Dual Dark - 48 hours in...

[lukeswarm]

Hi

A few words on my new Dual Dark 50

I have it connect to an Orange slant cab (i may modify the cab changing the front to the black weave... one day)
I am playing it mostly with my PRS cu24 which is loaded with PRS 59/09's

I have been playing for many many hours over the past 2 days to get the sound i want. Dont get me wrong to get 99% of the way there took me 10mins but i have been playing with the attenuator and full vs half power etc.

General - I have the amp set up in my man cave, i live in a quite large detached house so cranking it up is not generally an issue (until it gets on my wifes nerves then it is a huge issue... apparently). So i have the power set to full and the attenuator at 50%.

Channel A - As per all orange amps the crisp but warm clean is beautiful and inspirational. I used to have an issue with my previous two amps (admittedly a different class of amp) where the cleans always sounded shrill and to sharp once past the 12th fret. I played with the settings more than i played with the guitar on my line 6 trying to get the clean correct for me. I have found that because the clean is so good playing all the way up to the 24th fret remains acceptable to my ears. I also used to find that i would play both pickups in humbucker because playing single became far to twangy and muffled the notes but with the dual dark the pickup changes move you through an array of great sounds without touching a thing. I have ended up with a Treb/Mid/Bass all at 50% and gain at 25% as sounding good for me.

Channel B - This channel goes from great classic rock through to face ripping mental and i find the difference incredible. I started with volume at 25% and gain at 25% and shape at 0% and as you can imagine it was a slightly dirty clean (lack of a better way of putting it). Volume stayed put but pushed gain to 50% and the magic began, it is a hard to discribe sound but i always find myself playing My Darkest Hour by megadeth so maybe subconsiously i think it sounds like that. Leaving the shape but pushing the gain is again hard to discribe, its very crunchy... I dialed back gain and put shape to 50% this is the sweet spot for my playing generally unless playing someone elses songs. Adding gain with shape here gives a real sweet overdriven sound and gain all the way thrash type sound. Finally shape at 100% is for the very heavy very distored sounds, gain dialed back at 50% is an excellent metal sound and if you push gain then you end up in the land of Norway slaying a goat while playing metallica backwards.

Where i am dial wise at the end of all my playing around
Attenuator 50%
Channel A
Volume 50%
Treb/Mid/Bass 50%
Gain 25%
Channel B
Volume 25%
Shape 50%
Gain 65% (ish)

I know it would be useful to add some sounds to this but i cant do that until tuesday so i will attach some then.

Overall the damn thing is amazing and brutal,

[John_BlackWolf]

Nice one! I'm expecting mine next week.

[hitgar]

Congratulations! Have you tried running channel a as your dirt and channel b as your clean since your running the eq at noon? I think I would prefer the extra tonal options on the dirty sound. Thanks for the review.

[sizzlingbadger]

I really hate the fact that Orange call their PPIMV an Attenuator, its not an Attenuator in the "usual" sense of the word when talking about guitar amps and it has a completely different effect to a real attenuator that allows the output tubes to distort at lower volumes.

Nice amp though

[lukeswarm]

Congratulations! Have you tried running channel a as your dirt and channel b as your clean since your running the eq at noon? I think I would prefer the extra tonal options on the dirty sound. Thanks for the review.

Hi

Yes i tried it but my clean tone (with my reverb pedal) remains pretty static where as i can change the whole tone of my distorted sound with shape only

The channel A distorted sound with mid down sounds great if i ever feel like a change