Orange OR120

The sound behind Brit bands from Led Zep to Oasis

Back in the late 1960s, a London-based entrepreneur called Cliff Cooper upset the guitar amplification apple cart with a new brand that grew rapidly in popularity. Orange amplifiers had a distinctive look and sound with a smoother, guitar-friendly overdrive, boxy midrange and plenty of clean headroom. The Orange OR120 is the quintessential Orange head, and can be seen in many archive images behind influential players of the era, including Paul Kossoff, Peter Green and Jimmy Page.

Introduced in 1972, the earliest versions had control panels with symbols and no lettering and became known as ‘Pics only’ heads. The simple control layout included a Frequency Analysing Control (a six-position switch that varies mid content) together with high and low frequency Baxandall tone controls, HF drive (a high treble/presence level control) and volume. The OR120S incorporated some circuit changes from earlier Orange amps, which pushed the EL34 power valves harder for a warmer, more driven sound in response to player demands, and marked a sonic turning point that many view as the birth of the famous ‘Orange sound’. There were other components, including the distinctive picture-frame speaker cabinets with basket weave grilles. This material has a subtle filtering effect, smoothing out high frequency content and helping to make the amp less tiring to listen to at high volume. The circuit used a pair of 12AX7S to drive a quartet of EL34S, producing a comfortable 120 watts of power; it’s really in the power stage that the classic Orange tone is produced, which in the lesssensitive 1970s meant turning it up very loud. Thankfully, digital modelling can approximate that sound at more comfortable volume levels.