Playing through a 100-watt head is immensely satisfying, regardless of your style. If you want dirty, and there’s a gain control, you’ve got dirty. If you want clean, the headroom hits the sky. Whether you’re purveying rock ’n’ roll filth, snarling blues, old-school roots, or avant-skronk, it’s all there—especially if you use pedals for low-gain drive and color.
In the case of Orange’s new Baby series entries, these possibilities exist in triplicate: the compact, highly controllable Gain Baby 100, Tour Baby 100, and Dual Baby 100 amps. These grab-and-go solid-state units with strong metal chassis are a mere 6 1/2 pounds, come with a durable shoulder bag for transport, and can be dropped atop a cabinet or into a rack. (These amps measure 12.8" x 3.13" x 7.68".) Each model has two radically different channels, guaranteeing versatility, plus a class A/B power stage for clarity and heavy lifting. They all offer the fat, midrange growl and the fast touch-sensitivity I associate with the classic, Orange sounds of players ranging from Peter Green to Slipknot’s Jim Root, which is perhaps a result of their single-ended JFET preamp stage.
I tested these Babies with a vintage Les Paul, a PRS Silver Sky SE, and a Zuzu custom with coil-splitting, to get a wide variety of tones. I also switched between a 1x12 cabinet with a G 12M Greenback and another with a 50-watt Eminence Red Coat Private Jack. Both cabs were 8 ohms, but the amps can also run 70 watts into 16 ohms. While the Celestion drilled down on nasty, Hendrix- and early ’70s-era voicings, the 50-watter really let the amps breathe in lush harmonic detail.
Each of the triplets has a footswitch option for channel and volume switching, an effects loop, and a balanced XLR out, and can be easily used with a DAW, cab sims, and IR captures. These units can also be switched for 100, 110, and 220 volts AC. Short take: I found a lot to like about these sonic siblings.
Gain Baby 100
While I’m not typically a high-gain player, I took to the Gain Baby 100 immediately, enjoying the edgy tone, responsiveness, sustain, and articulation in its dirty channel. Dirty offers gain, volume, presence, and 3-band EQ, plus the footswitchable volume has its own level control, and it delivers a stinging rock voice where chords hang and bloom. This channel’s real “dirty” secret is a toggle that can be flipped to “tight” mode, which functions like an additional EQ stage that polishes lows and focuses the mids, making them really singing and dimensional.
I initially viewed the clean channel on the Gain Baby and Tour Baby as pedal platforms, with just a volume control and bass and treble, but the clean side’s built-in, single-knob compressor pushes the Gain Baby’s volume and low-end character to the fore, conjuring memories of that ’70s uber-beast, the Sunn Beta Lead (and the Melvins’ King Buzzo). Ultimately, the Gain Baby 100 delivers very distinct and appealing bookends of heavy for just under 600 bucks.
Key: Dirty channel rhythm > dirty channel rhythm with tight switch engaged > dirty channel lead > dirty channel with tight switch lead > clean channel rhythm > clean channel lead
Tour Baby 100
The road-oriented Tour Baby seems the most versatile of the trio. The dirty channel has the same control panel as the dirty side of the Gain Baby, minus the tight switch. And while overall the amp seems to have a bit less gain, it’s still easy to get into Wayne Kramer territory by cranking up the gain control when you want to kick out the jams. Sweet, sustained tones were a snap to achieve by dialing back the guitar’s tone pots, riding the amp’s mid control high, setting treble to about 7 or 8, and dialing in the bass at 3.5 to 4. And, again, like the Gain Baby, the 3-band EQ offers plenty of range. If even more crunch is desired, the presence knob helps dial it in.
The Tour Baby’s clean channel also mimics the Gain Baby’s clean setup, but the compressor doesn’t lean into the low end like it does on the Gain Baby. It does, however, sculpt and define tones in a very appealing way, warming and pushing midrange. While I preferred the dirty channel here, my colleague Tom Butwin fell for the clean side, and his excellent demo video online is well worth watching. For me, this amp’s strength is that it stands on its legs and growls from the dirty side, and provides a characterful pedal platform on the clean side. All three amps, by the way, sound terrific with a reverb pedal, though less so at higher-gain settings.
Dual Baby
For players devoted to traditional British voicings, the Dual Baby may be the most enticing option, providing at least two recognizably classic sounds in one small, efficient package. Channel A is based on the company’s Rockerverb series, minus the reverb, and both A and B channels on the Dual Baby have 3-band EQ. The B side has the same setup and tonal characteristics as the dirty channel of the Tour Baby, sans the footswitchable volume, so you can’t pump up the level for solos with a quick stomp. However, it does have a “tight” toggle, so it’s easy to get into the same spanking, airy terrain as the Gain Baby’s dirty side or play it relatively clean.
But the A channel has another asset: a “tubby” switch, which is new for Orange. With gain pushing toward 7 and presence at about midway, and the treble rolled back, the tubby setting’s low-end boost evokes Black Sabbath—dark and ominous and perfect for sustained power chords. If your tastes run toward nasty, there’s a lot to like with the Dual Baby.
Key:
Channel A rhythm > channel A lead > channel A rhythm tubby > channel A lead tubby >
Channel B rhythm > channel B lead > channel B rhythm tight > channel B lead tight
The Verdict
Orange’s three versatile Babies cover a lot of ground in small, very affordable, well-built packages. Their response and rich-hued sounds–available even at low volumes–never left me pining for tubes, and their 100-watts make them useful for any stage. For travel, studio, or at-home playing, they are well worth investigating. These Babies can unquestionably run with the big boys. PG
When Brandon Hagen broke his arm a few years ago, his life changed in an instant. He’d been fronting Boston indie rock outfit Vundabar since 2013, and suddenly, he was unable to do the things he’d built his life around. Recovery came, in part, in the form of a custom guitar prototype built by Mike Baranik of Baranik Guitars. Hagen deconstructed and rehabilitated his relationship to the 6-string on that instrument, an experience that led to Vundabar’s sixth LP, Surgery and Pleasure, released on March 7.
On tour supporting the record, the band appeared at Grimey’s in Nashville for a performance on March 11, and PG’s Chris Kies caught up with Hagen to hear about his journey and learn what tools the guitarist has brought on the road. As Hagen tells it, his setup is less about expertise and received wisdom, and more about “intuitive baby mode”—going with what feels and sounds good in the moment.
Brought to you by D’Addario.
An A1 B4
Hagen’s No. 1 is this Baranik B4, a custom job that he received two days before leaving for tour. Hagen’s arm was broken when Vundabar was playing a festival in California a couple years ago, and Baranik, a fan of the band, stopped in to see them. He offered to send a custom prototype to Hagen—who was new to the field of boutique guitars—and the B4 was born, borrowing from the Baranik B3 design used for Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s Ruban Nielson and the Hofner 176 played by Jamie Hince of the Kills. The guitar helped Hagen fall back in love with guitar as his arm healed.
Hagen was searching for Strat-style clarity and jangle but with a hotter sound, so Baranik put in Lindy Fralin P-90s in the neck and bridge positions, plus a sliding, unpotted gold-foil pickup in the middle, wound by Baranik himself. A wheel control on the lower bout beside the traditional pickup selector switch lets Hagen blend the pickup signals without outright switching them on or off. Along with traditional master volume and tone controls, the red button beside the bridge activates a Klon clone pedal built into the back of the guitar. Hagen used a Klon on every track on the new Vundabar record, so it made sense to have one at his fingertips, letting him step away from the pedalboard and still create dramatic dynamic differences.
Hagen uses Ernie Ball Slinky strings (.011s), a step up from the .10s he used to use; he was chasing some more low end and low mids in his sound. His guitars stay in standard tuning.
Jazz From Japan
Hagen also loves this 2009 Japan-made Fender Jazzmaster ’62 Reissue JM66, which splits the difference between classic Fender chime and a darker, heavier tone.
Blending Fenders
Hagen’s signal gets sent to both a Fender Hot Rod Deville and a Blues Junior. He likes to crank the Junior’s single 12" speaker for a nastier midrange.
Brandon Hagen's Board
Hagen runs from his guitar into a JHS Colour Box, which adds a bit of dirt and can be used to attenuate high or low frequencies depending on which room Vundabar is playing. From there, the signal hits a Keeley Compressor, EHX 2020 Tuner, EHX Pitch Fork, EHX Micro POG (which is always on with subtle octaves up and down to beef things up), Boss Blues Driver, Way Huge Swollen Pickle, MXR Carbon Copy (which is also always on), and a Boss DD-7—Hagen loves the sound of stacked delays.
Price unveiled her new band and her new signature model at a recent performance at the Gibson Garage in Nashville.
The 6-string was inspired by the J-45 she bought at Nashville’s Carter Vintage Guitars after she was signed to Third Man Records, where she made her 2016 ice-breaker album, Midwest Farmer’s Daughter. But her affection for Gibson acoustics predates that, going back to when she found a 1956 LG-3 in her grandmother’s home. The guitar had been abandoned there by her songwriter great uncle, Bobby Fischer.
“I played it for years before I found my J-45,” Price recounts. “At Carter Vintage, I tried a lot of guitars, but when I picked up that J-45, I loved that it was a smaller guitar but really cut through, and I was just really drawn to the sound of it. And so I went home with that guitar and I’ve been playing it ever since.”
“Having a signature model was something I had dreamed about.”
Of course, Price was also aware of the model’s history, but her demands for a guitar were rooted in the present—the requirements of the studio and road. The 1965 J-45 she acquired at Carter Vintage, which is also a cherry ’burst, was especially appealing “compared to a Martin D-21 or some of the other things that I was picking up. I have pretty small hands, and it just was so playable all up the neck. It was something that I could easily play barre chords on. I could immediately get everything that I needed out of it.”
If you’ve seen Price on TV, including stops at Saturday Night Live, The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, and Jimmy Kimmel Live!, you’ve seen her ’65. And you’ve also seen, over the years, that part of the soundhole’s top has been scraped away by her aggressive strumming. It’s experienced worse wear from an airline, though. After one unfortunate flight, Price found her guitar practically in splinters inside a badly crushed case. “It was like somebody would have had to drive over this case with a truck,” she relates. Luckily, Dave Johnson from Nashville’s Scale Model Guitars was able to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
After that, an alternative guitar for the road seemed like a requirement. “Having a signature model was something I had dreamed about,” Price says. Friends in her songwriting circle, including Lukas Nelson and Nathaniel Rateliff, already had them. Four years ago, a tweet asking which women they thought should have signature models appeared, and one of her fans wrote “Margo Price.” Smartly, Price tagged Gibson and retweeted. Codey Allen in Gibson entertainment relations spotted the tweet and agreed.
The double pickguard was chosen for Price’s J-45 because of its symmetry, as a nod to the Hummingbird, and due to her heavy strumming hand.
Photo courtesy of Gibson
“The neck is not quite as small as my J-45, but it is just a bit smaller than many J-45s fives, and very playable no matter what size hands you have.”
“And so we began our journey of building this guitar,” Price says. “I debated whether it should be the LG-3, which I still have hanging on my wall, or the J-45. I went to Montana and visited their [acoustic] factory and sat down with Robi Johns [senior product development manager at Gibson acoustic], and we ultimately decided that the J-45 was my guitar. Then we started talking about the specs. We did pull from the LG-3 in that the body of this signature guitar is a bit smaller. It still has a really loud, clear sound that rings through. The neck is not quite as small as my 1965 J-45, but it is just a bit smaller than many J-45s, and very playable no matter what size hands that you have.”
The pickup that Price selected is a L.R. Baggs VTC Element with a preamp, and she took a prototype of the guitar on the road opening for the Tedeschi Trucks Band. “I am used to playing with a really loud band, with drums and sometimes a couple electric guitars, and I wanted to make sure that this guitar just cut through,” she says. “It was really important to me that it be loud, and it cut beautifully. It’s got a mahogany body and scalloped bracing, which makes it very sturdy. This guitar is a workhorse, just like me.”
The Margo Price J-45’s most arresting characteristic, in addition to its warm sunburst finish, is its double-sided pickguard with an etching of a quartet of red-tailed hawks in flight. It’s practical for her strumming style, but it’s also got a deeper significance.
“We talked about all sorts of things that we could put on the pickguard, and I’ve always been a big fan of the Hummingbird, so what we did is a bit of a nod to that,” Price continues. “I’ve always been drawn to red-tailed hawks. They are supposed to be divine messengers, and they have such strength. They symbolize vision and protection. I would always count them along the highway as I’d be driving home to see my family in Illinois.”
Birds of a feather: “I’ve always been drawn to red-tailed hawks,” says Price. “They are supposed to be divine messengers, and they have such strength. They symbolize vision and protection.”
Photo courtesy of Gibson
With its comfortable neck, slightly thinner body, and serious projection, Price notes, “I wanted my guitar to be something that young girls can pick up and feel comfortable in their hands and inspire songs, but I didn’t want it to be so small that it felt like a toy, and that it didn’t have the volume. This guitar has all of those things.” To get her heavy sound, Price uses D’Addario Phosphor Bronze (.012–.053) strings.
Price says she and her signature J-45, which is street priced at $3,999, have been in the studio a lot lately, “and I have a whole bunch of things I’m excited about.” In mid March, she debuted her new band—which includes Logan Ledger and Sean Thompson on guitars, bassist Alec Newman, Libby Weitnauer on fiddle, and Chris Gelb on drums—in a coming out party for the Margo Price Signature Gibson J-45 at the Gibson Garage in Nashville. “I’ve been with my previous band, the Price Tags, for more than 10 years, and it’s definitely emotional when a band reaches the end of its life cycle,” she says. “But it’s also really exciting, because now, having a fiddle in the band and incredible harmony singers … it’s a completely different vibe. I’ve got a whole bunch of festivals coming up this year. We’re playing Jazz Fest in New Orleans, and I’m so excited for everyone to hear this new iteration of what we’re doing.”
With its heritage cherry sunburst finish and other appointments, the Margo Price Signature Gibson J-45 balances classic and modern guitar design.
Photo courtesy of Gibson
