Guitar Interactive – Issue 66 2019

(^102) Guitar Interactive Issue 66
Bogner Ecstasy Blue Mini Overdrive Pedal
Bogner’s Ecstasy pedals offer their legendary amp tones (of the same name) in all-encompassing stompboxes. By removing the battery housing and
foot-controllable boost, they’ve been able to shrink the housing to a smaller, more pedalboard-friendly format. Sam Bell takes a closer look at The
Ecstasy Blue Mini, modelled after the blue channel’s gorgeous plexi snarl that goes from smooth sizzle to powerful crunch with ease!
REVIEWS_PEDAL REVIEW THE REVIEWS^ BOGNER ECSTASY BLUE MINI OVERDRIVE PEDAL
Californian company Bogner
came up with the Ecstasy amp
back in 1992, this amp has become a staple
of modern tone and since then Bogner made
the sounds of the influential amp in Pedal
format. Each pedal was designed to give you
the sound from the Bogner Ecstasy Blue or
Red Channel. Hence the name Red or Blue.
Fast forward to 2018 and we now have mini
versions of each of these iconic pedals. In
this issue I had the pleasure of looking at the
Bogner Ecstasy Blue Mini, which is a lower
gain version of the Red, with much more of
a Plexi voicing. However, this pedal can get
into some super tasty high gain territory when
pushed.
The Blue Mini has many of the same features
as its bigger Brother; we’re presented with
our regular set of controls much like an amp
channel (Level, Gain, Treble, Middle and
Bass) then we have some unique voicing,
gain structure and EQ options that are
switchable via 3 independent toggle switches.
Around the back of the Pedal, there is a small
hole where with the use of a small Philips
screwdriver via trim pot we can change the
mid-range EQ sweep to further dial in our
tone.
The three toggle switches enable us to shape
our tone further. The top switch is under the
label ‘Variac’ this gives us a more compressed
saturated ‘dropped voltage’ sound when
turned on and more open harmonically rich
sound when turned off. The next switch is
the pre-EQ, set to N for Neutral doesn’t do
anything to the EQ, however when set to b1
we get more openness in the treble side of the
EQ, great with single coils! When set to b2 we
get a mid-boost, which the frequency of the
mid boost is determined by the setting of the
mid notch control in the back. We then have
the bottom toggle switch which determines
the different levels of gain we can get from
this pedal, in a nutshell this gives is a low gain
Plexi vintage sound, a middle gain setting and
a boosted gain setting. »
The three toggle switches enable us to
shape our tone further...”
THE