A Knight in Shining Tolex
The Bass 200 is truly a thing of beauty. The
“white knight” garb of the birch-plywood
cabinet has a bit of an industrial look reminiscent
of amps like the Matamp GTO 120
or the Orange OR80. While many amps
with this type of build and look are pretty
hefty, Scarlett’s tube-powered darling clocks
in at just a hair below 45 pounds. And its
pair of top-mounted leather handles allow
for easy moving without feeling like a lead
weight is pulling on your shoulders.
Scarlett used their rackmount bass preamp as a starting point for the Bass 200’s circuit, essentially just adding an output stage and packing the innards in the same chassis as their 50-watt guitar amps. Inside, the turretboard circuitry is expertly handwired and relies on a quartet of JJ KT88 power tubes to generate 200 watts at either 4 or 8 Ω. The preamp—which is shaped by pre-gain, treble, mids, bass, and mid-shift knobs—uses three JJ ECC83S preamp tubes working in tandem with a new-old-stock RCA 12BH7A long-tail phase inverter. One other cool thing is that the EQ was designed to have a pretty big low-frequency response at lower volumes, just in case you don’t want to blow the roof off the joint at your gig or practice session, but still want the lows to really fill the room in a natural way.
The mids and lows can be tailored via the 6-position mid-shift knob, which is pretty handy for voicing the amp for the particular bass and cabinet being used. The control also makes it easy to stay in the same tonal ballpark when quickly changing basses and helps round out the sparse set of features. If you’re looking for amenities like an effects loop, wattage selector, or a footswitchable boost, you’re out of luck with the stock model. Luckily, these options can be requested as custom features by contacting the company directly.
Headroom for Days
Scarlett amps are primarily known for having
very smooth tones, especially when they
approach the breaking point of a powertube
workout. I realized the Bass 200 was
no exception after spending several days
running it into a vintage Ampeg Isovent
2x10 and 2x15 combo cab and playing
a Kramer Striker bass. The way the Bass
200 filled my practice space with smooth,
velvety lows and rounded, punchy highs
was awe inspiring. At low volumes, each
note I picked belted out of the cab with an
immediate, quick attack and lows that were
tight as a drum. As I turned up the pregain
and loudness (master volume) knobs,
the amp took on a beefier, more expansive
stature while relenting slightly in its midheavy
onslaught. This balancing out of the
tone helped my bass’ onboard controls react
more effectively and allowed me to go from
clean and driving Geddy Lee-type tones to
burly southern rock sounds without touching
the amp’s controls.
The mid-shift control was pretty effective at shaping the amp’s unique midrange response, which tends toward the meatier side (imagine the midrange of a Marshall Major crossed with the smooth power section of an early-’70s Ampeg SVT). The first couple of mid-shift positions reigned in the subs when the low end got too heavy for certain volumes—all it took was a quick flip of the mid-shift knob and a slight adjustment of the bass knob to rope them back in.
Ratings
Pros:
Smooth tonality. Great tone at low and high volumes.
solid build. Tons of headroom.
Cons:
Stock features are pretty bare bones.
Tones:
Versatility:
Build:
Value:
Street:
$2100
Scarlett Amplifiers
scarlettamps.com
If you’re thinking the Bass 200 is capable of serious overdriven grind because it has a preamp gain control, you’re just as wrong as I was when I made that assumption. There’s a large amount of headroom on tap, even with the control cranked. Pushing the amp hard like this and hitting the Kramer’s strings with more force than usual didn’t really cause the preamp to break up anywhere near as much as you’d expect, and certainly not in a way that would be considered raunchy and saturated. Rather, the preamp control was more useful as a tool for changing the overall EQ response. Setting pre-gain above 1 o’clock softened and warmed up the sound, which was nice for jazzier playing that called for more dynamics and low-end detail. Conversely, lower settings helped the amp dish out crispier tones for progressive and funk styles.
Given that, it’s heartening to find out that the Bass 200 was designed to take to overdrive and fuzz pedals extremely well. If you love the sound of an Electro-Harmonix Big Muff coating your low-end rumble but hate that it usually comes at the expense of low end, you should be quite pleased with how one sounds through the Bass 200. Maxing a Big Muff’s fuzz treated me to a wall of grind so full of blistering mids and heaving lows that even the most jaded stoner- metal fan would turn down his Electric Wizard record to take a closer listen.
The Verdict
For smooth, tube-infused bass tone that
can perform well in several musical situations—
and at varying volume levels—the
Bass 200 is hard to beat. Its ability to fill a
room at low levels makes it a great choice
for studio cats, and the tones it can produce
when pushed into oblivion are even more
impressive—though not as overdriven as
one might expect considering the amp’s
tube topology. As a stock model, it doesn’t
have much in the way of bells and whistles
that a lot of bassists consider indispensible,
but if you’re looking for a workhorse that
will haul huge loads of satisfying low end,
the Bass 200 is well worth checking out.
I’ve owned a lot of gear over the years, and I have more than a few regrets of selling some of that equipment. One amp I kick myself for getting rid of was an early-’80s Marshall JCM800 50-watt head with forest-green vinyl covering and wheat grille cloth. With its no-frills, single-channel setup and biting, brilliant tone, it required you to hit the strings really hard to get that famous Marshall grit. I ended up trading it for a channel-switching amp because I wanted to play heavier music at the time. Ever since then, I’ve dreamt about that amp’s sound, which started my love for British-voiced amplifiers.
Scarlett Amplifiers’ Paul Marchman has very similar tastes, and this is evident in his Wildcatter 35, Lead Special, and Darkheart amplifiers. Most of Marchman’s creations are tonally influenced by Marshall amps of the late ’60s and early ’70s. But with a nod towards early-’80s Marshall JCM800s, the red vinyl-clad Screamer 70 represents a new direction for his company.
Digging In
Consisting of a simple 3-band EQ and Gain, Presence, and Master volume controls, the Screamer 70’s front-panel layout made me feel right at home. Marchman designed the Screamer 70 to be a bare-bones rock machine, so there’s no effects loop and only one input jack. The amp’s internal construction is immaculate, with a 1/8" fiberglass turret board with riveted, nickel-plated turrets.
The amplifier delivers its pummeling gain via three 12AX7 preamp tubes, which feed a muscular power section that features dual Tung-Sol 6550s. Marchman’s design also makes use of a unique presence circuit that can drastically change the amp’s tone. In most amps, the presence control affects how much negative feedback or dampening is applied to the highs and high-mid frequencies. Marchman’s design uses only the bare minimum of negative feedback. At the highest settings, there’s almost no negative feedback, which results in a major volume and gain boost. The trick is to find the right presence setting to keep the low end tight and under control. Of course, this depends on your guitar and how hard you pick, too.
Pushing It to the Limit
Like JCM800s of yesteryear, the Screamer 70 is designed to be cranked up. Back before preamps with hugely saturated gain stages were all the rage, the only way to achieve guts and definition in guitar tone was to push the amp’s power section. This approach creates a very different feel than preamp distortion and causes you to play a little differently, too.
Armed with Gibson Les Paul Custom loaded with Tom Anderson pickups—an H1 in the 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 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 quickly became my favorite way to run the Screamer 70.
It might be cliché to compare the nature of the Screamer 70 to an angry animal, but that’s really what it reminded me of. The high-gain tones were straight-up vicious, and the lower-gain tones weren’t really that different. The glassy highs and snarling midrange never vanished at lower gain settings, and the amp’s biting tone stayed intact throughout the whole range of its Gain knob. I was able to coax a decent clean tone out of the amp, but it was difficult to eliminate all the grit, no matter where I set the controls. Eventually, I had to back off my guitar’s volume control to approach a clean sound. This isn’t surprising, though, because Marchman says he never intended to incorporate clean sounds in the Screamer 70—he aimed to serve up the best high-gain tones he could muster.
The Verdict
As its name implies, the Screamer 70 offers a unique blend of some great British overdrive tones, but it’s not for everyone. Guitarists who love the wide-open sound and feel of a cranked Orange Overdrive 120 or an early Marshall JCM800 might be astounded at how well the compact Screamer 70 mimics aspects of both models. Other players may be turned off by the lack of a usable clean channel and the amp’s aggressive, biting voice. If you’re a high-gain player and are on the lookout for a unique-sounding amp, the Screamer 70 should be on your radar.
Buy if...
you want a lean, massive-sounding high-gain monster with a bold, aggressive voice.
Skip if...
you need clean tones or want features like an effects loop.
Rating...
Street $1825 - Scarlett Amplifiers - scarlettamps.com |