Orange Acoustic Pedal

The Orange Acoustic Pedal gets out of your way and lets your acoustic guitar sound like itself, only better. It’s a single-ended Class A preamp running at 18V rather than the standard 9V, giving the JFET circuit enough headroom to stay quiet and transparent no matter how hard you push the EQ. You get a studio-quality DI, a 3-band EQ with a fully parametric mid band, and a buffered effects loop, all in one compact box.

What strikes me most is how quiet this thing is. The 18V operation pays off: I couldn’t detect any additional hiss when engaged, which is crucial for acoustic applications where every sound gets magnified.

Controls

Reading the panel top to bottom: Bass, the Phase pushbutton and Treble across the top row, the Middle knob centered beneath them, then Notch and Q Factor, and finally Volume as the large knob at the bottom.

Bass and Treble are straightforward shelf controls for dialing in body or air. The Phase button flips the polarity of the output, which can clear up cancellation issues when you’re running both the XLR and the jack output simultaneously, or when your pickup is fighting with a stage mic.

The Middle, Notch and Q Factor trio is where the real work happens, because together they form the parametric mid band. Middle sets how much you cut or boost, Notch picks the frequency it acts on (68Hz to 1.2kHz), and Q Factor sets how wide or narrow the band is: wide for gentle tone shaping, narrow for a surgical move that barely touches the frequencies on either side. Pull the Middle down, park the Notch on the offending frequency and tighten the Q, and you have a precise anti-feedback filter. In the demo above I’ve set up sweeps for Bass, Treble, Middle, Notch, and Q Factor so you can hear each one in isolation.

The buffered effects loop accepts reverb or delay between the preamp and the outputs without loading down the signal. The FX Loop preset in the demo shows a Koldwave modulation pedal inserted there for a sense of how the loop integrates.

There’s no bypass footswitch. The pedal is always on.

How It Sounds

The core voice is transparent: Orange describes it as designed to preserve your guitar’s natural character with minimal coloration, and that holds up. The Full Bodied preset (Bass at 8, Middle at 7, Treble at 3) leans into warmth and body while pulling back the brightness that piezos tend to exaggerate. Tamed EQ (Bass at 3, Middle at 1.5, Treble at 2.5) reins everything in for a leaner, more fingerpicking-friendly tone. Mellow (Middle and Treble both at 0, Bass at 5) strips away the top end entirely for a round, woody sound.

The Notch sweep preset runs with the Middle maxed to 10, so you hear the boosted band travel across the frequency range as the Notch moves.

Who It’s For

Gigging acoustic players who need a reliable DI are the obvious audience. The balanced XLR feeds front-of-house or an audio interface directly, while the quarter-inch jack stays active at the same time for a stage amp or monitor feed. The notch filter makes it genuinely useful for anyone fighting feedback with a piezo pickup on a loud stage.

Home recording players get a low-noise signal path for going direct into an interface without hunting for phantom-powered preamp options. The 18V supply ships in the box.

The honest caveat: there’s no footswitch for bypass, so you’re committing to keeping it in your signal chain. If you only need a one-song DI and want to hard-bypass between songs, you’ll need a switcher in front of it.

Specs

• Circuit: single-ended Class A JFET preamp
• Controls: Bass, Middle, Treble, Notch (68Hz to 1.2kHz), Q Factor, Volume, Phase (pushbutton)
• Outputs: balanced XLR, quarter-inch jack (active simultaneously)
• Buffered effects loop (send and return)
• Power: 18V centre positive DC (18V supply included)
• Dimensions (unboxed): 10.5 x 6 x 13.7 cm
• Weight (unboxed): 400g

Signal Chain

• Martin DRS1 with Fishman Sonitone Piezo Pickup
• Acoustic Pedal
• A bit of room-like reverb from the Valhalla Vintage Verb plugin

Where to Buy

Cure your GAS! Treat yo' self

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Get detailed specs on Orange's website

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