Orange Amplification introduces the Bax Bangeetar pedal, a pre-amplifier with advanced EQ controls in pedal format.
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In response to customer requests, the Bax Bangeetar is the company’s first pedal offering since the mid ’70s. To ensure consistent premium quality, each pedal is going to be hand built at the Orange Custom Shop in England.
The Bax Bangeetar is an amp-in-a-box that can function as a traditional stompbox overdrive/boost, a standalone preamp or a direct recording tool. You can use it in a variety of ways depending on your needs and setup, giving you true Orange tones in a compact stompbox form.
Behaving like a versatile Orange amplifier, the pedal gain settings can go from subtle boost, to vintage overdrive to modern high-gain distortion. You get classic clean tones at lower gain settings while raising it moderately will give you the familiar Orange crunch tone. Increasing the gain setting further gives you quite a lot of distortion that goes beyond what you’d expect from a traditional Orange amp.
More importantly, the pedal is designed to be as transparent and well-defined as possible, from the lowest to the highest gain settings. It even has an onboard “clean boost” function for adding an extra 5dB to your sound for band piercing solos, and it does so without compromising your tone.
Orange was able to accomplish this without using the back-to-back diode circuitry commonly found in drive pedals. Rather they based the design on their own amps to recreate the feel and behavior just of an Orange amp, resulting in natural distortion and boost with minimal compression.
On top of the versatile gain structure, the new Bax Bangeetar comes with an extensive set of tone shaping controls. According to the press release, “The Baxandall EQ and full parametric mid controls allow for complete command over a broad frequency range, enabling players to sculpt their sound to suit any style. With controls for Q, centre frequency and cut/boost, the midrange response is literally infinite, from subtle peaks to broad ‘scoops’. Even remove problem frequencies inherent in certain guitar and amps altogether!
Instead of going for the usual “true bypass” used in other pedals, Orange designed and developed its own transparent buffered bypass technology. They claim that the linear circuit improves signal integrity for guitarists that have big pedalboards, and it could also help transparently boost the signal for those that utilize long cables. They achieved this by utilizing an internal charge pump. This feature doubles the pedal’s voltage to improve the overall headroom, output sound, and sonic clarity – and it does so without messing with the original tone of your guitar.
For recording, the Bax Bangeetar also features a second ‘CabSim’ output, it is designed to recreate the sound and response of Orange’s 40th Anniversary PPC412 cabinet loaded with Celestion G12H 30 speakers. Combined with the pedal’s extended tone shaping controls, the CabSim will turn this preamp box into a professional tool for direct recording.
Orange Amplification concludes, “Whether used at home, on stage or in the studio, with its enormous sonic capabilities, precise EQ and all-round flexibility, the Bax Bangeetar is one of the most versatile pedals ever created.”
The new Orange Bax Bangeetar is currently retailing online for £279.00 and is available in either white or black color theme. Head over to Orange Amps for more information, or you can visit the Orange Amplification booth C45 Hall 4.0 at Musikmesse 2015.
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