Orange Amplification OPC review

Orange Amplification is one of Britain’s most iconic makers of music equipment and the company’s amps have been seen on stage with everyone from Jimi Hendrix to The Cure. It seems like a long dive from the main stage at the Isle of Wight festival to the desktop PC market, but the OPC is both brilliantly designed and extremely well targeted towards its niche audience of guitarists, singer-songwriters and bedroom musicians.

The OPC looks just like one of Orange’s practice amps. You can use it as one, too, simply by booting the computer and loading one of the easy-to-use software suites. Everything comes fully configured and there’s a reassuringly comprehensive user guide sitting on the desktop.

At the top of the chassis are two 1/4in TRS inputs, which can be used to connect instruments including guitars, basses and electric violins. If you want to plug in a mic, you’ll want to use Input 2, which has a specific mode for microphones and an optional 20dB gain boost which will be helpful if you use a standard dynamic mic. Also located on the top are volume, treble, middle and bass controls for the built-in pair of studio quality JBL speakers that lurk behind the woven front panel, as well as the power switch, a USB port, the PC’s wireless networking antenna, a vertical slot DVD drive and a faceted amber light that lets you know the OPC is switched on.

At the back of the case is a pair of 1/4in TRS inputs that allow you to feed stereo audio from an external source such as a DJ console or mixing desk to the PC. Below them are two more 1/4in ports which can be used together to output stereo audio; alternatively, you can use the left output by itself to drive a pair of headphones – the output supports impedances of between 32 and 600 ohms, so even high-impedance studio reference headphones can be used.

You’ll also find a more familiar selection of PC ports on the back. There are two HDMI and one VGA graphics outputs, six USB ports – two of them USB3 – an eSATA port, Gigabit Ethernet, both optical and coaxial S/PDIF digital audio outputs and a set of standard 3.5mm stereo audio outputs for 7.1 surround sound. The 7.1 sound is supplied by the motherboard’s Realtek ALC889 audio processor, but Orange has also built a second dedicated sound card into the case, and it’s this that drives the high-quality audio inputs and outputs and is controlled by the low-latency ASIO driver interface required to carry out real time audio processing.

On that note, the OPC comes with a wealth of audio production, processing and tutorial software, primarily targeted at guitarists. Video lessons are provided by the LickLibrary app, which covers the basics of everything from power chords to the blues. Also supplied is Acoustica’s Mixcraft, which lets you assemble samples to create backings or fully fledged pieces of music, as well as allowing you to record your own; Toontrack Solo and the EZ Drummer patch library, which allow you to create rhythm tracks and PreSonus Studio One Artist, a full multi-track Digital Audio Workstation environment for recording, editing and MIDI composition. It integrates with the AmpliTube 3 digital effects rack to provide you with a comprehensive library of guitar effects and makes it blissfully simple to just noodle and record whatever you get up to, so no moment of inspiration need be lost. AmpliTube can also be used as a stand-alone effects rack if you just want to plug in and play – you can even buy extra custom effects modules for it from the likes of Fender and Jet City.

The heavy-duty aluminium case is shielded to prevent any of the PC’s components from interfering with the speakers or your recording. It’s a little hard to open, though – you’ll need to locate two concealed screws and remove two others with an Allen key.

The OPC has an Intel Core i5-2500K processor and 6GB of memory fitted to a Gigabyte GA-H67N-USB3-B3 mini-ITX motherboard; it got an overall score of 101 in our benchmark tests, which is exactly what we’d expect from this processor. There’s only one expansion slot – a PCI-E x16 slot, which allows you to add a graphics card. You’ll be limited by both the size of the case’s internal bay and the 400W power supply, but you should still be able to improve on the gaming performance of the integrated Intel HD Graphics 3000 on-chip graphics processing. The latter will handle older 3D games such as Portal at low resolutions, but achieved a frame rate of just 16.9fps in our 720p Dirt3 test. There are four SATA ports on the motherboard, and only two are used by the 500GB hard disk and DVD drive, but there’s no space to fit any others. Both memory slots are also occupied.

The PC weighs just under 11kg and has a sturdy amp-style handle that makes it easy to carry around. The keyboard and mouse are unremarkable but comfortable to use – the keyboard has flat, widely spaced keys and is comfortable to use in limited space. The optical mouse is rather small and doesn’t work well on some surfaces but it’s comfortable. Wireless peripherals could be a useful upgrade if you want to play some distance away from the PC without having to come back to use the keyboard or mouse, though.

If you already have a computer that you’re perfectly happy with, you’d be better off checking out Propellerhead’s Balance audio production sound card (review soon), which provides inputs, outputs and a copy of the amazing Reason Essentials Digital Audio Workstation software. However, if you’re a musician in need of a PC, recording studio, amp and live effects rack, the OPC is a perfect one-stop shop.