i've had the marshall for years and i know the overdrive is pretty good on it, but i guess i didn't realize that it's probably something like a tube screamer with a speaker - it's less a mini amp and more a stomp box with a speaker. it's actually a relatively decent overdrive sound, but i've never been a big marshall fan, and i probably wouldn't have taken the thing if it wasn't free.
the orange has a much creamier, thicker sound, which is what i bought it for, but i was also able to get some very nice clean blues/jazz tones out of it, which i wasn't expecting from the reviews. the conclusion is that the people doing clean tones through the orange in their reviews largely really didn't know what the fuck they were doing, which is something that was also largely obvious from watching them play. if you set your pickups up properly and you play with a little bit of a soft touch, it actually sounds great.
so, yes, the speaker does clip if you drive it, which...it's a fucking orange. c'mon. but, if you turn the volume on your guitar down a little, it doesn't clip at all. this admittedly required a little more attention than the ms-2, but that's a benefit.
i decided i needed to upload some evidence to counter a lot of the clueless reviews, as people reviewing the device seem to either fall into the category of "looking for overdrive and don't care about clean" or "looking for clean and don't know what they're fucking doing". hopefully, i can help fill the gap of a clean guitarist knowing what they're doing. but there's some dirty chords, too...
so, i'm happy with this, but i'm going to get the pignose anyways because it's not quite giving me that tubey sound, although it got a lot closer than i expected it to.
