Bogner Ecstasy Blue

The Bogner Ecstasy Blue is an overdrive pedal from Bogner, the amplifier company founded by Reinhold Bogner. It came out in 2012 as one of a pair of pedals, alongside the Ecstasy Red, each based on a channel from Bogner's Ecstasy amplifier series: the Blue takes its character from the Ecstasy's blue channel¹²³. Guitar World's Paul Riario reviewed it that year as part of the amp maker's then-new line of pedals⁴.

Premier Guitar's reviewer described what it does for a player: "The Ecstasy Blue excels at producing clear, harmonically rich clean tones, purring low-gain rhythms and biting classic-rock overdrive," with a three-dimensional tone and woody attack that stayed "astonishingly close to the full-size Ecstasy blue channel"¹.

The controls and footswitches

The pedal keeps its control panel familiar to anyone who has used an amp. There are knobs for volume, gain, treble, mids, and bass, which handle the majority of tone-shaping tasks¹. A mode switch flips between lower (plexi) and higher (blues) gain modes on the Ecstasy Blue¹.

Two footswitches run the show: a true bypass on/off switch and a second switch operating a boost⁷. The boost mode carries two presets for gain and volume⁷.

Besides the input and output, there is a third jack for remote switching of both functions, so the pedal can be run from a remote switching unit on a larger board⁷.

Inside the pedal: an analog class A circuit

The Ecstasy Blue is an analog design, and its approach to overdrive is unusual. Premier Guitar notes that the Ecstasy pedals both use class A circuits that eschew diodes or op-amps for overdrive clipping¹. In other words, the drive comes from the circuit itself rather than from clipping diodes, the approach most overdrive pedals take.

MusicRadar's review team found the build to match the price. The electronics sit on two high-quality printed circuit boards with gold-plated tracks, using a mix of surface-mount and miniature components, with portions potted in epoxy⁷. Each board is populated with select components, including Japanese Nichicon and German WIMI capacitors, gold-plated relays, and Carling switches for true bypassing and boosting¹.

The enclosure is a tough two-piece aluminum clamshell box fastened by four machine screws⁷. Power comes from a regular nine-volt DC supply through an external mains connector, and a PP3 battery sits behind a small aluminum flap fastened by a large-slotted machine screw⁷.

The Blue and the Red

The two 2012 pedals divide the Ecstasy's channels between them. Gearnews describes the Blue as slightly cooler and more crunchy than its sibling, with the Red as the higher-gain option³. Both were modeled on real channels from Reinhold Bogner's own amps, boutique hybrids of classic Plexi-style circuits³.

In 2018 Bogner scaled the pair down. The Ecstasy Blue Mini and Mini Ecstasy Red reportedly kept the same circuits as the originals in a smaller box, minus the Boost switch found on the full-size pedals⁸. Two Minis fit in the space of one previous full-size Ecstasy pedal, as Bogner's own staff demonstrated at Winter NAMM 2018⁹. The Minis added their own switching: a Variac on/off switch that adds a "dropped voltage" dynamic compression to the feel and sound, a pre-EQ switch with B1, N and B2 settings controlling "openness" and the presence of higher range harmonics, and a Plexi/Blue mode switch for vintage lower-gain or modified higher-gain levels².

What reviewers said

Premier Guitar's 2026 review was enthusiastic about both the sound and the flexibility, with one reservation¹:

Premier Guitar, September 2026¹

The same review found the variable boosting super-useful, but noted that the boosts can't be set to cut gain and volume individually¹. MusicRadar's review team highlighted the two boost presets for gain and volume that operate in the boost mode⁷.

On the Mini, Premier Guitar's earlier quick-hit review found it versatile enough for honky-tonk and blues styles at low gain: "I could totally use this on anything from a honky-tonk gig to the Wednesday night blues jam"⁶. In Sweetwater's Winter NAMM demo, Mitch Gallagher's view was that "they sound great" and that the small board footprint is a big plus⁹. Guitar Pedal X's Stefan Karlsson later called the Blue variety great in both original and Mini editions¹⁰.

Gearnews' Jef, writing as an owner of the Red, called it a very good distortion pedal, so good that he uses it instead of actual amp gain on many occasions³, which speaks to how the family as a whole is used.

Videos

Click to load

Click to load

Click to load

Questions