Orange Amps Forum

I'm playing an 1978 OR120 with master volume and really love the overdrive sound. But I need a more cleanish sound in some songs. So I'm looking for a pedal which pushes the amp from light overdrive to mid or high gain - on the nearly same loudness level. Like a booster who adds more gain at the same time. I've tried a lot of overdrives (OCD, BE-OD, Wampler Catapulp, EQD Monarch and Bogner Burnley recently) but none of the did it for me as they altered the sound. A booster worked best but compared to the light crunch it was too loud. I even used a minus booster. And I bought an OR100. Great amp but not the same.

Any suggestions? Is that possible?

Maybe with a RC Booster V2 (with an extra gain stage)? Or an overdrive like a Timmy or a Klone Clone?

I would go the opposite direction. Set the amp for overdrive and use the guitar's volume knob to roll back for cleans. Alternatively, you can use a volume pedal and kick that back to clean it up.

If you must boost, i'd recommend the Seymour Duncan pickup booster. It's absolutely transparent and provides completely clean signal boost. However, absolutely nothing will sound the same as overdriving the amp naturally with the signal strength of the pickup at the input. When you boost, the sound does change a bit.

By dialing the signal back for cleans, you get the clean *and* overdrive sound of the amp. If you boost, you only get the clean sound of it, with a modified overdrive sound. It still sounds good, and with something like the Pickup Booster, the change is minimal. But from my experience, the amp (and most amps) sounds best being set up for full overdrive and rolling the signal back for cleans.

My 2 cents.

-Nick

Mad Professor Evolution Orange Underdrive. I've mentioned it several times on the forum because I love mine. I get the amps crunch and a nice tweakable clean or cleanish (depending on settings) or just bring the gain down . It can be used to push the amp or be an EQ type pedal as well. I recently added a Way Huge Saucy Box to the mix which works great with the Underdrive too. Saucy box is like a Klon pedal that blends a clean and gain signal using the drive knob as a blend and the volume can boost the signal. That gives a clean boost and gain boost fully adjustable to taste. Several Klon clones out there, EHX soul food is readily available. Saucy box is a different circuit than a Klon. That type of pedal alone might be enough for what you're looking for.

Does that work? I tried that with the Paul Gilbert Detox Pedal but couldnt get it to clean or light crunch without a big volume drop.

Not familiar with the detox pedal, but I have no problem with it dropping volume. The volume drops a bit if you're looking for a super clean sound from lots of gain, but otherwise I don't notice one of drastic difference. The pedal works by attenuating frequencies that produce gain.
But from you're original post, mentioning you'd like a pedal like a booster that adds gain at the same time, Klon type pedals are exactly that. I really like the Saucy Box. http://youtu.be/RTe1hcKnx9M

I have found that while many overdrives/boosts etc. work well on most amps, it is not always the case with the OR120 circuit. I have had a hard time finding overdrives that interact with mine well because my first experiences with how overdrives work with amps was not learned on an OR120, but on much more forgiving circuits...mainly copies of the original bassman circuits on up to the marshalls.

When I got my OR120 I expected it to behave similarly but it just doesn't. It really doesn't have that much headroom or maybe the preamp just clips soon. It is much more picky and does change sound characteristics like fiveeighten said. I think his advice is spot on. I would start out with my overdrive sound and then back off for the clean. Add a transparent boost to help out a bit, but don't expect to start out clean and then boost up with huge success on the OR120.

I have found the cheapish mxr microamp works well for me and the OR120. I get my overdrive where I want it on the amp (mine has a MV installed) and then I roll back for my cleanish tone, then if I need to quickly get the guitar level back up I step on the microamp. If not, I use the volume control only. I have a sticker on my guitar that I move around so I can also visually see my volume knob level on the guitar for my settings as I have found after I get a little ear fatique, dirtier begins to sound cleaner to me.

I have often wanted to just try a volume pedal too to see how that works. At least you are getting what you want from the amp on the gain side, as I don't think adding colored distortion to it sounds good at all on this platform.

This pedal is pretty rad too https://orangeamps.com/two-stroke/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Shameless plug

Hagstroem wrote:I'm playing an 1978 OR120 with master volume and really love the overdrive sound. But I need a more cleanish sound in some songs. So I'm looking for a pedal which pushes the amp from light overdrive to mid or high gain - on the nearly same loudness level. Like a booster who adds more gain at the same time. I've tried a lot of overdrives (OCD, BE-OD, Wampler Catapulp, EQD Monarch and Bogner Burnley recently) but none of the did it for me as they altered the sound. A booster worked best but compared to the light crunch it was too loud. I even used a minus booster. And I bought an OR100. Great amp but not the same.

Any suggestions? Is that possible?

I have an OR80M from 1978 and from practical experience I can tell you that I never found any overdrive/ distortion pedal that would work... and by 'would work' I mean it had no effect on the sound whatsoever! (immediately checked batteries in pedals and then tried them with my Marshall which reacted fine)

I also found like Nick said, that getting a driven sound and backing up on the guitar's volume was the way to get that cleaner tone... the only way I found.

I've never understood using distortion pedals on good tube amps. It's like riding a sport bike with flip flops.

With volume and gain possible combination, I've never felt I had to use a pedal.

Hubaxe wrote:I've never understood using distortion pedals on good tube amps. It's like riding a sport bike with flip flops.

With volume and gain possible combination, I've never felt I had to use a pedal.

They all have their uses.

I'd really like to try an OR80/120 one day and see what all the fuss is about.....

Here's a shot in the dark: Nobels ODR-1 Natural Overdrive

I've never used one with an Orange, so please take that suggestion with a grain of salt. Generally speaking, it's really good at giving you MORE out of an amp that's breaking up a little.

Yes, Or120 is very picky beast. I play Les Paul with mine, and it is really hard to find a good Fuzz/overdrive/Distortion box that goes well with it (If you really play it on full). Mine is from 73 I think and I have made a PPIMV mod but I play it on full anyway. So max Overdrive that Or120 can produce by itself. It is almost perfect for me, but for some solos and maybe for some really deep fuzz sounds I can say I found just 2 pedals that work good with it. For solos I boughs Tone Bander Mk2 reissue or something… It really works great. You can get some nice compression with it and it stays transparent. It cuts some of the low end, but for solos i dig that. For deep low tuned stoner rigs I use Death By Audio Fuzz War and it works for that kind of a sound but both pedals are still hard to use… You really need to find a nice sweetspot.

For Celan I use a active volume pedal. It works better than passive. I don't know why but it does. George Denis Vol - Tremolo pedal. And If I want sparkle clean I muse my Wah fully opened and neck pickup. Still it doesn't get really clean… more like a crunchy clean.

If you don't need that super fat OR120 distortion on full volume I suggest to roll a little bit of a gain… maybe around 1 o'clock and use tonebander for max gain. It still works great, but not that transparent and full sounding… It is different.

I was searching for good OD for my Or120, but is really a random thing what works and what doesn't.