Increase clean channel headroom?

[GlideOn1]

Hello again,

This time it is about an Orange amp that I have decided to settle upon, it is an Orange Rocker 30 Combo that has two channels; one labeled "natural," in that there is no EQ adjustment, it is just your guitar's natural tone where your brand of pickups really show through; and then there is of course the dirty channel...

...but some of you probably already know about this amp's features.



Bottom line is that I love it so far, the distortion is really great, but i need a way to make the "natural" channel more useful for truer 'cleans.'

Not like I was hoping Fender cleans here, but common, this is why i got a 2 channel amp!

It will start to distort at relatively low volumes at about 10 o'clock (below the drummer's level), and even though it sounds like a nice crunch, it isn't what I was hoping for.

Don't get me wrong, the natural actually sounds warm and rich and let's the guitar's character sound through.



So, I'm thinking I can probably change out the tubes here; particularly the preamp ECC83's (or 12AX7's) to tubes that have less gain.


But would that effect the dirty channel? I really want to keep the dirty channel's gain where it is at now.



I'm not sure which channels use which tubes, so anyone who has experience with changing tubes or Orange amps in general can help me out here - please?

[GlideOn1]

anyone?

bueller?

[Chuck H]

The trouble is that in order to make the "natural" channel cleaner you only have two options:

1) Turn it down. But then it won't be loud enough, right. Or you would be doing it this way.

2) Change the "natural" channels circuit so it isn't so "natural". Mid and bass frequencies distort earlier than top end. you would have to dump some of the mid and bass freqs to keep it cleaner at higher volums. Then it would still "cut through the mix" as they say. But the tone would be brighter and thinner.

The only way I know of to get a louder clean tone that still has some beef on it is more watts.

I don't think the "natural" channel on that amp is intended as a "clean" channel. Just a natural one. Otherwise they would have called it "clean". If you can post a schem you may get some suggestions on how to clean it up a little.

Chuck

[GlideOn1]

Well, after playing around with it some more, the problem becomes not so much the breakup, but it is the overall clouded, muddy, thick tone that is present on both the "natural" and the dirty channel.

So my opinion would be that this is either due to the speaker, which is the usual Celestion Vintage 30 stock on all Orange amps, or it could be the tubes; they consist of (x2) Electro Harmonix 6CA7's for the power tube portion, and (x3) JJ/Tesla ECC81's for the preamp portion. 5 tubes in all, with a solidstate rectification.

The Orange site says that they are supposed to be EL84's and 6XA7's, but who's to know what's true?

I did some research and found out that both the tubes and speaker are quality gear, so it is confusing that they should be the culprit here...

Or could it really be the speaker? I've heard of changes in the speaker that have lead to the removing of the "blanketed" sound that plagues so may amps. But I have tried replacing it already with an Eminence Private Jack, and it actually sounded worse (but then again it probably wasn't the right speaker to try).

I also have an Eminence Rajin' Cajun' in my63' Gibson Skylark that sounds wonderfully clear and responsive, too bad they don't make a 12" version.

...blabbling...

The Celsestion sounds nice enough, but I guess it does have that sort of dumbish "i can rock and be loud so who needs clarity" kinda thing going on.

Anyone know what is a good replacement for the Celestion clarity-wise?

[Chuck H]

It seems to me that no matter what amp I plug into my Celestion cab, it becomes more defined and clear. I have used a couple of different Eminence speakers and still get the same results. I've come to the conclusion that Eminence speakers are all very similar in their top end rolloff character. Thats probably the feature that makes them popular. They can make a hashy amp sound better. Sometimes thats what you need. But it's not for everyone or every amp. All you can do is take your amp down to your local music store and try it with as many speakers as you can. IMHO the V30 is not a bad speaker. Not great, but I can work with it with most of my builds. They're good for clean tones and old timey R&R dirty tones. For the best clarity I like to use my old G12M70s. They lack charm for clean tones. Not bad but just not much character, but really shine when you want to rock. The V30s will do it all, but not the best for modern rock and heavy metal type stuff. Also IMHO, any celestion ceramic speaker will be brighter and have better note seperation than the current Eminence line. That doesn't mean they're better. In fact I plan on using an Eminence speaker in my newest build.

As far as a speaker change giving you what you want...Well, This forum is really more about circuits than speakers. And I think your best answer lies there too. But you can get info here on speakers as well as circuit mods. If your interested in circuit mods , you should post a schem or try to find one online and post an attachement to it.

If you don't want to change any of your amps circuits, but rather change speakers to chase your goal, I would suggest a bright speaker with VERY high efficiency. You would be ammazed at how much louder a clean tone can sound pushing a bright efficient speaker. Many Celestions would fill that order. You can hear sound samples at their website. The rub is that a very loud and bright speaker can make your dirty tone too loud and spikey. It's a balancing act.

[HTH]

^ +1

As Chuck H said, more efficient speakers would be the way to go. The Celestion Century series are very efficient - give those babies a try.

[tubeswell]

You could also try changing the Phase splitter/driver to a lower gain tube. You will lose a teency bit of gain in the crunch channel, but it will lower the voltage swing going into the output tube grid(s), and reduce clipping/distortion on the clean channel. You probably won't notice much volume drop, if any at all. Try going down one-notch of gain, e.g.; from a 12AX7 to a 5751.

[Steve Conner]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't Orange amps all voiced quite dark? I got the impression that "clouded, muddy, thick tone" was the Orange house sound, and the reason why the stoner rock guys love them.

How about adding a 2x10 extension cab with two Ragin' Cajuns in it? That might be a nice compromise.

[strangebru]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't Orange amps all voiced quite dark? I got the impression that "clouded, muddy, thick tone" was the Orange house sound, and the reason why the stoner rock guys love them.

I agree. And in another thread: " Anyone know what the "tiny terror" circuit is? ". I had been asking the same question about the Tiny Terror (TT) Orange amp, starting with this question:

I was wondering the same thing, but I didn't see an answer here. Can the TT tone be permanently brightened without adding a full tone circuit. I am assuming that the tone circuit passes all high freq when full up, but is there a cap that can be changed somewhere that would help?

After seeing the circuit

here it is...

and getting some good input from this forum I replaced a capacitor (search "bright cap"):

I just replaced the 100pf "bright cap" with a 470pf cap. It made the clean (gain between 9 & 12 o'clock) sound more bright and alive. And it has more brightness all the way up to 2 o'clock. I found that with the spec 100pf cap it was way to muffled in this clean region. I was really dissapointed with this aspect of the TT. So this change did exactly what I wanted. If I need less brightness for some reason, I can always turn the tone knob down. I'm really pleased with the results.

I arrived at the 470pf value by experimenting incrementally using alligator clips and putting more and more 120pf caps in parallel while the gain was at about 11:00. Each time I added a cap in parallel the high end became more alive. I also continuously checked the results to make sure that I wasn't sending all the frequencies thru the caps (thereby defeating my purpose). I did this by shorting out all of the caps, which made the gain go up on all the frequencies, giving a louder but muffled sound like before. This showed me that I still had room for more caps. When I used many more than three caps (5 or 6) the sound began to be just louder but not brighter, approching the shorted out sound. So, I stopped at three 120pf caps added, which makes 460pf in total. Pulled out the 100pf cap and replaced with 470pf cap. I guess the 100pf cap they had in there was just not sending enough higher frequencies when the gain was low for my taste. To my ears, the TT at full up on tone, now sounds much like the clean channel of my JCM600 Marshall at full treble, which has a very nice clean bright (but not too bright or harsh) sound. That's what I tried to match.

So maybe you may be able to do something like that with yours. It cleaned/brightened up the tone considerably (no more muddy tone, almost fender like) when on the low gain settings and kept the rolled off treble when in a high gain setting remain unchanged (so when loud and dirty, you don't get that overly piercing overdriven treble, just a nice crunch).

[antiunderscores]

im new here and really dont know a lot about this sort of stuff so i bet im going to learn a heap here. point is im probably wrong so feel free to put me in my place, but arent EH tubes famous for distorting? maybe switching tubes will give you more headroom, JJ's? Tung-Sol? i dont know... am i even on the right track?

[Guitarist]

Swapping an a 12ay7 might do the trick too; REALLY clean.