Orange have been making iconic amplifiers for four decades – and now the music industry has awarded the company the ultimate accolade by accepting Orange’s 40th anniversary amp into the NAMM Museum.
Orange amps have always had a unique look, as well as providing a killer guitar sound. It’s this iconic image which has propelled Orange into the history books and assured it a place in the museum. The image is based, of course, on the iconic ‘Pics Only’ style created when Orange founder Cliff Cooper chose to avoid using words on the amp controls in favour of graphics.
As
Cliff recalls, “
I got the idea for the symbols from noticing how our road signs suddenly changed in the late 1960s, from using words in English like ‘one way’ to internationally understood graphics – so in 1971 I suggested to the team that instead of using words, we use symbols.”
“Looking back,” adds Cliff, 40 years after making the landmark decision to use symbols instead of words, “it was really Stevie Wonder who first made Orange the worldwide brand that it still is today. He tried Orange and loved the sound, for vocals and keyboards as well as for his whole band. He bought two complete backlines – one for America and one for when he toured the UK and Europe, and he refused to accept a discount. After that, we really had our work cut out to keep up with orders from all over the world.“
The Namm museum has now placed the exceptionally rare and recently launched 40th anniversary custom shop amp in its museum. Representing the pinnacle of Orange valve technology these limited edition point-to-point hand-wired amps, mark the 40th anniversary of the company and are a testament to creating amps with unsurpassed tone, world class quality and superb construction.
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