Crazy Tube Circuits sure knows how to put a twofer together. Think the Unobtanium, which combined a Dumble-inspired preamp with a Klon-style overdrive, or the Heatseeker, which was an all-in-one pedalboard solution for nailing AC/DC electric guitar tones. The Hi Power did something similar for David Gilmour fans.
Well, the Greek guitar effects pedal company has done it again with the Orama, which pairs a preamp/drive circuit inspired by a classic British tube amp with a fuzz inspired by a ‘90s boutique classic, and of course CTC keeps us all guessing as to where the inspiration comes from, but not for very long.
C’mon, with that promo video reel, the trip to the fruit and veg counter, oranges and peaches (and then the pedal itself) all in the blender? Here we have an Orange Amps inspired preamp, a Frantone Peachfuzz-style circuit, all in one housing, and that alone tells us that this could be a late contender for best stoner/doom pedal of the year.
But then this will do a whole lot more than just big woolly mammoth riffs. Orama means “vision” in Greek, and CTC describes this project as “vision in gain”.
“Whether used as two separate voices or as one unified wall of sound, it delivers the power, response, and full spectrum of rock tone,” says the brand. “It’s a dialogue between eras and genres.”
Of course it is hard to put a full-sized Orange OR-120 into a pedal, but CTC has engineered a circuit that promises that dynamic response.
The Orama takes the incoming 9V DC from your pedalboard power supply and juices it up internally to 34V, all that power feeding the preamp’s JFET circuitry to give you abundant headroom, that touch-sensitive tube amp response that made the original amps a great blues-rock amp.
And you have a similar control over the feel and shape of the tone here; the Orama’s F.A.T. dial (Fatness Adjustment Tweak) shapes how the bass ands lower mids feed hit the gain stage.
“This control is not subtle,” warns CTC. “Rach position produces a distinct tonal shift, from lean and biting to thick and saturated.”
So you’ve got the F.A.T. dial for your low-end chonkiness. It’s only fair there’s some high-end boosterism at play here too via the H.F.D. (High Frequency Dynamics) dial, which will help players preserve that clarity and sparkle in their sound. Then, like the OR-120, you’ve got the Hz and KHz dials for regular EQ’ing duties. And that’s just the amp side.
The fuzz? Well, things are more simple here. This is a three-knob setup, Volume, Fuzz, Tone, plus a two-way toggle switch for Burn/Raw modes. Raw is “open and dynamic”. Burn has a more low-end body to it, “a heavier, molten” sound.
The Peachfuzz might be the original inspiration for this but CTC has tweaked it hoping that the fuzz will sit better in a mix. And there’s even a loop in which you can stick other effects in between the two sections.
Available now, handmade in Greece, the Orama is priced £245/$305/€279. See Crazy Tube Circuits for more details.
