Some Observations of Bogner Ecstasy Red & Blue

[filmix2]

Hello all and Happy Holidays.

About a month ago I demoed both the RED and BLUE pedals at a local GC through a used Twin Reverb Reissue. The clean, tight, and powerful amp was a great platform for a worthy pedal test. I liked what I heard and was impressed by the finesse and versatility of both these pedals.

Well, this year, I stuffed my own stocking with Bogners and have had a couple of days with them. My first stop was to a buddy's house. He owns a Bogner Ecstasy amp with the 101 circuit revision. I needed to hear these pedals through his rig and do a channel to channel comparison.

We listened to these pedals through the Green (clean) channel of the amp, switching off the pedals (true bypass via internal relay) and switching to Red and BLUE channels of amp for 'true' A/Bing.

Next I brought the pedals home and plugged them in to some low powered combos and compared them to some popular pedal designs.

Here some thoughts, in no particular order:

• When compared to the Bogner amp, the pedals did very favorably!
• Not surprisingly, the Bogner amp did have more texture than its pedal coutnerparts.
• The controls of the pedal VERY accurately mimic what the actual amp does.
• The BLUE pedal is more versatile than the RED. It is the most dynamic pedal I have ever encountered. It easily goes from clean to chewy crunch with just picking hand modulation. The Boost function puts it into the Red Pedal's gain range. Just like the actual amp does.
• Both pedals are designed to keep the transistor devices from ever reaching "The Splat Zone". Every button, knob, and switch function has a valuable audible result but still never over-gains each amplification stage.
• Both Pedals allow more "articulation" sounds to come through than the actual amp. IOW, the pedals are actually less forgiving than the amp. I was not expecting this, as I already knew the amp brought a lot of transparency to one's playing.
• The construction is just great, best in class industrial design here. Two pcb's fastened together with nut and bolt (and maybe 7mm spacers?) connected via ribbon cable, with board mounted pots and switches installed on the "audio board", while the digital switching, charge pump, relay module are located on the secondary, outward facing board. The audio goodies are hidden from view on the interior side of the board. Wish I had some more to say about this but did not feel like disassembling for this review! Suffice it to say, there was NO GOOP in these gorgeous pedals.
• These pedals are really more complete pre-amp than OD and Distortion and I see them much like a separate Neve mixer channel rehoused to be a preamp.
• In my personal experience. the only other pedal remotely reminiscent of the BLUE pedal's dynamic abilities has been the Ethos Overdrive. The Bogner pedals lack clipping diodes and Opamps and all waveform clipping is handled by the transistors. I believe the Ethos and Bogner have this in common. However these pedals, not surprisingly, sound nothing alike.
• The Bogner pedals are "full range". Unlike a typical TS or RAT circuit, the bottom does not fall out when played through a big rig with capable bass response. The EQ and voicing filter are super usable and allow for great results through something as compact as a 5e3.

...More to come. Feel free to ask questions.

 

[11 Gauge]

Suffice it to say, there was NO GOOP in these gorgeous pedals.

Actually, the jFET transistors and some surrounding architecture are encased in a rectangular epoxy block.

IMO, it's not really a big deal, because all of the tone circuit stuff is exterior to the gooped block, so that can be analyzed if anyone is curious. I think the Red revealed a T/M/B circuit quite similar to a V1 Marshall Guv'nor. Not that Bogner is robbing anything from Marshall, because some circuit snippets basically work well in pedals.

And the actual Bogner amp circuits are well documented, so figuring how the jFET's are configured for gain and interstage EQ shaping would not be very difficult. There is already at least one semi-DIY Ecstasy'ish jFET-based pedal that has been available for years, and the bright minds who "port over" the circuits always primarily replace the tube stages with jFET's.

...But where Bogner probably has an edge is with the greater overall B+ than most pedals, and probably a manipulation of it at each gain stage. Most jFET-based amp sim pedals merely use 9VDC or maybe 18VDC along the "entire B+ rail" and simply bias the transistors around that. IMO, it can make things a little too "cookie cutter," but since there is the production caveat of making the pedals sound consistent, it is no doubt probably a semi-standard concession/compromise with the typical jFET/amp sim pedal.

For that reason, it would be neat to see inside the epoxy if only to see if trimpots are used with the jFET's. Other than that, I'm not curious as to gain or tone shaping. As long as it's "done well," that's all that matters.

I think the consensus is that the Blue is being a bit more favored, as it seems to work better on the front end of an amp. I've heard rumors of Reds being sold shortly after purchase, but do not know of the validity. I do know that it is a bright and zingy sounding pedal, but it's supposed to be!

The Uberschall also seems to borrow some similar architecture from the Red and Blue, but it looks like there are some gooped components in place of where there are controls in the Red/Blue, as they are fixed values. For the high gain crowd, it seems that the Ub is being favored a bit over the Red as well, but these seem to be taste issues.

Thanks for the review. Interesting that what has gone into the design is somewhat conveyed in the YT stuff - I clearly favored the Blue, and seemed to hear something I hadn't heard before. All the doctoring in the world with an audio track cannot really add something that isn't there - it can really only suppress something that is not favorable to hear. So it is good for you to say that the Blue doesn't really have any artifacts that might make someone turn away from it at some point.

I guess my big question is this - how much time does it seem to take to dial in a sound that you can gig with, and not need to touch the controls again (except for maybe a minor tweak here or there)? Because even if there are a bunch of potentially good sounds, it is the one or two great sounds that separate any given dirt box from the rest of them, IMO.

I realize your answer will be subjective, and that's fine. I'm just mildly curious.

 

[filmix2]

I guess my big question is this - how much time does it seem to take to dial in a sound that you can gig with, and not need to touch the controls again (except for maybe a minor tweak here or there)? Because even if there are a bunch of potentially good sounds, it is the one or two great sounds that separate any given dirt box from the rest of them, IMO.

A good amount of time, I believe, was spent during R&D making these pedals "ugly proof".
It is hard to get get a radically bad sound of these pedals. Maybe by imparting a severe "V" shape or "A" shape on the 3 band eq will get you there.
So it is easy to dial. Start with all switches nominal and dials at noon, and you will get a great flavor of the device. The controls all feel a lot like fine-tuners, all generally keeping the pedals in the sweet spot.

As I stated above, there seems to be great care keeping the jFets in a happy place. Turning up gain or boost or boost gain or EQ to provide a voltage bump somewhere in the signal path seems to be removed from your options later in the signal path. If that makes any sense at all .

One super useful gigging feature = boost circuit. Two illuminated mini-knobs become active when boost is engaged. The boost sounds like an entirely other jfet chain, adding more crunch and not just boost. But the sweep on the knobs is perfection. Turning boost gain all the way up and boost volume all way down yields essentially ZERO volume lift. And the converse is also true. Lower Gain and Raise volume for sweet clean boost. The boost cannot operate independently when pedal is completely bypassed, however.

Now in regards to noise floor. The RED has higher nominal noise as it has hotter gain with all controls at 12 of-the-clock.

BUT the only negative surprise was in regard to the BLUE with both Boost and Gain dimed... We got to hear a tiny bit of FM radio. But no oddball circuit oscillations or anything.

I'll end this reply by saying, the red is more for the Distortion pedal seeker. And yes the higher "B+" voltages make is quite the singer. While the blue really works great as a tubifier/texture maker/OD/boost.

With both pedals inline and very casual tweaking, it is easy to get 4 different usable tones.

 

[p8t8r]

What do you mean by "B+ voltage?"

 

[filmix2]

The B+ voltage in an audio circuit is generally used to deliver power to the amplifier device.
In a tube amplifier it is connected to the plate of the tube.
In a transistor design, the B+ is connected to the drain leg of the transistor.

 

[filmix2]

I think the consensus is that the Blue is being a bit more favored, as it seems to work better on the front end of an amp. I've heard rumors of Reds being sold shortly after purchase, but do not know of the validity. I do know that it is a bright and zingy sounding pedal, but it's supposed to be!

As I spend more time with both these pedals, I see that there is definitely a redundancy and I may very well be returning the RED pedal.

The BLUE with boost enabled, does seem to have every ounce of gain the RED has with boost enabled. And as mentioned in my first post, cleans up better.

The RED may be a bit tighter, when set to its tightest settings.

I would think that having both on a pedal board would be useful if a player wanted to have 4 presets. Buyers of the BLUE pedal will not be missing much of the what the red pedal has to offer. But I do not think I can say the same for buyers of the RED pedal.

Additionally, the Radio Interference that we experienced on my friend's rig at full Gain and Boost Gain was not replicated on my amps on the BLUE pedal.

 

[11 Gauge]

The B+ voltage in an audio circuit is generally used to deliver power to the amplifier device.
In a tube amplifier it is connected to the plate of the tube.
In a transistor design, the B+ is connected to the drain leg of the transistor.

Just to elaborate on this, the B+ in a tube amp starts out as AC voltage that is stepped up at the power transformer, sometimes as high as 500V+.

It then gets rectified, but there is still something called "ripple" in the quasi-DC voltage. So then it takes a trip through various filter capacitors, which "even out" the ripple.

The voltage is then decreased thru the "B+ rail." The highest voltages are intended for the power tube plates. They typically get dropped a little bit for the power tube screens.

...There are then subsequent (usually smaller) filter capacitors, and "B+ dropping" resistors as the power progresses to the earlier gain stages.

So the next stop just prior to the power tubes is the phase inverter, which will have a lower B+. Then is the stage prior to the tone stack (in most instances of hotrodded/high gain amps), which has a lower B+ than the phase inverter.

...IF it is a higher gain setup with multi stages, the "third stage" typically has a higher B+ than the gain stages before and after it. So this requires a different "tap" to the B+. The Ecstasy is no different from other high gain beasts.

By the time you get down to the first two stages in a high gain amp, the B+ is typically dropped to a rather low voltage. I've seen as low as ~100VDC, for something like the Bad Cat Hot Cat 30, IIRC. That is really low. Most of the Mesas/Soldanos/etc. tend to keep it at around 160VDC or so, and I'd think the Bogners wouldn't be much different.

****************

So - converting this over to the world of solid state audio typically means voltages that are never higher than 40VDC or so. Hence the 50VDC rating for many standard application capacitors. Anyway, I think the Ecstasy pedals use a charge pump to push things up to about 27VDC max, which I would think would be carefully crafted at very different "B+" voltages to mimic the gain characteristics thru the pedal circuit. Reason being that not only will lower voltages distort more, but depending on the rest of the gain stage bias, it will affect other parameters like treble content, and how asymmetrical the clipping might be. In something like Mesa/Soldano/Peavey/etc. amps, the standard cathode bias resistor is 1.8K w/a 1uF bypass cap - it makes things more asymmetrical than the old Marshall value of 2.7K/.68uF, or the Fender cathode bias resistor value of 1.5K (although those bypass caps tend to be way too big for high gain stuff @ 22uF).

So not only is Bogner most likely tweaking the voltage in, but he's twiddling with the voltage to ground.

...If you were to compare that to many jFET/amp sim pedals that exist right now, many simply run on 9VDC or 18VDC with the same B+ in, and the same biasing to ground. All of these pedals will typically have to be consistent sounding to a point where they can be produced in very high numbers. The Bogner pedals possibly have a different process that is more manual and time consuming.

Two issues with jFET's are variations in transconductance and gain, so they require some finesse to work with unless they are sorted to be ultra-consistent. Since Bogner has worked with a similar issue with tubes varying in a similar fashion, he is probably well versed in how to deal with these issues.

 

[filmix2]

Thanks to .011 Gauge for explaining this in a way I never could.

This may be my last update to this thread for a while.

After a few more days with these pedals, I am truly impressed by these designs.
I have opted to keep both.
The voicing is different enough that I can find a use for both pedals.
The BLUE is more more transparent/flat in its characteristic, while the RED has a lift in the mids.
The tone stacks and other doo-dads are also voiced/centered in slightly different places. The pedals definitely do sound like brothers and worthy of being dressed in different colored housings.

Lastly, one word of caution.
Count to 10 before you demo one of these pedals at GC. These pedals will leave an impression with you. You may not pull the trigger. But late in the evening, when everyone else is asleep, and the guitars are set down and amps switched off, you will start to think... It might start with something like "That Variac switch was cool..."

 

[swleamon]

Lastly, one word of caution.
Count to 10 before you demo one of these pedals at GC. These pedals will leave an impression with you. You may not pull the trigger. But late in the evening, when everyone else is asleep, and the guitars are set down and amps switched off, you will start to think... It might start with something like "That Variac switch was cool..."

So funny you say that. Sunday I went to GC with a friend when I was visiting family in Indianapolis. In typical GC fashion we didn't have a good environment to really test the pedals. At first they wouldn't let us try both at the same time (sigh). Got past that hurdle but we had to try them through a Burgera that was close to the counter.

Regardless we were both very impressed with both. I favored the Blue, hands down. Not much I can say that hasn't already been said in the thread. We left with nothing, went to grab food, and couldn't stop thinking about them! Alas, GC was closed by that time.

My friend went and picked up both tonight. I'll be at GC tomorrow over lunch to pick up the Blue.

I really need to hear them through my rig, of course.

I currently have essentially a 2 channel set up on my pedal board. One my lead channel, for dirt and boost I use a Boiling Point and an OCD, and my main channel I use a Paisley Drive and Klone. I love the setup and it will take a lot for me to kick any of those guys off the board. But I was so impressed by the Blue, it was unlike any other pedal, IMHO.

And thank you for the very informative review!

 

[filmix2]

Thanks Swleamon. I got a pretty good laugh when I read this. Hope you like these pedals as much as I do.
If you can, please report back and describe how you fit the BLUE in to your rig.

 

[swleamon]

Thanks Swleamon. I got a pretty good laugh when I read this. Hope you like these pedals as much as I do.
If you can, please report back and describe how you fit the BLUE in to your rig.

Hey, I just picked it up a few hours ago. Was too late to crank my amp but I've been casually toying with it. Wow, what an interesting piece. It really is very different than many dirt pedals.

Yes, I'll be sure to report back b

 

[swleamon]

Ok so far so good. Still not much quality time. But something dawned on me...

If these pedals do not use diode clipping or op amps - all transistor based is it nothing more than a solid state preamp ?!??

 

[11 Gauge]

If these pedals do not use diode clipping or op amps - all transistor based is it nothing more than a solid state preamp ?!??

Correct. What is being sonically presented to you is how (specifically) jFET transistors (assuming that's what Bogner used - I'd be surprised if it was "something else") can emulate the characteristics of vacuum tube triode stages.

While it is "geek stuff," runoffgroove.com did an entire investigation of jFET's simply to mimic the characteristics of a Fender triode preamp stage with their Fetzer Valve project:

http://www.runoffgroove.com/fetzervalve.html

...You can ignore all the math and heady discussion, and just focus on the illustrations that represent the similarities between the two, and "how the gap was closed."

They then went on to design NUMEROUS amp emulators around this modular jFET-based technology.

Here's one for the AC-30

And the Matchless DC-30 derivative

And the Supro 16T

And the Marshall 100 watt Super Lead

How about a Dumble? (this one is a DIY'er's favorite)

...Or maybe the MkI Mesa Boogie?

Companies like Catalinbread and AMT have done the jFET-based thing, but tend not to have manual biasing of the gain stages like the runoffgroove.com stuff does. And most pedals that use jFET's will typically just stick to the same voltage - either everything at 9VDC or 18VDC. The Bogner pedals differ in that the voltages to the different gain stages could be anywhere from ~24VDC to some fraction of that - Bogner may drop the initial stages down to lower than 9VDC, as there are some tube amps that really drop the voltage down on the first stages, too. There's a newer amp by Orange, Vox, or Badcat that has the first tube stage at less than 100VDC - that is very low. The Boss OD-2 uses some jFET's in the turbo mode at ~5VDC IIRC (and there are NO clipping diodes, IIRC).

Long story short is the "proper characteristics" that jFET's allow despite being solid state. It just requires a bit more finesse than the crude way that it's handled in a tube amp - pre tubes "self bias" along a liberal range. jFET's don't.

Also, "heavier clipping" with jFET's is tough (maybe impossible) to tackle with the best results at lower voltages. Proof of this? The newer runoffgroove.com Azabache, which adds clipping diodes to the jFET stages (assumption is that this pedal will be run @ 9VDC for practical reasons).

AZABACHE

Also neat that the Az doesn't set out to really emulate any single Fender amp. Whether or not it delivers the goods will be a subjective determination, but I like that runoffgroove.com continues to experiment with this stuff, and basically present it in an "open source" nature. Like I said, the DIY crowd really seems to like the Umble (Dumble derivative).

So I wouldn't be turned off by the solid state aspect - I think it represents the building of a better mousetrap than some of these tube preamp pedals - I actually think the performance is typically better!

 

[swleamon]

So I wouldn't be turned off by the solid state aspect - I think it represents the building of a better mousetrap than some of these tube preamp pedals - I actually think the performance is typically better!

Wow, thanks for all the great info. Not turned off at all by the SS classification. I found it very interesting and your post really helped me put the pieces together.

I only judge pedals by how they sound with my rig and what I do. You might recall I love the Boiling Point. Even if its technically the same as the 808 sitting next to it, to me it sounds completely different.

And I love how the Bogner sounds. And it's very different from the Boiling Point. From a player perspective I find the BP to be more hi-fi, articulate, transparent. However I am very content w/ my pedal choices and spend far less time tone chasing these days.

Thanks again!

 

[11 Gauge]

Wow, thanks for all the great info. Not turned off at all by the SS classification. I found it very interesting and your post really helped me put the pieces together.

I only judge pedals by how they sound with my rig and what I do.

IMO, that's how it should be. I spent years tweaking both a Trainwreck'ish-derived scratchbuild as well as a Marshall 2204 that hardly resembles such any longer. I love playing them when I get a chance, but they aren't very flexible - great OD sound (to die for, really) but that's it. The average setlist calls for so much more...

I've spent the last 2.5 years working on pedal designs that are similar to the Bogner et al. approach of using SS in place of tube triode preamp arrangements. While some guitarists love them, they are typically "unnerving" to many, because they are like a very twitchy tube preamp that is cranked up - any sloppy playing gets amplified. It makes me wonder why I even bother with such pursuits, but guys like Bogner tend to put wind back in my sails.

...The kind of OD that most players have come to expect is typically very "forgiving" - lots of "non-tube" compression in the clipping, and an overly friendly EQ curve that can make a novice sound okay, at least in the living room. Nothing wrong with that, but nothing to commit to recordings, and nothing to present at a gig. While I have no problem with an affection towards the traditional OD, I also gravitate towards a sort of raw and visceral "beyond transparent" sounding SS preamp for certain things - the Freddie King, Ritchie Blackmore, and Jim Campilongo (amongst others) kind of sound. You just can't get that with a TS or any TS-derivative.

It could be argued that the masses aren't ready for boxes like that, and I wouldn't try to sway that point of view. I've spent so long playing the traditional sounding stuff myself that perhaps even a hybrid type of pedal might be a better fit for a "slop player" such as myself. But Ritchie, Freddie, Jim, and others are my heroes, so I'll keep slugging it out with the "next wave" of drive boxes.

The truth be told, I enjoy having the entire spectrum available, from the early stuff like the D+ and OD 250, up to the present day offerings. While the Bogner Red might be a little too hot for someone like me, the Blue seems to be something I would someday like to try. Until then, I'll keep pressing on trying to embrace what the "new order" has to offer...

It's all good, given the specific applications. It's a GREAT time to be a pedal monger.

 

[filmix2]

It's a GREAT time to be a pedal monger.

It is indeed. There are so many pedals to develop real affection for regardless of their label, legacy, lineage, etc, that these Bogners will very likely only occupy a small part of the wave form clipping (squaring, crushing, rounding...) segment. We are truly in the Golden Age of Distortion. Never has impurifying sound been done so musically.

Maybe I am late to wake up to this very dangerous philosophy, but when did amplifiers become so boring; So 1 dimensional, maybe 3 or 4 for channel switching amps? Why would I want to go boutique amp and commit all those dollars, when I can get 10 different "amps" on the pedal board for the same investment (although I will need to plug all those beauties in to something)?

Even though I am Ga Ga over these Bogners, never have I been so aware how much I still like the other-good-stuff too. I won't be parting with my c6 clipped SD-1 or "fixed" GFS Brownie any time soon. And the honeymoon isn't nearly over for my VHT V-Drive yet.

Now back to the search for the ONE perfect amp to plug all these luscious pedals in to.

 

[andywallace]

Good read in this thread dudes. I'm looking at getting one of these pedals. I doubt I will be able to test any of them here in Melbourne before purchase. Likely to be an online get.

I would like to get the "right" one 1st up if possible, to avoid resale etc. I am slightly leaning to the BLUE from what I have read in here. Mostly because you guys are saying it is more versatile. I like to go from slightly overdriven to high gain. I like the sound of the guitars in Brand New's albums "Daisy" and "The Devil and God" if that helps.

I have a tele and a mustang so all single coils. Blues Deville for amp.

Should I take the RED or BLUE pill?

 

[DeVilleDude]

Great conversation here....now I KNOW why my Blue sounds so good! Amazing wealth of knowledge 'round these parts....

 

[artdecade]

The RED may be a bit tighter, when set to its tightest settings.

Dunno why, but this line made me laugh...

 

[filmix2]

Dunno why, but this line made me laugh...

Did I also mention that the BLUE is bluesier on the Blue setting?