Orange Amp inspired dual preamp

[beasleybodyshop]

Hey everyone!

So I went down the Orange amp rabbit hole, and decided I like the newer orange amp offerings. So upon doing some research on the modern circuits I decided to dream up a little project that could be fun:

-Two channel rackmount preamp
- Channel A is Orange Rockerverb
- Channel B is Orange Thunderverb
- Change and update front panel aesthetic to be less silly, more clean.
- Add a Hipass/Lopass filter at the end for general sound shaping.

This is what I've come up with so far. Im going to keep the tube buffer globally at output so it will play nice with other rack stuff impedance wise. I also just shotgunned in the filter section from the Dumble SSS (using Martin's switch implementation). Not completely sure i'll pull the trigger on this project but I think it's promising if you like modern Orange amp tones.
Will update as I progress! Please let me know what you think.

[beasleybodyshop]

Some things that are novel here that I like:

Orange amps seem to commonly use a dual gang pot for the gain control, turning up the drive in cascading stages. Kinda cool and different. Sure, you can split the function but interesting to see the wide variance you get with just one control. Sometimes nice to not have access to everything granular.

Same for the "Shape" control. Which is just using a dual gang pot to control the bass and treble controls. Listening to demo videos of the Thunderverb and Dark Terror amps that utilize this control are interesting. Lots of variation across a single control and sweep. This speaks to a design/user experience thing that I really like, and that is having fewer options that make more extreme tonal changes across them. It may not be the sound you like, but I love the idea of less is more, and getting a lot of variable out of one control.

Simple channel switching arrangement that mutes different parts of the circuit. Also interesting is the Buffer stage at the end of the circuit has a switched ground that is tied to the input jack. I did verify this on a few Orange schematics, so does seem to be a thing they do. Interesting.

large coupling cap at the input. Don't see a lot of designs that AC couple your guitar to the input lol.

No cold clipper or CF driven tone stacks here. And as predicted these things sound wooly and raw. But very unique. When i listen to songs with modern orange amps on them you can definitely recognize them.

[Reeltarded]

Hey, buddy! I love the idea. Hook it up and let's hear it!

[Fictitiousfreedom]

I also say go for it! I love most of the Oranges i have played. I had a thunderverb 50 for years and have always regretted selling it. I bought a TH30 a few years ago hoping it would be similar but it is pretty bad. The clean channel is very good as well as the loop but there are a few design flaws that make it pretty underwhelming. I plan to sell it but keep throwing around the idea of either gutting it and building it into another orange or just using the iron for something else. After seeing your idea im thinking of possibly building the TH30 into a standalone power amp. I love the idea of just building preamps. Please keep this updated if you work on it because it is exactly the type of project i would love to help contribute something to!