Clean-dirty on orange tiny terror

[bmxbandit]

I'm a proud new owner of an orange tiny terror. What an amazing underpriced peice of equipment. Anyways I love its tone and the volume it has for such a small amp, but theres two problems that I accepted when I bought it but would like to know if theres a way around it. First, the when you turn the gain down to sounding clean it loses volume..so clean cant keep up with a drummer but 12 oclock and up can with no trouble (but then it gets dirty obviously). Do I just use a clean boost? But then comes the second question.. seeing as they tried to keep the amp very simple I cant switch between clean and dirty. So is there a pedal that can over ride dirty with its own clean and I can just switch it off to let out the gain?

[bmxbandit]

Well I got a tech whos going to duplicate the channel (how, I have no clue) and put in a second volume and gain button so I can have the distortion up with its own volume knob, and then the other distortion knob down to clean sound with its own volume knob with a foot pedal input using a foot pedal to switch. Thank God for smart people..this amp will be better than perfect now.

By the way, I love the tone of its distortion/gain but I was wondering if any of you had suggestions on some other pedals that might mix well with it to give it a boost and a little more flavor.

[Amp Kat]

They are pretty cool amps but I never thought about hacking one as it will void it's warranty. For a small head in a metal box they are very compact and solid and do sound awesome. The tube driver sounds real good with them as the distortion is not to fuzzy and allows you to still capture the original tone of the amp.

[bmxbandit]

Right, I was considering the warranty but its only for a year and plus Orange products stand tough with hardly any faults later on. Tube driver, I'll have to try that out..I doubt I could find one at guitar center to demo though : /

[deadduck]

Hey BMX,

I'll tell you what I did with mine to get the sound I want.

First, I changed preamp tubes to a NOS Phillips 5751 in V1 (closest to input jack) and a Mullard CV4024 (12at7) in V2. This lowers the gain a bit, though there's still plenty of gain to be had. It also smooths out the OD and makes it less grainy.

Next, I plug my guitars, either a Tele or an Epi Casino with P-90's, straight into the amp. I set the volume about 11:00 or so, and the gain about 1:00 - 2:00, power on 7 watts. I roll back my guitar volume and get a nice chimey voxy clean. By turning up the volume, I get a nice crunch. All of this at volumes that won't cause your ears to ring!

For venues when I need louder, I switch to 15 watts and bring up the volume and gain to taste.

Anyway, if you use your guitar's volume, the TT is a pretty versatile little guy.

Keith

[iWishmaster]

I build a clone of this amp (though it recently broke down and haven't been able to fix it yet). I've been thinking of a way to switch between clean and dirty as well. There's several options in doing so, the one I'm considering is using an 8-pole relay to switch to an extra gain and volume pot. This way the tone will be identical and technically there is only one channel, just with 2 controls. I also added a 'bright switch' (see the orange tiny terror schematic thread) and I think the cleans are better with the cap excluded, so I might switch that as well. This way I'll have a bright but full sounding clean, and a dirty crunch. Problem is that hitting the switch could produce a rather loud 'pop'.

I don't know if this is a good method, but hey, it's simple and should work.

[Steve Conner]

First, the when you turn the gain down to sounding clean it loses volume..so clean cant keep up with a drummer but 12 oclock and up can with no trouble (but then it gets dirty obviously)

What do you expect from a 15 watt amp?! It can only get loud by overdriving the heck out of its power tubes, which unavoidably makes it dirty.

seeing as they tried to keep the amp very simple I cant switch between clean and dirty. So is there a pedal that can over ride dirty with its own clean and I can just switch it off to let out the gain?

No, because the Tiny Terror can't get loud without getting dirty, and no pedal can undo that, because it would have to somehow magically increase the power of the amp to give it the required headroom.

If you want clean, and turning the guitar volume knob down doesn't do it, go and buy a Roland JC120 or whatever from your local pawnshop, and use an A/B pedal to switch between the two amps.

[bigassterror]

What do you expect from a 15 watt amp?! It can only get loud by overdriving the heck out of its power tubes, which unavoidably makes it dirty.


No, because the Tiny Terror can't get loud without getting dirty, and no pedal can undo that, because it would have to somehow magically increase the power of the amp to give it the required headroom.

If you want clean, and turning the guitar volume knob down doesn't do it, go and buy a Roland JC120 or whatever from your local pawnshop, and use an A/B pedal to switch between the two amps.

Actually I use a tech 21 Tri a.c in front of my TT and it does a pretty good job of giving me a decent clean at hire volumes. It seems to compress the signal coming from the guitar allowing the tubes to be opened up a bit more without overdriving the signal. Its strange... You can be running a pretty gritty signal through the TT. Once you hit the tech 21 the signal cleans right up. There is a slight drop in volume but not much. I would imagine that any compressor would have the same effect. Also you could just try dropping the volume on your guitar by a 1/4 and then cranking the amp... Its actually like giving you two channels because it puts both a clean and dirty signal at your fingertips... Les Paul gave us that volume knob for a reason...

Anyway for what its worth, I like a little dirt in my clean so I have learned to work with the TT rather then against it.

Oh and one more thing to think about... The TT is very responsive. You can be strumming moderately and the signal will be clean. Get a little more heavy handed and it will start to grit up on you.

[kingjj]

i have to wonder what some of you are even doing owning this amp if it isnt what you are looking for. 15 watts, 1 channel, etc. there is waaaay too much out there. granted some are gurus and some like to hotrod but...it is what it is period. it will only sound as good as you play. kudos to all who understand and build their own stuff tho. i have played one of these things and its really not that impressive considering that there is way more bang for the buck elsewhere. everything this amp does you can get out of something with more. if you dont need more well than good for you but if you do trade the damn thing in.

[bigassterror]

i have to wonder what some of you are even doing owning this amp if it isnt what you are looking for. 15 watts, 1 channel, etc. there is waaaay too much out there. granted some are gurus and some like to hotrod but...it is what it is period. it will only sound as good as you play. kudos to all who understand and build their own stuff tho. i have played one of these things and its really not that impressive considering that there is way more bang for the buck elsewhere. everything this amp does you can get out of something with more. if you dont need more well than good for you but if you do trade the damn thing in.

I have to wonder why some pretentious A-holes feel the need to come onto forums and bitch about equipment they don't even own. Here's a hint no one really cares what you think...

[J M Fahey]

the when you turn the gain down to sounding clean it loses volume..so clean cant keep up with a drummer

So, 15W are not enough in your situation. OK, I agree.

Do I just use a clean boost?

Any clean boost is the same as rising the volume, getting you squarely into power distortion again.
To be more precise, it rises gain, not power.
To be even more precise, to get clean at a higher volume than you do now, you'll need to add , say, 2 more tubes, (or substitute them by, say, a couple 6L6/EL34/6550), larger Power and Output transformers, and probably beefier filtering, and more/better speakers.
An extra gain pedal is probably what you don't need , given that you already have a lot of that.

But then comes the second question.. seeing as they tried to keep the amp very simple I cant switch between clean and dirty.

Well, you bought a single channel amp.
Did the salesmen mis-represent that in any way?
In that case you can start legal actions against them.

So is there a pedal that can over ride dirty with its own clean and I can just switch it off to let out the gain?

Not that I know of, unless it carries its own 50 or 100W clean amplifier built in, plus some elaborate switching to bypass those EL84's and send its own power to those speakers.
Mind you, I'm not joking, I'm giving you one technically possible solution, I'm sure there must be others.
As a side comparison, there are 1000 pedals to dirty a clean amp; none the other way round.
Mind you, there may exist some pedal that through bass cutting, aggressive equalization, and maybe some compression, gives a subjective impression of somewhat greater power,
but those 15W are still the limiting factor.
PS: I love Tiny Terrors, just don't forget its name includes the word "Tiny"

[Gtr_tech]

Actually I use a tech 21 Tri a.c in front of my TT and it does a pretty good job of giving me a decent clean at hire volumes.

I try to keep my volume lore.....

[kingjj]

I have to wonder why some pretentious A-holes feel the need to come onto forums and bitch about equipment they don't even own. Here's a hint no one really cares what you think...

wtf!i didnt say anything rude or inappropriate and you call me an a-hole? i can sighn up and post the same as the next guy. im not raggin on anyone or anything. whos the a-hole? i was curious about this amp and this thread so i asked a very real question as to whats up with this amp if it is so feature free and and so many post are about it not keeping up. what a d**k! you could just answer with "because it sounds great" or "because its affordable" there was a million other ways for you to call me out or whatever without name calling. JERK! i bet you cant play for crap and you blame it on your tiny orange piece of crap huh?

[kingjj]

I have to wonder why some pretentious A-holes feel the need to come onto forums and bitch about equipment they don't even own. Here's a hint no one really cares what you think...

"bagassterror" LMAO soo not afraid of forum bullies. its probably more like fatasspansy.

[Chuck H]

C'mon guys... Really. This is a public forum, I care, right? Take it to PM or Email.

Chuck