought a AD30 but I prefer my Dual Terror. Is this nor

Post by irish_admiral » Fri Jan 04, 2013 12:36 am

tremolo arm wrote:I got a bit lost in that debate between the Rocker and he AD30.
So what's the consensus in terms of cutting through and sound sitting best in a band mix? Rocker or AD 30? Or other for that matter?

I gotta say - I have no issue cutting through with the Dual Terror. I tried the AD30 at high volume tonight. The sounds I was getting before the band started playing were fantastic, really nice classic crunch. However as soon as all the instruments came in together, my tone was completely lost in th mix. I never had that happen with the Dual Terror.
There is no consensus and no best, other than what works in your situation.

It sounds like the DT suits your band and style. The AD is a different sounding amp, so you'd have to shift things around a bit to get it to work for you as you can't just set it the same way you would a Terror and expect it to work... that may be a step too far. The Rocker & Terror amps don't sit particularly well with what I play compared to my AD, but that's as i've evolved my style, settings and guitar collection to fit it.

YMMV, and you have to decide whether you like the tones you were getting from the AD enough to shift others' tones around a bit.

Fundamentally, it's all a matter of relatively frequencies and volumes. If the same people are competing too much in the same space, frequencies-wise, then you'll get an indistinct wall of noise. Trim out some of the frequencies from instruments, and all of a sudden the space begins to open up and you can hear everyone properly. You'll just have to play around with it a bit.
Joe

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Orange AD15, Matamp 1224, Fender 'JD' Tele, G&L ASAT, Duesenberg Starplayer TV, Eggle Kanuga, Avalon D25, Warwick FNA Jazzman, Eden Nemesis / Bergantino EX112S, Eastman MD305 & other stuff...

irish_admiral
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Re: I bought a AD30 but I prefer my Dual Terror. Is this nor

Post by irish_admiral » Fri Jan 04, 2013 12:38 am

Ant

I haven't had the chance to crank it up a bit, but the G12H Heritage is - as you'd expect - a bit more expressive than the V30, with a more articulate top and bottom end. I got it for £50 a few years ago in a fantastic deal.

Think it will work nicely with the amp!
Joe

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a.hun
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Re: I bought a AD30 but I prefer my Dual Terror. Is this nor

Post by a.hun » Fri Jan 04, 2013 10:52 am

Congrats on the AD15 Joe. And the Heritage 'H' which should suit it really well. 8)

Was surprised to hear you are moving the AD30R on, but the weight thing is understandable and gets less easy to ignore with back problems - right with you on that as you'll know from my recent bass rig developments...

Anyway I hope the AD15 does everything you enjoyed most about the AD30. You clearly loved that amp and I really hope the wee one fills the gap for you!
irish_admiral wrote:
tremolo arm wrote:I got a bit lost in that debate between the Rocker and he AD30.
So what's the consensus in terms of cutting through and sound sitting best in a band mix? Rocker or AD 30? Or other for that matter?
There is no consensus and no best, other than what works in your situation.

...The Rocker & Terror amps don't sit particularly well with what I play compared to my AD, but that's as i've evolved my style, settings and guitar collection to fit it.

...Fundamentally, it's all a matter of relatively frequencies and volumes. If the same people are competing too much in the same space, frequencies-wise, then you'll get an indistinct wall of noise. Trim out some of the frequencies from instruments, and all of a sudden the space begins to open up and you can hear everyone properly. You'll just have to play around with it a bit.
Yep.
irish_admiral wrote:The Rocker & Terror series amps are fairly high gain, and are tapping into a sound market which is much more modern than the AD series amps are. They've got more gain stages, and more gain on tap. End of. Yes, I agree with your opinion that they're somewhere between a Marshall and an older Orange.

...The Rocker and Thunder series unashamedly cater for the higher gain crew, which isn't exactly old school. Anyway, we may just be talking semantics here. The AD is very much a midgain amp with a fuzzy character when pushed, whilst the Rockers are much higher gain with a flatter sounding midrange.
Totally agree on 'what works best for you'. Rocker and AD are pretty different amps, though for me they are both very 'Orange' tonally and I honestly still don't get people comparing the R.30 to a Marshall. Maybe more in dynamics yeah, but tonally - I just don't hear it. Sure these two 30W Oranges are somewhat different tonally, but still way more similar to each other that way than to almost any non Orange amps IMO, and certainly to any Marshall ever made.

Dynamically though - as Joe and I have discussed almost ad infinitum :wink: (most recently HERE) - they are way more different IMO. Which is likely what many of the 'Marshall / R.30' comments are based on. But I'd say that while the R.30 has way more available gain that really doesn't define the amp. You don't have to use all that gain, and if you don't than it doesn't compromise the very uncompressed nature of its low - mid gain performance - not at all. Even if you do go further up the gain scale it remains incredibly dynamic compared to any other higher gain amp I've ever played. For these reasons I honestly don't think that the higher available gain defines the R.30 in the way Joe suggests.

Around the crunch point it is very 'old school Orange' indeed, moving from clean to crunch very suddenly in very much the same way as my OR120 does. (Which is of course very different from most other vintage amps - Oranges were always pretty different!!!) When going higher up the R.30's gain scale you can hear a very distinct point where an additional gain stage begins to cut in (somewhere around 13:00 - 13:30). But honestly I'd say below that point you aren't talking about a high gain amp at all, which is a real tribute to our old friend Ade Emsley and his design skills.

FWIW I hardly ever use very much of the R.30's available gain. I'm very much a lower gain type of guy normally, believing that the vast majority of the truly great rock guitar sounds use a lot less gain than many think. (So I'm really not part of the 'higher gain crew' you say it caters for Joe. :o) On the occasions I do use more preamp gain it certainly works very well, but not using all the gain certainly doesn't mean living with a compromised performance. I think this is part of what makes this my favourite of the 'modern' OrangeAde (TM) designs - it does the old style Orange thing for me and rather more besides - but only if wanted.

I've said it before: I think the AD30 is a modern Orange take on a relatively compressed (so called) 'vintage style' amp. While the R.30 is a modern take on a very uncompressed 'vintage Orange' style amp (but with more ultimate gain available). That for me remains the real key difference between these two great amps.

One thing Joe and I can probably agree on is that the R.30 certainly wasn't any sort of direct replacement for the AD15 - as was suggested in certain reviews at the time. :? Equally I'd say that the TH30 definitely isn't a real R.30 replacement - again it is too different for that! They are all different takes on 'Orange flavoured' amps and people just have to find out which one suits them best.

While we can discuss technical reasons for differences 'till the cows come home' (or horses! :lol:), 'better' and 'best' are totally subjective to the individual player. Like everyone else I have my preferences, but that doesn't mean 'I'm right and someone else is wrong'...


Andy.
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Re: I bought a AD30 but I prefer my Dual Terror. Is this nor

Post by tremolo arm » Fri Jan 04, 2013 2:15 pm

Very useful comments all around, even featuring a small spat, which I have to say was resolved in a mature and friendly way... :wink:

I think I'll give the AD30 another go at next band rehearsal before I decide whether to part ways with it. Now that I've tried the amp at higher volumes, I can definitely see that its sounds better with the MV rolled up (above 11 o'clock). Indeed the tone opens up considerably. The issue I encountered was that it sounded great on its own, but got completely lost among the other instruments (it could also be the acoustic in this particular room, which were really echo-y with lots of natural reverb).


Speaking of Page, I stumbled upon this clip, which I thought shows a rather convincing Page tone obtained through an AD30. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeB8sfS1ZEU" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

OK, so this is the original AD30 (not the current one), but I would not imagine the voicings to be that dissimilar. What is interesting is that he plays at very low volume (you can clearly hear him hitting the strings), but I could never obtain such pleasant saturation out of the AD30 at low volume.

And speaking of the real McCoy, this clip shows a fantastic crunch sound
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PL5R25_9Ww" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.

I mean you can hear every single note he plays, it's got that raspy, nasal voice that sounds like a harmonica and cuts through like a knife. In a word - fantastic! And I think he used AD30s for that show.

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Re: I bought a AD30 but I prefer my Dual Terror. Is this nor

Post by Ronnie Robinson » Fri Jan 04, 2013 5:20 pm

I dont think it has been mentioned but do try channel one as your dirty / crunch channel with gain around 2-3pm and humbuckers. It is quite different sounding to channel 2 and usually I use this as my dirty crunch/ rhythum classic rock setting and use channel 2 as the lead/ solo setting.

Again Volume knob needs to be 10am or above
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Re: I bought a AD30 but I prefer my Dual Terror. Is this nor

Post by jason41224 » Fri Jan 04, 2013 10:38 pm

a.hun wrote:Totally agree on 'what works best for you'. Rocker and AD are pretty different amps, though for me they are both very 'Orange' tonally and I honestly still don't get people comparing the R.30 to a Marshall. Maybe more in dynamics yeah, but tonally - I just don't hear it. Sure these two 30W Oranges are somewhat different tonally, but still way more similar to each other that way than to almost any non Orange amps IMO, and certainly to any Marshall ever made.
i use the comparison sometimes only to describe the R30's cleans on the Natural Channel. to me, they're voiced most closely to an early marshall JTM45/Bluesbreaker clean tone than anything else (certainly not even in the same ballpark as a fender/vox). of course, it has a little bit less presence, a little less compression. it's just a very balanced clean sound. now in terms of overdrive, I definitely agree. a lot darker, a lot fatter, especially if you're comparing it to Marshall 800 models or later.
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irish_admiral
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Re: I bought a AD30 but I prefer my Dual Terror. Is this nor

Post by irish_admiral » Fri Jan 04, 2013 11:15 pm

Hi Andy

Yes, i'll be sad to move on the AD30R as i've had it about a decade now (a bit longer than i've been on the forum in fact) and it's got a lot of fun memories attached to it, but i'm very much a pragmatist and whilst I can still lift pretty heavy loads, my lower back gives me plenty of grief afterwards!

So that, the fact that I don't need the extra volume or headroom anymore, and could do with a touch extra space with a baby girl in the house now is pushing me towards a sensible, although slightly sad conclusion.

I was however happy to fire up the AD15 and find that it sounded pretty much like I was used to. Swapped in the G12H the other night, so i'll be looking forward to using it with that too!

My other comments about the Rocker and the Thunder series catering for a high gain market isn't necessarily a reflection of how the amps sound at lower gain... having tried them myself, I wouldn't have a problem using them at all!

It was more just simply the case that a lot of folks were using them for the higher gain stuff... and clever of Orange to smell which way they needed to go to sell more amps! You can even see that just tracking the amount of posts in the forum asking whether X amp will do this style of music... I'd just like a few more vintage style offerings to please the older lags every so often!
So I'm really not part of the 'higher gain crew' you say it caters for Joe
Really? I had you down as the sort to sling the guitar around your knees with you hair going a little further...
Joe

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Re: I bought a AD30 but I prefer my Dual Terror. Is this nor

Post by Les Paul Lover » Fri Jan 04, 2013 11:23 pm

irish_admiral wrote:
So I'm really not part of the 'higher gain crew' you say it caters for Joe
Really? I had you down as the sort to sling the guitar around your knees with you hair going a little further...
Eh, eh, eh.... :lol: no offence meant, that made me giggle!!! :D
Ant

Orange Gear: RV50 MKI, R30, AD15, PPC212
And.... Genz Benz Black Pearl 30
Past Orange: AD30TC Combo, TT, AD5


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Re: I bought a AD30 but I prefer my Dual Terror. Is this nor

Post by Les Paul Lover » Fri Jan 04, 2013 11:42 pm

By the way, with regards to gain, i was suprised how little the AD series have. I guess i didn't get to try many - if any beside reissues - vintage amps. However, compared to the RV50 or Rocker 30, the gain level is a lot more controlable. I must say compared to the RV50, it lacks sustain at any volume/gain level... But it does some things so well!

Don't really wanna revive the whole led zep tone issue... But the AD series does it perfectly... As do the clean channels of the RV50/100, Rocker 30, TH30 fully cranked - just all perfectly there.

------

Joe, would mind letting me know what you think of the difference between the speakers once you give it a good going over? As said i like the V30, but well aware of what a difference a speaker can make.... :D
Ant

Orange Gear: RV50 MKI, R30, AD15, PPC212
And.... Genz Benz Black Pearl 30
Past Orange: AD30TC Combo, TT, AD5


Guitars: Gibson Les Paul Standard Faded, Vigier Expert Retro 54, Gibson SG 70s Tribute, Aria Pro II RS X80, G&L ASAT Special Tribute

irish_admiral
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Re: I bought a AD30 but I prefer my Dual Terror. Is this nor

Post by irish_admiral » Sat Jan 05, 2013 9:32 am

Hi Ant

Will do, but my caveat is that i'd swapped out the V30s in my AD30 a long time ago in favour of Celestion Century Vintage speakers... I never liked the V30s on clean sounds.
Joe

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Re: I bought a AD30 but I prefer my Dual Terror. Is this nor

Post by tremolo arm » Sat Jan 05, 2013 9:49 am

Les Paul Lover wrote:
Don't really wanna revive the whole led zep tone issue... But the AD series does it perfectly... As do the clean channels of the RV50/100, Rocker 30, TH30 fully cranked - just all perfectly there.

------

Joe, would mind letting me know what you think of the difference between the speakers once you give it a good going over? As said i like the V30, but well aware of what a difference a speaker can make.... :D
I guess I missed the entire Led Zep tone debate. Tried to search it but could not find anything.

Les Paul Lover, can you please point me to the right thread? Many thanks in advance

In return I will share my experience on speakers and will say that speakers really DO make a difference. I have two cabs - the standard 2x12 PPC open back with V30s and a Marshall 1936 loaded with two G12C, which are 25W speakers used for the Marshall VIntage Modern range (and a derivative of what Hendrix used in his cabs.

Anyway, the tone is very different when I switch cabs. The G12Cs sound very punchy and less gainy that the V30s. I find the V30s great for heavy crunch and lead, but the G12C excel at milder crunch and clean. Typically I run both at the same time and I achieve a really nice palette of tones.

a.hun
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Re: I bought a AD30 but I prefer my Dual Terror. Is this nor

Post by a.hun » Sat Jan 05, 2013 12:57 pm

Les Paul Lover wrote:
irish_admiral wrote:
a.hun wrote:So I'm really not part of the 'higher gain crew' you say it caters for Joe
Really? I had you down as the sort to sling the guitar around your knees with you hair going a little further...
Eh, eh, eh.... :lol: no offence meant, that made me giggle!!! :D
None taken. It just made me mistily reminiscent for times gone by. My old pony tail is long gone, never to return. :(

Was never a low slinger though. Hip, not knee. Certainly not nipple height either - wouldn't want anyone getting the wrong idea on that...! :lol:


Andy.
aNDyH. :wink:

Ever tried to outstare a mirror?

In the bathtub of history the truth is harder to hold than the soap, and much more difficult to find!

Les Paul Lover
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Re: I bought a AD30 but I prefer my Dual Terror. Is this nor

Post by Les Paul Lover » Sun Jan 06, 2013 10:50 am

tremolo arm wrote:
Les Paul Lover wrote:
Don't really wanna revive the whole led zep tone issue... But the AD series does it perfectly... As do the clean channels of the RV50/100, Rocker 30, TH30 fully cranked - just all perfectly there.

------

Joe, would mind letting me know what you think of the difference between the speakers once you give it a good going over? As said i like the V30, but well aware of what a difference a speaker can make.... :D
I guess I missed the entire Led Zep tone debate. Tried to search it but could not find anything.

Les Paul Lover, can you please point me to the right thread? Many thanks in advance

In return I will share my experience on speakers and will say that speakers really DO make a difference. I have two cabs - the standard 2x12 PPC open back with V30s and a Marshall 1936 loaded with two G12C, which are 25W speakers used for the Marshall VIntage Modern range (and a derivative of what Hendrix used in his cabs.

Anyway, the tone is very different when I switch cabs. The G12Cs sound very punchy and less gainy that the V30s. I find the V30s great for heavy crunch and lead, but the G12C excel at milder crunch and clean. Typically I run both at the same time and I achieve a really nice palette of tones.
Thanks a lot for that ! That led zep tone thing was touched upon in this very thread tremolo arm. :)
Ant

Orange Gear: RV50 MKI, R30, AD15, PPC212
And.... Genz Benz Black Pearl 30
Past Orange: AD30TC Combo, TT, AD5


Guitars: Gibson Les Paul Standard Faded, Vigier Expert Retro 54, Gibson SG 70s Tribute, Aria Pro II RS X80, G&L ASAT Special Tribute

Bink
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Re: I bought a AD30 but I prefer my Dual Terror. Is this nor

Post by Bink » Tue May 28, 2013 12:37 pm

irish_admiral wrote:
Les Paul Lover wrote:Joe, just looked at your sig - you did score an AD15 then?
What do you think of it? I seem to have missed you NAD thread if you did one.

Are you trying to sell your AD30R as well? I saw one gumtree cardiff which I thought might have been yours?
Hey...

Yeah, Chris (Bink) from the forum sold me his as he's moved to the US now, but had left his amp at home, so it worked well for both of us :) . It sounds great, and i've put a Heritage G12H in it... there was no NAD thread from me as it's the same as my 30R minus the reverb, a speaker and a few watts!

I'm moving on the 30R as I don't need the extra volume it provides, and wanted something with a smaller footprint I could carry myself as my back is a bit shot these days. So that ad is probably mine... I put one on Musicradar, one on the SoS classifieds. Can't remember if I did Gumtree.
I do miss it occasionally! Glad you like it Joe. I don't know about the Heritage G12H but I ran it through a PPC 112 with a Heritage G12M and much preferred it to the V30.
I think I may start looking at an AD5 again for that Orange breakup sound (mainly run a Dr Z Maz 18 jr which is pretty clean compared to an Orange - I do love it though).
Chris
PRS CU22
Present: TT, PPC 112 (Heritage G12M)
Past: AD15
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