Orange Amps Forum

Greetings to all!

So, what would be your choice to "boost" the Dual Dark?

"Boost" as in tightening it even more, give it a little extra "whooomp", "fatten" a little bit and, especially, give me some added extra tweak-able EQ options to widen my options, allowing to get it more "unique sounding"? Clean boost or "distortion as boost"?

Besides the TSs, I've been reading great things about the Earthquaker Devices Plumes and Friedman Buxon Boost...

Also.. Should I also look into compressors?

Any and all thoughts welcomed!

Thanks in advance.

Earthquaker Devices Palisades

After trying lots of pedals with bells and whistles I still keep coming back to my Boss GE-7.

I owned the Dual Dark 100 on 3 separate occasions since 2015. I had a love/hate relationship with that thing every time I bought and sold it. I miss it at times, but spent more time trying to adjust/tweak to get “my sound” than actually playing. Clean or Dirty, I just couldn’t gel with Channel A. The 3 band EQ just didn’t seem to have much of a range and no matter what, Channel B was the go to. At the time, I was running it though the PPC412HP (bottom) and PPC212C on top. It was a good blend of speakers for the setup on a stock level. Anyway, I loved the brute force of Channel B (Shape 1 O’clock, Gain a hair past one, and volume to ear tolerance). My preferred pedals were as follows with the mentioned settings.

Fortin Zuul - preferred gate first in Effects Loop Chain, with key input. This applies to all setups.
EHX signal pad (front), instead of wah type volume pedal, fixed drop. Lowers the high gain to a crunch, or crunch to a clean without switching to Channel A/B. Essentially can make an extra channel and doesn’t mess up the tone. Cheap little diamond in the rough.

Boosters -

Fortin 33 (front of amp) cuts the heavy bass of the dual dark, tightens the low ends, adds emphasis on mid/upper mid frequencies.
Fortin Grind (front of amp) similar results to 33 slightly different flavor Meaty
Note: these pedals can be bright, and certain pickups/brighter guitars can accentuate this to a fault. With the right settings, pickup combos, etc., you get a nice chewy/thump attack with a slight kerrang. Not necessarily that Djent Ping, but a pronounced metallic sound. They seemed to play well with Seymour Duncan Black Winters, BareKnuckle Warpig Ceramic, EMG 57/66 and Railhammer Alnico Grande Pickups. No, you do not need to tune low or play 7/8/9 strings to enjoy these. Yes, they definitely allow lower tunings to cut through the mix and punch you in the chest, but Standard E sounds amazing when setup properly.

Horizon Devices Precision Drive (front of amp). I know this pedal is geared towards the lower tuned modern metal, but it was one of my favorite in any situation (thrashy gallops, deep chugs, leads, etc.) Again, a great pedal to tame the heavy bass, and the attack knob was a cool way to shape the sound. For some reason only the BareKnuckle C-Pigs really caught my ear with this one.

Seymour Duncan 805 (front). Great overall overdrive with pleasing flavor. The built in EQ helps tweakers, especially if you’re experimenting with different Pickups/woods.

Boss SD-1W (front). The drive portion of this pedal isn’t necessary, but the flavor it adds to the dual dark with the volume cranked, tone at 1 O clock and on Custom Setting got me very close to an Anthrax thrash. Classic pedal (standard or waza). Not bad to have on the board. Played well with most. Sounded amazing with Seymour Duncan Black Winters, Railhammer Chisel.

Orange Two-Stroke boost/EQ (FX Loop) using this parametric eq without a boost in the effects loop was a hidden treasure and one of my favorite options. It allows you to tweak and brighten the preamp in a way that adds more “orange” tone, but felt more transparent. You can sweep settings for extreme scoops or mid boosts, but it’s not as tedious as a slider setup. My Jim Root Strat sounded brutal through it. 7 string Black Winter Pickups in ESP TB-7 growled really nice.

Runner Up: Boss GE-7/MXR 10 Band. These are good pedals. This is maximum control over your sound, but you can fall into that trap of scooping, boosting, diddling and the sound can end up changing so drastically you may end up getting discouraged. Again, no disrespect to the pedals, I’ve just tried to keep my setups as simple as possible.

Right Now I am running a Marshall JCM800 2203x through a Marshall 425A Cab. 25w Marshall Greenbacks. Fortin and the Boss SD-1W for boosts and flavor. Single Channel, Clean, Simple Setup, Little Tweaking, More Playing. If Orange comes out with a Dual Dark MKII, I’d love to see Channel B remain, but redo A with a rockerverb type clean or just duplicate B with the simple shape setup. I know this has been long, but hope it helps a bit. There never seemed to be a whole lot on the Dual Darks, so just throwing my experience in. Take care.

Try to find someone who has an Xotic EP Boost and borrow it.

I'd also like to echo the comment about the Boss GE-7...perfect clean boost that lets your amp sound like itself but with more tweaked gain and eq.

However, based on your description, my first thought is that what you're describing is a compressor with the gain turned up a bit. The Maxon CP-101 is amazing.

I have a Rocker 30 and went down the "boost" rabbit hole. Tried lots of options including a TS9, SD1, EQD Palisades, J Rockett Archer, Klon KTR, MXR Distortion +, RAT, Yellowcake Furry Burrito, Walrus Voyager, Walrus Mayflower, JHS Morning Glory... and a few others I can't recall.

I ended up with an Xotic EP Booster. It was perfect from the second I engaged the effect. It does exactly what you seek. Tightens things up while giving it a "fatter" quality.

Try an EP Boost!!!!!!!