Bogner pedals

simonbeckwith

So, what's people's views on the Bogner Ecstacy and Uberschall pedals. Been out a fair while now and I listed after the blue one for a long time until I tried it out in guitarguitar is Epsom and was really disappointed, epically considering it was £250! I've seen plenty of peoples pedalboards on here and a lot of you seem to have the red and blue, so the question is, are they any good/worth the money? If I go for one, it'll be running through a fender twin. Cheers in advance

monquixote

I've had a Red and I'd like to try a Blue

By all accounts the Uberschall is a bit poo.

It's a very impressive pedal, but you have to consider it as a solid state preamp rather than a distortion box. You may actually want to put it into the FX return of your amp rather than the front.

It had too much gain for my applications, but it sounds superb. 

A few people complain about the dodgy debouncing on the switches, but mostly I found it fine though I had one day where I just couldn't get it to switch accurately although I think it was something I was doing rather than anything changing in the pedal.

If you get one you will find that you spend about 3 hours pissing about with all the knobs and switches until you find your sound. 

I did find that the Riot gets you 90% of the way there whilst being smaller, simpler and cheaper.

digitalscream

The Red is basically the best distortion pedal I've ever used. Run into a very clean amp, it's the most valve-y solid state pedal around, possibly better-sounding than the AMT pedals (but it has the extra bonus of the gain+volume boost).

monquixote

digitalscream said:

The Red is basically the best distortion pedal I've ever used. Run into a very clean amp, it's the most valve-y solid state pedal around, possibly better-sounding than the AMT pedals (but it has the extra bonus of the gain+volume boost).

The Red was definitely more convincing than the C2 (though it was bloody good). It couldn't do teh brootalz like the P2 though, but I'm not especially qualified to have an opinion on metal tones.

John_P

If you're looking the bogner pedals it might be worth checking the smaller single sized pedals - the burnley distortioin would be a similar amount of gain as the red pedal.  No boost pedal but a cheaper option.  link

simonbeckwith

Cheers all!

@monquixote I had the riot before, was pretty good tbh, certainly a lot cheaper, £100 2nd hand I think or thereabouts.

@John_P I'll have a gander at the smaller ones

@digitalscream I'm running into a fender twin clean channel (I've got a mid 90s version that's 3 channels but not digging the drive channels that much)

simonbeckwith

@John_P the burnley sounds really good in Bogner's own videos, as do all their pedals, I wonder how they sound in the real world....

Bellycaster

I love mine, they are expensive, but they have tons of options for finding voicings that you like and the volume boost is great. They should sound great through your Fender Twin.

I love the Blue, anything from a nice clean boost up to pretty meaty overdrive and further with the gain boost engaged. Does a great "crunch" type tone for Funk Rhythm or single note percussive strumming (skank style). The red screams nicely too and actually I hardly ever go past 2 O'clock on the gain. The red is great for L.A type sounds and hair metal, but it is versatile.

The Variac feature is good if you like a bit of Sag, but it lowers the volume, this is not a fault, it is explained in the demo vids with Irwin Thomas.

The blue sounds great with a T.S type pedal in front of it too, nice thick saturation. A comp in front of the Blue also adds some lovely nuances too.

Dave_Mc

I haven't tried them, but I think GC's Stupid Deal of the Day the other day was for the Ueberschall. One of the (american) guys I know on another forum got one for $129 IIRC, which sort of makes the price here seem a bit dear... )

digitalscream

I believe Thomann has the red for about £220, if that helps. 

simonbeckwith

Yeh I think most places the red and blue are about £250 and the black £200, give or take. Seem to hold their price well second hand too.

Seems a lot to pay when there are other companies doing similar things for £100-ish less.

Hmmmmmm

digitalscream

simonbeckwith said: Yeh I think most places the red and blue are about £250 and the black £200, give or take. Seem to hold their price well second hand too.

Seems a lot to pay when there are other companies doing similar things for £100-ish less.

Hmmmmmm IMO, there's nothing else that sounds as good, has the dependent gain and volume boost, and has all the tweakability options that the Bogners have. That's what makes them special as far as I'm concerned - aside from the actual sound, which is amazingly flexible.

If you don't need any of those things, then yes...they're overpriced.

simonbeckwith

@digitalscream yeh very true, I think I'd need to go and try all 3 of them out. Last time I tried the blue ecstacy i was very disappointed, tried it alongside a catalinbread rah and a suhr koko boost. They certainly seem flexible with all th switches and whatnot, built in gain/vol boost is always handy. I was playing through a marshall combo and only tried title for approx 15mins

digitalscream

simonbeckwith said:

@digitalscream yeh very true, I think I'd need to go and try all 3 of them out. Last time I tried the blue ecstacy i was very disappointed, tried it alongside a catalinbread rah and a suhr koko boost. They certainly seem flexible with all th switches and whatnot, built in gain/vol boost is always handy. I was playing through a marshall combo and only tried title for approx 15mins

When I had my Red (I won it, rather than buying it), I have to say it took me about 3 or 4 days of fiddling and tweaking to find the sounds I really liked. The differences in the switching are very subtle - apart from the variac switch - but they all add up.

monquixote

As @digitalscream said if you need what it does then there isn't a lot on the market that does the same without requiring a special PSU (like the Blackstar HT) except possibly the Wampler SLOstortion and that's a similar sort of price. 

The only things I can think of are the LT Dual (which is nowhere near it) and the AMT stuff which is good, but less flexible and not as amp like.

I think a Marshall is probably not the ideal environment for it as it's more impressive when it turns something like a Fender Twin into something approaching a Bogner amp.