Ed Sheeran has joined forces with legendary British guitar amp brand Orange on a signature line of acoustic guitar amps, and they have launched global grassroots music campaign to support venues and encourage young and emerging musical talent to get out and play.
The Outlowd ES series comprises a trio of amps: the super-compact and portable ES3 acoustic amp, the flagship 100-watt ES100 acoustic guitar amp, and the ES60, an amp Orange describes as “the ultimate busking amp”.
Sheeran helped launched the Outlowd: Play It Home campaign – and the amps – on the streets of Ipswich, when he performed with music teacher Lianne Kaye on June 5. Sheeran gave his amp to a nine-year-old boy after the performance, with a year’s worth of music lessons.
Kaye cut her holiday in Malaga short for the opportunity, but didn’t realise she would be playing Ipswich Waterfront with Sheeran until the night before.
“I was sat in the airport and my flight was delayed,” she told the BBC. “My best friend sent a screenshot to our group chat and it was Ed [Sheeran] he put on his stories he was going to be in Ipswich and she was like ‘I don't think you're going to be on your own’. That’s when the penny dropped.”
The streets were where it started for Sheeran. He might pack out stadiums nowadays but he has not lost his love for busking, and urges other young and up-and-coming musicians to put themselves out there and take their sound to the street, to coffee shops, live music venues – to anywhere they can play in front of an audience.
“I think tiny venues are super important to learn how to perform and busking teaches you not to sweat the big stuff,” says Sheeran. “I wanted this project with Orange to feel honest to that – celebrating local musicians, local communities, and the idea that anyone can start somewhere.”
The key word, says Sheeran, is fun. Sometimes that gets forgotten.
“Playing music is a really fun thing to do and it should always be fun. It should feel like an escape,” he says. ‘Now I’m in my 30s, I just want to do things that I enjoy and get excited by. With this collaboration, it was like, would I use this? Is this something that I need in my life as a musician? And the answer was yes.”
The Play It Home campaign will travel to Guildford in England, Toronto, Paris, Sydney, Los Angeles, Tokyo, and Bamberg in Germany, where local artists will perform in places of interest, with support from retailers. Cliff Cooper, founder and CEO of Orange Amps, says Sheeran wants to get more people playing.
“It’s a real pleasure to work with Ed,” says Cooper. “He is such a talented and caring person who does so much to introduce people into music”.
And he was also closely involved in the design of this Outlowd series. Each comes in the traditional citrus-coloured vinyl covering with a signature Ed Sheeran badge. And there’s something for all players here.
At £149/$199, the ES3 is the an eminently affordable option, a simple low-powered three-watter – just three dials for volume, tone and reverb – with Bluetooth and USB-C playback, and the option to run it off of a lithium-ion battery. Its slanted cabinet design should help it sound bigger than it looks.
The largest in the series is the 100-watt ES100. Priced £1,099/$1,499, it has two channels, a comprehensive suite of EQ controls, has an XLR input for your vocal microphone, and those 100-watts drives a lightweight Celestion neodymium 12” speaker.
There’s an effects loop too, and handily everything you need to access is on the control panel, with the on/off switch on the back. Again, the cabinet is slanted.
Finally, we have what Orange is calling “the ultimate busking amp”, the ES60. As the name suggests, we’ve got 60-watts under the hood, and this is the amp Sheeran used to launch the series in Ipswich. Again, you’ve got two channels, reverb.
There is a headphones output and an aux-in, and a balanced input with phantom power for your vocal microphone – in short, everything you need to play in the street, in the park, anywhere, and all for £499/$699.
And who knows where all that busking might take you. Ed Sheeran did all right for himself.
For more details, head over to Orange Amps.
