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Orange Crush Mini Amp – This ONE feature makes this amp amazing!
Introduction
We reviewed and demo’d the Boss Katana Mini and had an amazing response to it (Review Here). Well, we started thinking about other Mini Amps and just had to try the Orange Crush Mini! This super small and massively popular amp is designed to give you huge tones at bedroom levels. However, the Orange Crush Mini isn’t just a small battery-powered toy – it’s packed with useful features and even hides a big secret! A secret that makes the Orange Crush Mini one of the most practical and fun Orange Amps around.
So, as always, let’s go over the amp, break down what it does and all the features and controls it has on board, and then hear what it sounds like! After that, we’ll share our thoughts and opinions on this little beast. So, what exactly is the Orange Crush Mini?
Orange Crush Mini
The Orange Crush Mini is a small and portable home practice amp, designed to deliver great sound wherever inspiration strikes! You can throw it in your backpack and take it anywhere, just in case you need it. Looking at the amp, you’ll see it proudly wears the traditional Orange Amps colours and design (the Crush Mini is also available in black). You can instantly tell which series it belongs to, as it looks very similar to its bigger brothers in both power and size.
The Orange Crush Mini is a 3-watt, all-solid-state guitar amplifier. Weighing just 904g and housing a 4” guitar speaker, this little amp might not seem serious at first glance – but wait a minute! It actually has a few tricks up its sleeve.
On the top of the amp we have the input jack on the far left then we have what I like to call “Oranges Simple Controls”. 3 knobs that allow you to control the tone and volume however you want.:
- Gain: Set how much overdrive or gain you want from your sound
- Tone: Adjusts the tone of the sound, Clockwise will scoop the mids and enhance the trebles, while anti-clockwise will enhance the mids and smooth out the treble.
- Volume: Adjust the overall output of the amp! All the way to the right will unleash all 3 watts of power.
After the three controls, you’ll find a headphone jack, allowing you to use the Orange Crush Mini for silent practice or quick warm-ups. Below this, there’s also a built-in tuner – a handy and practical feature that lets you keep your guitar perfectly in tune. Simply press the tuner button to engage it, and if you want to tune in silence, you can set the volume to zero.
More on the Orange Crush Mini
Turning the unit around we see the options on the back of the Orange Crush Mini. Starting with this amps biggest selling point and big secret:
- Speaker Out: Orange have made it so you can hook the Crush Mini up to any speaker cabinet (minimum of 8ohms). Allowing you to take this tiny micro amp and run it though a full 4X12 cabinet. We will be hearing that later!
- Aux in: option, allowing you to run backing track through the amp to jam along with.
- DC input: Use his to power the device. You can also power it on a 9v battery if you would like.
You can pick the Orange Crush Mini from most retailers for around £45. If you want to check them out, you can click the links at the bottom of the page. Great value but is it worth it? Is the Crush Mini just a small toy? Or can you actually use it?
The Sounds
For sounds, this was a really tough one – we wanted to show you what the Orange Crush Mini actually sounds like, but we also wanted to highlight what the amp is truly capable of. For the demo songs, we used the speaker out on both tracks, then loaded up an IR using the Two Notes Gnome plugin. This allowed us to add some nice reverbs and delays in the “FX loop.”
For the sound samples, we tested a few different setups: mic’d and speaker output. We ran through the amp using the speaker out with both single-coil and humbucker pickups, and then we mic’d up the internal speaker, again testing with both single coils and humbuckers. For the speaker out, we used a 1×12 cab IR, and for the mic’d sounds, we used a t.bone SC400 mic placed about one foot away to give you more of an “in-room” feel.
What are my thoughts?
The Design
What do we think about the Orange Crush Mini? Well, let’s start with the looks and design! Honestly, it is so well made. I was genuinely surprised at how nice it both felt and looked. It feels solid, has a good weight, and is built to last. Looks-wise, it has that classic Orange Amps style, right down to the details. If you take a close-up photo, you could easily mistake it for a full-sized Orange amp!
All the controls are really responsive and react well. The jack socket has a firm, reliable grip, so your cable isn’t coming loose anytime soon. On top of that, all the LEDs are bright and clear. The built-in tuner also has excellent LEDs, which are easy to read even from a distance (not that you’ll be too far from this amp).
"That said, don’t be fooled - this little amp packs a decent amount of volume for only 3 watts!"
The Sounds
Sounds? Well, it sounds good! The Orange Crush Mini is definitely a usable practice amp. Don’t get me wrong, it still sounds like a small practice amp – but it’s surprisingly versatile. The tone and gain controls let you dial in a wide variety of sounds. However, push the gain too hard and the amp can start to sound fizzy. That said, don’t be fooled – this little amp packs a decent amount of volume for only 3 watts!
If you think it might sound better through headphones, you’d be mistaken. The headphone output doesn’t appear to have cab simulation, so what you get is a direct signal. That works nicely for funky clean tones, but the moment you add gain it quickly becomes harsh – like a bag of wasps escaping!
While we’re on the subject of sound, let’s talk about using the speaker out. We plugged the Orange Crush Mini into our Two Notes Captor and ran it through several cabinets to see how it performed – and it sounded incredible! Everything that was missing from the internal speaker suddenly came alive. It really opened the amp up. Of course, with only 3 watts, headroom and overall volume remain limited. Still, I honestly believe you could use this amp live if you were miking up the cab and running in-ears.
More on the Sounds
Now, what about pedals? Using the speaker out, I ran an overdrive (JSA Nightingale) and a harmonic tremolo (JSA Harmonic Tremolo) straight into the front end, and it sounded great! Not outstanding, but definitely usable and musical. I could happily live with that sound. However, running the same pedals through the internal speaker was unusable – I just couldn’t get a good tone out of it.
One thing worth noting is that the Orange Crush Mini doesn’t offer a lot of clean headroom. With the gain set at around 12 o’clock, it already begins to break up. That’s a shame, because this amp can deliver some lovely clean tones at lower volumes. But if you’re hoping for loud cleans, this amp won’t get you there. To achieve higher volume, you need to push both the volume and gain – and at that point, it inevitably starts to distort.
The Drawbacks
One of my biggest loves for the Orange Crush Mini is also one of its most annoying features – the auto power function! When you plug a cable in, the amp switches on, and when you remove the cable it switches off. It’s an awesome feature, and I really do love it. However, when I’m recording or playing for a few hours, it would be nice to have a switch to override that option. Sometimes, when I’m recording these reviews, I leave the amp and gear all set up. I know it’s only one cable to unplug, but it can still be a bit of a pain!
As mentioned above, the sound through the internal speaker isn’t the best. Clean tones work wonderfully, but as soon as you add any overdrive or gain, it becomes a bit fizzy. It’s not unusable, but it isn’t the most pleasant sound to play through. The internal speaker will do the job – but nothing more.
"For the price, it’s a fun little amp to have lying around. You might use it a lot, or you might not"
Final Thoughts
To round off the review, if you’re looking for a small, battery-powered amp to practice with, should you get the Orange Crush Mini? Well… maybe! If you love the classic Orange Amps sound, then yes – grab this amp. Using the external speaker output, it’s absolutely usable for practice or warming up. However, I still think the Boss Katana Mini (Review Here) edges it out for internal speaker sound. That said, the Orange Crush Mini has two huge advantages: a built-in tuner and a speaker out!
For the price, it’s a fun little amp to have lying around. You might use it a lot, or you might not – but if you’re like me and enjoy collecting mini practice amps, then you’ll definitely want to pick one up. Testing this one has also inspired us to check out more mini practice amps on the market!
What the Orange Crush Mini really shows is just how much difference a speaker can make. The actual solid-state amp inside is more than fine and delivers those classic Orange tones. But it’s the small 4-inch speaker that holds it back. Definitely worth remembering – if you have a combo or cab you don’t like the sound of, it might not be the amp at fault… it could be the speaker!
Conclusion
That is our review of the Orange Crush Mini! We’ve really enjoyed playing through this little amp. We don’t often get much time with Orange Amps, but we’ll definitely be getting more in to review – they genuinely have their own unique sound and are always impressive. We’d especially love to review one of their full-size solid-state heads in the future. What do you think of the Orange Crush Mini? Head over to our Instagram page and let us know your thoughts!
Are you enjoying our mini practice amp reviews? We have several more lined up, and our collection of practice amps just keeps growing! There’s something about these small amps that we really love – they’re accessible, affordable, and perfect for helping players explore different tones while keeping the volume down. We often get asked, “What amp do you recommend for home use?” and our usual answer has been the Boss Katana Mini. But now, we’ll also be recommending the Orange Crush Mini, thanks to its features, portability, and that classic Orange Amps tone.
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Orange Crush Mini Links:
- Orange Crush Mini (Thomann Affiliate)
- Orange Crush Mini (Andertons Affiliate)
- Andertons Affiliate Link
- Thomann Affiliate Link
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