neck and an H3+ in the bridge—I used
the Screamer 70 to drive a Bogner 20th
Anniversary 2x12 into submission. As I
explored higher volumes, I really started to
appreciate the Screamer 70’s dynamics. The
amp was very responsive to pick attack and
changes in my guitar’s volume knob, and
it surrendered gobs of gain, with a perfect
voicing in the mids for cut and definition.
It sounds and feels like a combination of
a mid-’70s Orange Overdrive 120 and the
aforementioned Marshall JCM800. All the
grind and smooth cut reminiscent of that
era of JCM800s was there, combined with
the massive, squishy low end of those famed
Orange heads. It’s a combination that’s perfect for huge riffs à la Kyuss, High on Fire,
and early Queens of the Stone Age.
When I laid into the strings with galloping
palm-muted riffs, the low end didn’t have
the extreme tightness that type of playing
PRODUCT REVIEW
demands. It sounded like the amp’s low
frequencies were struggling to keep up and
attempting to swell into the sweet bloom
I’d heard earlier when playing slower, more
melodic riffs. I usually throw a booster
pedal into the signal chain to counteract
this effect, so I pulled out my BBE Freq
Boost pedal. However, I discovered that
the Screamer 70 does exactly what it was
designed to do no matter what you throw
in front of it. The Freq Boost tightened up
the sound, but the low end’s inherent tonality remained.
With its incredible range, the Screamer 70’s
Presence control plays a crucial role in shaping sounds, and the amp really started to
show its true colors when I maxed it out and
set the Master at around 11 o’clock. This
yielded huge, razor-sharp tones, and the
Screamer made every pick stroke an authoritatively percussive blow to my chest. This
