Orange and I have two things in common – we both love tiny things that make big sounds, and lunchboxes. I love lunchboxes both because of their convenient size-to-feature ratio, and also because sometimes they have food in them!
The lunchbox head is still a pretty recent phenomenon, and to me it makes total sense – most players want the sound of a certain amp, but maybe they aren’t playing Madison Square Garden every week so they don’t need that kind of muscle. It’s more than a practice amp but less than a full stack. Orange has been very good about catering to this crowd with their Terror series of amplifiers, and now they’ve re-released the Terror Bass head that was discontinued previously. The Terror bass fits the usual MO of lunchbox size, but with an absurd amount of power on board.
Today we’re pumping this 500w hybrid beast through the OBC 112 Orange bass cab, and it’s mic’d with the Lewitt DT 640 REx dual capsule mic, which has a dynamic and a condenser mic in it. I’m playing this Kiesel 4-string Vanquish bass through it with no pedals or anything in front of it.
This is a pretty small amp considering it’s 500 watts, and combined with this OBC112 I was able to produce deafeningly loud sounds, much to the chagrin of my neighbors. It features a tube preamp and a class D power section. The control layout is dead simple, with volume, treble midrange and bass, gain, clean switch, and a pad if you’re using active pickups. I found that I was only able to get a low to medium amount of grit out of it, leaving you with mostly clean tones to work with. You can, of course, use the amp as is and plug straight in and rock, but with the simple layout I think it’s sort of a pedal platform type of amp, getting your compression and distortion sounds from your pedals, and It includes an effects loop for this very purpose. It has a balanced out for your sound guy and 2 Speakon outputs at either 4 or 8 ohms.
Even without a tweeter, the sound coming from the OBC112 is rich and full with plenty of high ends, and once again its size seems to be no barrier to power. I wouldn’t try to compete at a metal gig with it, but it’ll take you a long way, and it’s certainly more than sufficient for playing at home. I feel like its weak spot would be those middle-sized gigs that are too big for the stage volume this is capable of but too small for a powerful PA system to pump it through.
In conclusion, the Terror bass head is a beefy little head that will take you from your practice room all the way to some pretty good sized gigs for $800, and at $529, the OBC112 is a great companion cab for most purposes aside from anywhere you might need a lot of stage volume for a noisier band. I think these are both a tad on the expensive side for what they are, but they deliver the goods.
