Cypress TT-15

Name: Cypress TT-15
Author: Black Rooster Audio

by Black Rooster Audio · Amp Sim · Lunchbox guitar amp head

Not rated yet

A free guitar amp plugin inspired by the Orange Tiny Terror low-wattage head, with gain from clean to heavy distortion.

It has a low/high output switch, a single tone knob and switchable cabinet simulation, and it is free with a Black Rooster Audio account.

Best for: Guitars, Bass, Keys & Synths. Genres: Rock & Indie, Metal.

Keywords: electric guitar, free, minimal controls, bass, clean, heavy, inspired by, simple, circuit-modelled, CPU-light, crunchy, impulse-response based, synths, aggressive, beginner-friendly, bright, dark, gentle, glassy, gritty, mixing, oversampling, resizable UI, single knob, thick, tracking, transformer, tube, warm.

What it does

Cypress TT-15 is a free guitar amp head plugin from Black Rooster Audio, based on the Orange Tiny Terror, the small British lunchbox head known for big tones from few controls. It simulates the preamp and power-amp tube stages, tone filter and output transformer in real time, which the developer calls "a living circuit, not a snapshot".

Gain: runs from glassy clean tones with headroom to heavy, biting distortion that keeps note definition.
Tone: a single roll-off filter: turn it down for a darker, warmer voice, up for a brighter one.
Volume: drives the power-amp stage into gentle overdrive; balance it against Gain to set the final character.
Output Low/High switch: two power-stage configurations at different rail voltages, echoing the hardware's 15 W / 7 W selector; Low breaks up earlier and thicker at lower volumes.
Cabinet switch: turns the built-in speaker cabinet simulation on or off, so you can use your own IR loader instead.
Clip lamp: an output-level lamp lights when the signal runs hot.
Engine: SPICE-style circuit simulation, SSE2-optimised, with auto-adjusted oversampling and HighDPI/Retina support.

It is free with no time limit or watermark.

Source: Black Rooster Audio product page

When to use it

Cypress TT-15 is one amp with three knobs, at the opposite end from rated suites such as Neural DSP's Archetype plugins, IK Multimedia AmpliTube 5 MAX and Native Instruments Guitar Rig 7 Pro, which give you many amps, pedals, cabinets and effects for a price. Unlike the free Neural Amp Modeler, it does not load captures of real rigs. If you want the licensed version rather than this one, Orange's official Tiny Terror model is available inside AmpliTube. Cypress TT-15 is the quick, free way to get British crunch with almost no learning curve, and its low CPU use suits tracking.

Best for: British-style crunch and mid- to high-gain distortion on guitars, and grit on bass or synths.
Genres: rock, indie, stoner and metal.
Look elsewhere if: you want several amps, pedals or captures (AmpliTube 5 MAX, Neural Amp Modeler) or tight modern metal tones (Archetype: Gojira X).
Tip: switch the cabinet off and load your own impulse responses after it for more control over the speaker sound.

What producers say

Users treat it as a solid free Orange-style amp: simple and light on CPU, with some noise at high gain.

KVR users rate it 5 out of 5 from 2 reviews, praising "great classic Orange tone", simple controls and low CPU use for live tracking.
Criticisms (KVR): one reviewer found it "does get rather noisy when the gain is up".
Gearnews covered the release without a full review, noting it emulates a Tiny Terror "in software form" and that Orange's official version lives in AmpliTube.

Where to buy

Black Rooster Audio: Free

Tutorials and reviews

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