Orange Micro Dark review

I've used an Orange micro dark before and was surprised how good it was for a small amp. I had forgotten just how little it was though and that really made me laugh.
The Orange micro dark is a higher gain version of the Orange micro terror. It has simple controls, an effects loop, and a headphone output which can act as an emulated output which they call a CabSim.
Great little amp and it's surprisingly loud for a small valve amp.
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Orange micro dark - www.thomann.de...
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Here's a run through of some of the sounds you can get from the Orange Micro Dark:
Clean : 3:08
Gain on 6 : 4:36
Gain on 10 : 5:20
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[@PherotoneStudios]

Clean : 3:08 Gain on 6 : 4:36 Gain on 10 : 5:20

[@AlexanderXtcSlayin]

I have this amp and I love it. The qaulity of the headphone out is probably the best Ive of any the amps Ive tried, sounds almost like when in its into a cab, which makes this a perfect practice amp.

[@martinwilliams9098]

Great video

[@ShineDawg]

Just got one of these, thanks for the video. 474 is clean heavy...

[@nevennovak4055]

Have exactly the same setup, including homemade cab with greenback in it :) I changed the tube in mine with ehx 12ax7 gold pin, and with some kind of od pedal in front it sounds amazing

[@PherotoneStudios]

Ah fantastic. I can’t believe how good it is. I do the same as you, OD pedals and run the amp on clean. Sounds amazing. What made you build a cab? I’m half way through another cab build but parts still haven’t arrived

[@nevennovak4055]

@@PherotoneStudios I started to experiment with different speakers lately because i noticed how much they can realy change the sound and character of an amp, and changing speakers in 4x12 was little incovenient for me, so i decided to build 1x12 for that purposes, and yeah, not to mention that now with all this covid 19 situation i have some spare time, so why not build something haha The end result is that i am very much surprised how good this cab is sounding, and now i also thinking about ordering some materials and start building another one :)

[@jdavisdaman]

My Micro Dark sounds much different than this but I can definitely tell you why it doesn't sound as good in the video. Number 1 thing is that you said you were playing it through a Celestion Greenback. The Greenbacks are only rated for 25 watts and this amp pushes 20. The Greenback breaks up really fast and when you are cranking the MD the single GB turns into mud and fuzz with this amp. Now with that being said, I have a single 12" greenback and I play at super low bedroom volume level with a OD in front with a eq in the loop and this amp kills! When I want to play loud I plug this little joker into my Randall 4x 12" and absolutely will be hard to beat in the price range of this amp.

[@PherotoneStudios]

You’re right. When I shot this video I’d noticed I’d wired the 2x12” cab incorrectly so instead of the speakers sharing the load, they didn’t. So that’s why the Greenback would have struggled. I rewired that cab a few weeks after this video was shot so now the Greenback doesn’t struggle as much with a cranked low power valve amp. Currently running an orange rocket terror through it - 15 watts.

[@bradkillingsworth4137]

PLEASE switch to your bridge pickup! Mud city😩

[@PherotoneStudios]

On which setting? Clean or gain?

[@voodoochild1975az]

These little monsters are shocking. Great tones out of it, and a wide variety, all usable (including great cleans for a 'high gain' amp, just fiddle with the knobs, but an important note on that, these are sensitive knobs.... small adjustments make big differences, that's both good and bad, you get used to it. Just make smaller adjustments than you would normally for a while). Pushes just about any cab you want (although the matching 8" cab is also shockingly good for it's size)... loves 4x12s. Takes pedals extremely well, and has an effects loop.... And it's cheap. And it's tiny. Bedroom amp, recording amp, practice amp, back up amp for a gig, or even a primary gigging amp (if mic'ed or Cabsim'ed out). It's a weird little amp in that you probably want one for some role or another even if you don't know it yet. And compared to some of the other micro amps... like the Peavey Piranha... well, to my ears there isn't a comparison. The Micro Dark sounds much more like a full tube instead of hybrid than about any hybrid I've heard. Whatever Solid State power amp they are using must love taking a tube input or something. So it's a hybrid amp that sounds full tube, or at least a lot closer than most. It's a cheap amp that sounds expensive. It's a high gain amp that sounds great clean. It's a tiny amp that sounds huge. It's as if everything about this thing, from it's size to the price tag is intended to make you underestimate it before it rips your face off with glorious thick tubey distortion. Orange done good here. They done real good. Seriously, Orange should be proud of this little beast. I guess if I could nitpick, reverb would have been nice to add. That's as close to a criticism as I can get. I love mine and it cost less than my wah pedal. There is a reason the reviews for these are glowing. Hard to find anything sounding this good at this price point. As for speaker break up, so far, I've only plugged it into the matching 8" cab, which, well, is 8", of COURSE I can get that to overload... So I can't help you on the greenback question until I get my 2x12. I will say, the matching 8" cab sounds WAY better than you'd expect an 8" to sound. Kinda like the amp itself. Amazing for bedroom or living room. I wouldn't gig with it, but it has it's uses.

[@DanielDavis730]

Sounds like the speaker blown

[@cucusk8427]

It doesn't sound the way it should not good