Orange Amplifiers Micro Crush PiX 3 Watt 9-Volt Mini Amp

At first I was really upset with the sound of this amp. Then after some adjusting of the controls on both the amp and the guitar (Epiphone Les Paul) I was able to achieve a pretty sweet sound. But the most important thing you need to know about this amp is that it CANNOT make a clean tone. You can get close but only when the volume/tone is so low that it's pointless. If you want crunch or overdrive however this is the mini amp for you. It sounds ridiculously good for a mini amp. The tuner is a huge plus as well. Most mini amps just have an E note tuner but this tunes all strings.So just keep in mind you won't be able to have clean tones with this amp. But if you mainly play British sounding crunch and overdrive then you will be very pleased. The volume does NOT get loud in my opinion. A lot of people review the amp saying it gets loud but honesty it really doesn't unless the overdrive is on and the volume is all the way up. And still then it's not going to shake the house.Visually it's awesome, capturing all the essence of it's bigger more expensive siblings. For punk or hard rock it will sound great. You just have to find the sweet spot. I found if the tone was turned all the way up it gets very tinny...you want it somewhere around 5 at most. Other than that it takes any bass completely away and sounds like a cheap computer speaker.I actually ended up returning mine because it was too finnicky with the settings for me to get the tone I wanted. But for many people this is just the amp they need.

Is was a little concerned about the build quality of this amp, I watched some reviews online and found a video review where a guy complained about the build quality, so I was a little worried about it. But when it arrived all concerns went away, obviously the new amplifiers being shipped already tackled this construction issue, what they did is they still build it out of wood, but now they have an external (kind of a vinyl) layer simulating something similar to the speaker mesh, but in orange ( like some other big amps have). This totally solves al build quality issues, so it looks as well build as my Roland cube, but with more of a vintage look.Volume wise, Is a LOT louder than the marshal mini amp, which I also own, I normally used my Roland Cube 20w to practice, which I loved because it has a "power squeezer" feature which converted it to a 2w amp, which is loud enough for any practice session, specially at home. well, this micro crush is even louder than the cube @ 2w. So volume wise is perfect for practice, will not match to acoustic drums, but is pretty loud for solo practice or warmup.sound wise, this is where this amp shines the most, the clean channel sound pretty good if you keep the guitar volume to 3/4 ( this is probably because I,m using Texas specials pickups which are pretty hot and shiny. But as long as I keep the guitar volume there, the clean channel is really clean, with a little tweed feel to it. If I crank the guitar volume on the clean channel, I get a little overdrive if I play hard.The overdrive channel sounds amazingly good, really rich overdrive with a blues feel to it, lots of tone options with the tone know ( good to see a real tone control in such a small amp). I bought this amp because a friend has an orange tiny terror and I love it's overdrive, of course you can,t compare it to the Tiny terror's tube warmth, but the overdrive Tone I love from the tiny terror feels the same on the micro crush, I LOVE the sound of this amp, if you are into blues, funk or rock, this overdrive channel is worth every dime.You should here video reviews of the sound, because I noticed several people critics this amp because they don't like the distortion, and is a matter of taste, if you don,t like the orange blues/rock sound you shouldn't be buying an orange, get a Marshall or Randall instead, but if you are into this type of sound, this amp is definitely a must.Compared to other mini amps, well, there is no comparison, this is a real amp to scale, the other ones are toys. I own a Marshall, a couple non-branded and the orange micro crush. The only one I haven't tried is the fender, which I would like to try.I'm also a recording engineer and have a small studio at home, this is a perfect amp for recording at the studio, just throw an sm57 in front of it and you can't tell the difference between this and some of it's big brothers.Finally, the tuner, easy to use and accurate. What else can you ask for on a $60 amp!!. Hhhhooo, I almost forgot, is an ORANGE.SWEET!. Is THAT. Good!.So my final recommendation would be, listen to it on the Internet, if you like that kind of overdrive, go for it, don't even worry about the build quality, all issues are fixed. And volume wise you will be amazed.I'm not in any way endorsing or begin sponsored by orange (I wish I was). I'm just a guitar player ( mostly blues, funk, rock driven), and a 10+ years recording engineer.I guarantee you won't regret to buy it.

I've been a musician for most of my life, playing primarily keyboards recently in the studio and with bands, saxophone and a little bass guitar. I've owned a six string guitar for 20+ years that has seen very little use. I had this misconception that my hands "just weren't designed to play guitar". But recently my life changed a little bit. I have a young boy that's now master of my universe, a lot less room to leave musical gadgets lying about, and I now live in an apartment building where making a lot of noise tends to be frowned upon.I picked up this Micro Crush because I was originally looking for a micro Marshall and I saw this pop up. I knew I already liked the sound of Orange amps (better than Marshall given my druthers of musical taste) and for $69 it seemed like not much of a reach to try it out for myself.Shortly after a small package of value came to me with this charmingly tiny amp in it. My son's mom thought it was a toy "it's so small!" Yes you might think so until you plug it in. The idea here is to sound loud without being loud. This amp is perfect for that.Most of the time I have this thing turned up to about 1, 1 1/2, rarely up to 2 or beyond. I've got a simple effect chain going in: EH Soul Preacher (compressor/sustainer) -> MX Analog delay -> Cheap (but pleasant) Chinese Phaser -> EH Holy Grail -> Amp. I use this as my "clean" sound without the overdrive. It is beautiful. A little Dick Dale-ish. Then when I want a little edge I turn off the phaser and delay and turn on the overdrive. Maybe nudge down the volume a little more and I can rock AC/DC licks at midnight without raising complaints from the neighbors. And it sounds ... BIG!No this is not the same as actually BEING loud. For one thing your ears won't ring. The cops won't come knocking to serve a noise complaint. Knickknacks will remain on their knickknack shelves. The dogs won't howl.But should you desire to rock out at midnight in your apartment building this amp fits the bill.So much so that I, the man with the hands "just not made for guitar" now have guitar callouses, a lust after a couple $1.5-$2k guitars one of which will soon come home with me and frankly a love for playing the guitar that I never had before in my life. This all because I can just set up my little rig next to the couch and it's always there. Always ready to go. So I play while I'm watching football or baseball. I play while I'm watching the news. I play while I'm playing Crazy 8's with my son. I play morning, noon and night. Not only that but I'm actually getting to be not-that-bad at playing either. Lots of playing/practice seems to inevitably make on better (hint: do those finger exercises too, they work).So I am not exaggerating when I reiterate my headline: this little amp changed my life (for the better).Best buy for under $100 I've made since I bought my son his Strider balance bike. Which is orange too!

Another reviewer said "perfect bedroom amp", and I'm inclined to agree for the most part. With a mighty 3 W output and 4 inch speaker, It has usefully more power than the Fender or Marshall toy amps, it has a chunky square shape which makes it stable and unlikely to fall over, and the built-in tuner is a bonus. There are miniature amplifiers which punch above their weight, the Roland Micro Cube (of which I own an example) Is one of them and is well worth the extra money if you want a sound that comes close to that of a big amplifier, but the Orange acquits itself well and is small enough to be kept lying around for when the muse strikes. NOTE: Like many amps of its ilk, the Orange has an input channel which is easily overloaded by a humbucker pickup - with my customised Strat (H - S - H), I can get quite a lot of useful output with the middle single-coil pickup, but the sound goes to pieces (and not in an interesting way) quite soon with a humbucker. Other point – the amp will not switch on without a lead plugged into the input. A sensible feature, which means you're unlikely to turn the thing on by accident and waste the battery, but mystifying until you know about it. The box also includes two strap buttons – presumably the idea is that you fit these and can then carry the amp on your shoulder, but I don't really think it would be loud enough for busking.

I was initially wanting to buy the blackstar model however it had a non standard power supply and 20 GBP for the powersupply it self. Since I carry a distortion pedal and a 9 V supply for it I can simply daisy chain it and use it with this amp. It is really loud even for a hotel room if you run it with a delay pedal. the Distortion is not as saturated but gets your into the rock riff spectrum than heavy metal. Great amp for practice and for travel. I specifically bought this on one of my business trips as I was carrying my guitar along with me. Small form factor, ideal weight, no fuss and biggest plus point of having a inline tuner. Great product and timely delivery, I will rate this over any other portable amp out in the market.

The wild enthusiasm in other online reviews is a bit surprising. Certainly this is a well built product, and I think good value, but it took a lot of fiddling with volume and other controls on my guitar, pedal and the amp itself before the sound was reasonable. However, it now serves well as a quiet practice amp that I use with an acoustic guitar through an effects pedal and compressor. It is very portable and will certainly get plenty of use. There are definite limitations, eg any attempt to turn up the volume or use the overdrive feature just produces horrible fuzz and distortion. On balance I am pleased I bought it and it has found a niche in my list of gadgets and accessories. One note: the ON light does not come on until a guitar is attached with the jack plug.

Small but mighty.Very simple: has tuner which works very well, 9v battery, clean and dirty channels and only two control knobs: tone and volume. Tone gives control on middle frequency in pretty wide range, from dark classic jazz tone to bright and glassy. Clean channel is great gives classic British sound, with passive LP humbuckers sounds slightly crunchy, some kind of soft drive. Dirty channel is classic rock distortion/drive. Could not rule metal sound. Sounds decent with external distortion pedals (mxr Fullbore, OCD). Another worth noticing fact that it has good speaker simulator, so you can plug your headphones and really enjoy it.Loud enough for home practicing.

After reading up on this Micro Amp I found the reviews were mixed. A lot of professional musicians had reviewed and were not impressed. I think if you are going to compare this to larger Amps your going to have an obvious outcome, however if you judge it for what it’s is it’s great.It’s small relatively well made perhaps not for dragging round the street busking but for my daughter in her bedroom it’s great although in my opinion far to loud 😀.