Acetrouble

Both amps, the Orange TH30 head and the EVH 5150 III 50 are in the same price range in Germany (around 800 Euros). I haven't had the chance to test-drive either of them, yet, but I've heard the Orange in concert and thought it sounded great.

My friend, who played the Orange TH30 on that gig only uses its clean channel and steps on a distortion pedal for dirty sounds.

I've been wondering whether that method could be used on the Orange to make it a semi 3-channel amp. So you could have clean, crunch (with pedal) and dirty.
But as far as I know the TH30 doesn't have MIDI functionality, so I guess it would require quite some step dancing.

As for the EVH 5150 III 50:
Everyone I've spoken to seems to quite love that amp for its high-gain sounds. But channels 1 (clean) and 2 (rhythm) share volume and gain knobs, so you can't really use all three sounds live, because of the volume difference when switching.
But I heard this could be solved via MIDI programming.

Which amp do you prefer? The EVH is obviously a tad more versatile, but for punk and metal I thought the Orange sounded as good if not slightly better on the dirty channel (judging by video reviews mostly). More saturation to my ears, which I like.

Regards
Josh

will42

Clean boost pedal perhaps?
Either use it on the clean channel to push it into overdrive, or set the drive channel to a crunch tone and use a boost topush it into full dirt?

As for the 5150, people here seem to rave on it, but I can't comment, never having played one.

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Acetrouble

Assuming I would use a boost pedal on the clean channel, but wouldn't want it on the dirty channel, then that means I would have to do double-stepping everytime I switched to the dirty one, right?

I guess there's no other way since the TH30 doesn't seem to have MIDI.

Ultima117

I own the evh; it's incredibly versatile and sounds amazing! You would not be disapointed (:

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Dave_Mc

yup, sure. in fact, that'd make it a pseudo-4 channel amp- clean, clean with pedal, overdrive channel, overdrive channel with pedal. and then you can start stacking pedals, too.

of course, you can do that with the evh as well to get a bazillion channels.

it's really more which one sounds more the way you want, and if either doesn't have a feature which you consider to be a dealbreaker.

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mmjohn

All 3 channels on the 5150iii sound amazing. It's an amp the volume knob on your guitar will become the most important knob on your rig....channel 1 and 2 gain on 6....it will clean up awesome with your volume knob and a tube screamer on channel 2 sounds awesome....

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Acetrouble

Thanks for the input, guys! :-)

But also, like I asked before, without MIDI programming it would require quite some step-dancing activating/deactivating a boost pedal plus switching the actual channels, right?

This wouldn't be a problem on the EVH, it's MIDI compatible, but the Orange isn't to my knowledge.

Acetrouble

So you use full volume on your guitar with the clean channel and back it off on the rhythm channel?

Also heard of some guys who use MIDI to even out the volume difference when switching from channel 1 to 2.

mmjohn

On the clean channel it depends on the amps volume turn it down for nice cleans and turn it up for bluesy stuff. On channel 2 every turn of the volume knob is a new sweet tone. I like a tubescreamer on channel 2 a lot!!!! Yes on the midi switching I was going to do that with my Nova System and a direct box and create patches. But setting the gain on channel 1/2 to noon really balances out the 2 channels and I've pretty much forgotten about it.

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mmjohn

A nice clean boost is highly recommended also for balancing out 1 and 2....i use a Xotic EP booster and it was like it was made for this amp!!!!!! It fattens up channel 1 raises volume without touching your tone. Channel 2 is fattened up a bit but the volume isn't changed as much. It's one of those pedals you leave on all the time. Using the dip switches inside the pedal it's pretty versatile pedal....add just top end sparkle, fatten up the bottom end or in vintage mode.

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Cathbard

A lot of MIDI controllers and MFX gadgets have relay outputs that will simulate a footswitch being opened and closed. That's how I do it on a non-MIDI enabled amp. When you select a program it also switches the amp. No tap dancing required. I don't use an overdrive as such on the main rig, I just program different levels of clean boost mated to the appropriate amp channel.

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Acetrouble

Thanks for the replies everyone!

What would be a good Multi-FX unit that could do what you described? Like in the 200 $ price range. I don't need a whole lot, just chorus, delay and flanger. But programming individual volume levels would be awesome!