Orange Amplification OPC (2013) review

Orange Amplification’s line of music production PCs is uniquely built into an amp case that’s fitted with a pair of 6.5in JBL monitor speakers and a variety of 1/4in audio inputs and outputs for connecting instruments and mixing desks. Audio is handled via a proprietary sound card with its own low-latency ASIO drivers for hassle-free recording and live effects processing. We were surprised that the heavy duty case didn’t provide more complete soundproofing, but the faint whirr of fans wasn’t loud enough to interfere with recordings made around a metre away from the PC.

The OPC doesn’t just look the part, it really can be used as a full amp, but bear in mind that there’s no direct pass-through from the guitar inputs to the speakers. The PC must be switched on to use it as an amp. Even so, the OPC comes with software effects racks and a wealth of other audio tools, making it a superb low-latency digital effects rack.

At the top of the PC are volume and tone controls for the speakers, alongside two TRS inputs suitable for connecting guitars or, if you flip a switch on the second input, a microphone. Another switch adds a 20dB gain boost to the second input for quieter audio sources, which is handy if you’re recording an acoustic instrument with a microphone rather than pickups. There’s also an antenna for the very handy integrated dual-band Wi-Fi adaptor, a neat little slot-loading DVD-RW drive and a USB port.

AMPED-UP INTEL

The PC’s available in a variety of specifications with different processors, memory, storage and graphics cards. We’ve reviewed the top-of-the-range model, which has an Ivy Bridge Intel Core i7-3770K processor, a massive 16GB of RAM, a 500GB SSD and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 650 Ti with 1GB of dedicated memory. It’s a blistering specification by any standard, and the SSD and vast amount of RAM are particularly well suited to ambitious audio production and recording projections.

In our standard tests, the system got an overall score of 102 in our application benchmarks. The Core i7-3770K doesn’t have much on our reference Core i5-3570K processor in terms of performance, but it’ll cost you £32 more than the i5. We recommend saving a bit of money when choosing your specification and opt for the i5 instead.

The dedicated GTX 650 Ti graphics card is surprisingly capable when it comes to gaming. Orange has opted for a single-width graphics card, as a larger card wouldn’t fit into the low-profile slot. The card has microHDMI, DVI and VGA ports, giving it wide compatibility with modern monitors. It produced a frame rate of 32.8fps in Dirt Showdown at ultra quality and even managed 25.8fps in Crysis 2 at full quality. Reducing the game’s quality settings to Extreme produced a smooth 30fps, and Crysis 2 still looks good at that quality setting.

Incidentally, gaming audio sounds amazing through the integrated monitor speakers. Loud and full, with plenty of bass for the explosions. However, if you want proper surround sound, you can always switch to using the motherboard’s onboard audio, as there are 5.1 analogue, along with optical and coaxial S/PDIF outputs. Another advantage of having a dedicated graphics card is that the PC doesn’t have to share any of its memory with an on-chip GPU.

GREY BOARD

The motherboard is a Gigabyte H61N-USB3 mini-ITX board which fits snugly inside the amp case. It’s getting on a bit, and doesn’t have as many features as you’d see on a larger board, but it has more or less everything you’d want. Our only reservation is that it lacks SATA3 support, which means that the 500GB Samsung 840 SSD in this version of the PC isn’t being used to its fullest extent. We timed the system at 5 seconds from sleep, but it took 25 seconds to boot from cold, which is definitely on the slow side for a computer system with an SSD.

Despite its lack of SATA3 support, the motherboard’s really well suited to the task at hand. It only has one expansion slot, and that’s a PCI-E x16 slot that’s consumed by the graphics card. There are just two memory slots, each packed with their maximum 8GB of RAM, and two SATA2 ports, one for the DVD-RW drive and one for the SSD. On its backplane, alongside ports for Gigabit Ethernet, onboard audio and video, is an eSATA2 port and six USB ports, two of which are USB3. On the back of the PC is two pairs of 1/4in TRS connectors: one pair for line-level input and one pair of line-level output. These let you run stereo connections between the PC and other audio equipment, such as mixing consoles or external studio monitors. The system also comes with a slim Chiclet-style keyboard and a small mouse. Both are fairly comfortable to use, but we suggest investing in some more ergonomically designed peripherals if you intend to spend many hours making delicate selections while editing.

PRODUCTION VALUE

Like the previous version of the OPC, the system comes installed with a wide range of audio production software. It runs Windows 8, which proved to be an entirely stable environment for music production during our tests. If you’re a hands-on guitar-wielding type, you’ll love AmpliTube3, which is a complete software effects rack with masses of virtual stomp boxes, plug-ins and pre-set sound profiles.

Meanwhile, ToonTrack’s EZdrummer Lite lets you create drum lines to accompany your jam. Unless you have a MIDI drum kit hooked up to the PC, EZdrummer feels limited and clumsy at first but we really appreciated the wide range of pre-defined drum loops, called gooves, which range from samba rhythms to high-speed double kick-drum arrangements for metal.

EZdrummer integrates with the supplied audio recording suite, PreSonus’ Studio One Artist OEM 1.6.5, so you can use it to create full rhythm tracks for your songs. Studio One Artists is a fairly basic multitrack recording Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) environment, but it has full support for analogue and MIDI recording as well as a few proprietary plugins. This special version of Studio One Artist edition works with Amplitude3, making it far more useful than the standard version, which doesn’t support third-party plugins in any format. This version can’t export to MP3, but it can export tracks to WAV, AIFF and FLAC formats, so you can always do that and convert them using another program. If you want more complete plugin support, you’ll have to spend £83 to upgrade to Studio One Producer 2.

We’re not massive fans of Studio One’s interface because of its cramped buttons and limited effects support, but it’s a functional recording and production environment. It just lacks the polish of Ableton Live or Reason Essentials.

If you don’t get along with Studio One, Orange has also supplied a copy of Acoustica Mixcraft 6.1. Unlike Studio One, Mixcraft does support VST plug-ins, which gives you additional options for effects and synths in addition to Amplitude and Mixcraft’s own rather limp collection of effects. Mixcraft is also a friendlier environment in which to record than Studio One, with clearly marked buttons that make it easy to just dive in and record without so much as glancing at the manual.

The Orange OPC is a brilliant buy for musicians, but this top-of-the-range version is very expensive and has a handful of flaws, most noticeably the lack of SATA3 ports on the motherboard that doesn’t let the 500GB SSD reach its full potential. There’s no other audio production system quite like it and we love the portability of the entire PC and the convenience of the high-end integrated monitor speakers. If you don’t need either of those features, a standard desktop PC with a decent processor and plenty of RAM, combined with a Propellerhead Balance (which comes with Propellerhead’s brilliant Reason Essential DAW) and a decent pair of studio monitors might work better for you. However, the OPC is still unique, outstandingly well designed and one of our favourite audio production systems.