Amp question: Orange, Matamp, Green.

[erik]

I am quite close to a situation that i may want sell a couple of my guitars and all my combo amps to get a really decent head and a reasonable cab.
been looking at Matamp and Green came up while surfing the net but Orange is way easier to purchase...
thats why i would like to see what they are really about.

I may have not read enough about them.
but anyone is kind enough to give me an idea how they are like in comparison, perhaps just a few quick words??

I have heard the tone of a few Orange amps
but have not even seen a Matamp nor Green in real life. (not in my country)

and I read that Matamp tends to sound darker Clean but my question is if I am running Fuzz pedals anyway
would the characteristic of the dirty channel still be in the sound?

besides,
any other brands that you guys would recommend?? I want nice clean tone that will take Fuzz pedals+lots of other nice effects like a piece of cake.

thankssss!
Eric

[theavondon]

Well, if doom's your thing, I'd say Verellen.

http://www.verellenamplifiers.com/products.html

Super sick, easier to buy, cheaper, made in Seattle, also, did I mention super sick?

[Mudfuzz]

Well Orange was originally made by Matamp. I've seen a few cabs but never used any of their stuff. Wata uses a Matamp as her second amp for live alongside her vintage Orange, so I have "heard" one . That is about all I know.

Now as for orange... I have a Thunderverb 200 and I love the thing to death. It will do clean; bass clean, surf clean, jazz clean, all kinds of clean! It sounds great with effects. Also the reverb is the BEST reverb I have ever heard! On it's own though the dirty sound is really something and I've been buy boosters lately because of that. Really if you want to hear what the voicing of Orange and Matamps sound like listen to boris, that really is what they sound like, run a muff into one and it's like "holy fucking shit!"

[Gilmourish]

Matamps are great.... if you order one you can go to York and visit their factory and watch it get made and choose the exterior, what it says, knobs and everything. They're brilliant

[Houdini116]

I was going through the same decision as you, and I ended up going with a Matamp GT1.

Orange, I'd say if you can, find an old OR120 or Or80 if you want some good fuzz, although since they don't have a master volume you will have to crank the shit out of it to get some fuzz. If you can't find that, I'd say go with an AD30, those seem to be Orange's most vintage-voiced amp, their other amps sound to modern for me.

This guy is using an Orange AD30 with a fuzz
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXsumPIFY9o[/youtube]

Green or Electric Amps (I think that's what you meant) are also pretty badass, they offer the Non-master volume unit and the MVU, I'd say they are very similar to the old Oranges except you get the option of master-volume or not. I've heard good things about them on the Harmony Central forums. I was originally going to go with an Electric, but I was told that their might be a wait time of 6-12 months Electric are the amp company that offers the color name faceplates like Black, Green, Purple, White etc.

Tons of low-end as well
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oeoj8HGatYk[/youtube]

Matamp, varies as well. The original Greens were made by Matamp, then Electric bought them out. They also have something similar to the Orange and Electrics as the one you see a lot of stoner/doom bands using is usually a Matamp GT120, again no master volume, but some nice fuzz when cranked. In the 90s Matamp was also making some orange reissues and those were the OR100s, those are suppose to have a lot more balls than the Or120. If you can't find an original Matamp the GT Retro is the exact same thing, I think it's 80 watts, and it'll get you fairly close to the GT120 or OR80/120 sound from the clips I've heard, again no master-volume. The best amp, I think, Matamp offers is the GT1 you can switch between the GTO mode, a GTL mode. Matamps are made in the UK.

Here are some clips of a GT1, no pedals, straight amp fuzz!
http://www.souleclipse.se/temp/oot.mp3
http://www.souleclipse.se/temp/doomskij.mp3

Here's what a Matamp Roadster sounds like:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TdjognCZfg[/youtube]

Check out the Matamp forums too, loads of sound clips and reviews.

I may have got some of this info wrong because it starts to get really confusing, but really I don't think you can go wrong with any of them.

I'd also check out some old Sunn amps or Sound City stuff, great amps if fuzz pedals are your thing.

+1 on Verellen too.

[Morax]

I agree w/ the above post regarding modern Orange Amps sounding ...well too modern...I have a 75 OR120 & an early 90's reissue OR80 (converted to 120 watts)...best amps i've ever played...period. Modern Orange's are Orange in name only!...for one only the vintage ones are built w/ the Baxandall tone stack...new ones are FMV down the line. not saying the new Orange line sucks...they just sound nothing like the old ones. couple of links...
http://www.duncanamps.com/technical/tonestack.html
http://www.duncanamps.com/technical/baxandall.html
Those Verellen amps look fucking awesome

[tuffteef]

weirdly im hocking off all my vox amps too to buy a full stack prob gonna go an orange cause there easy to buy here and mostly cause im broke yall
ever since i bought a devi godzilla its just begging me to buy a full stack

[smile_man]

weirdly im hocking off all my vox amps too to buy a full stack prob gonna go an orange cause there easy to buy here and mostly cause im broke yall
ever since i bought a devi godzilla its just begging me to buy a full stack

I love your avatar.

[tuffteef]

weirdly im hocking off all my vox amps too to buy a full stack prob gonna go an orange cause there easy to buy here and mostly cause im broke yall
ever since i bought a devi godzilla its just begging me to buy a full stack

I love your avatar.

[tchen]

i picked up a matamp minimat recently (which i may be wanting to sell or trade in the near future). its a very small, portable matamp head rated at a (LOUD) 2 watts. i havent quite figured out how to describe or compare the sound yet, but it does sound GREAT! very warm, and while i want to say "dark" im not going to because it almost sounds negative. i would say "deep" is a better word to describe it. i think i read a review someone said it had a 3 dimensional quality and there is something dead on about that description. since it only has one power tube, i can crank it and really get some wonderfully, blissful tube saturation. i have a few fuzz and overdrive pedals (muffs, ocd, red llama, etc.), and while i love those pedals, they just cant compare to the tone of the minimat's natural tube saturation when cranked.

[6stringstrangler]

i'm kinda partial to matamps...this is my fourth one that i owned. Matamp GTO120, if you want a loud, clean amp that takes fuzz pedals well, then i would suggest this amp, Orange OR120, Sound City 120, Sunn Sceptre or Model T. Those Verellan Amps look and sound sick.

[6stringstrangler]

oh and for the record, Electric Amps did not buy out the rights to the Green trademark from Matamp

[dub]

I think if you're looking for a loud clean amp to run fuzzes into, you may want to look at a Twin, Hiwatt or Sunn. Matamps and old Oranges have a pretty distinctive character of their own. You should make sure you like that sound.

Of course, get a loud enough amp with enough headroom... it won't really matter. But then you may as well be running any massive amp.

[Mudfuzz]

Yes! Massive, good!

[erik]

wow, thank you guys. this is really helpful.

this is gonna be a lot of reading and listening ahead, i need a bit of time to digest the info.

the Verellen looks really sick.

btw, Boris is one of my fav. band.

so 1 quick question is this will be a total waste of the nice natural Fuzz sound from the amp if i am gonna run a Fuzz pedal as my dirty side of sound? (i love my Dwarfcraft ECT & DBA fuzzgun & a whole bunch of other pedals...
)
if i am correct, i shall run a good Boost pedal instead and run the amp at a level (i imagine is a pretty loud level) that will jump right into the Fuzzzzzz zone while the Booster is engaged right?

one thing about the massive amp is i don't get to play at big venues all the time and my rehearsal space is small, real small.

plus, not a big concern but we don't play in our city often, as usual, no one is gonna give a shite if i am lifting a 20kg amp head with 2 other guitars... this is gonna hurt.