10 posts
Just checking... seems these were hot shit for a couple of weeks... mine's been in the closet for a very long time...
I am, but not a lot. Considering it's value, I have considered selling it. I bought it new, so convinced that I'd keep it forever. But I got the Mini Rec after that. The Bogner sounds fantastic through the clean channel of the Budda. Great through the Tweaker and really good through the Mini. (I haven't spent a lot of time trying to tune it with the mini which is crazy versatile. I'm sure I could get it better)
So, if I had only the Budda, I'd keep it for sure. Now that I have the Mini... not sure if I'll end up keeping it or not. It has one fatal flaw that I just can't get past. The boost. If it were flat I'd never sell the pedal. But introducing a bass boost completely ruins it for me. The pedal has enough bass and a bass control so I can't for the life of me understand this design philosophy. You can't use it as a solo boost because it adds lots of bottom end and I want either mids or mid highs to cut as a solo boost, NOT BASS! I really can't understand this, and in the end if I sell it will be because that one feature that is otherwise so well thought out, is basically useless for me. Even taking out the boost feature, the pedal can sound GREAT! But so can my amps...
I recorded that one song with my red and that was it, sold it. Get plenty of compliments for the tone on that one but eh, I'm just back to where I like being, getting the majority of gain from cranked amps, not pedals. As good as it sounded, I prefer amp punch and drive over pedal saturation.
After I got my Mini Rec I traded my Bogner Uber pedal in for a Rockett Animal pedal. Totally different fish but didn't need a heavy pedal once I had that and like having the Animal for when I get together with my buddies and play older stuff. Seriously, it will happen one of these days, lol...
I'm not using the blue lately because I'm into flexi + fuzz and actual amp > pedal amp.. it really did improve the uber's clean channel a ton... I'll still use it there when I get interested in that kind of more-modern sound again. but, I might get some kind of passive loop thing going and use the univalve for that instead (loop so I can use the univalve like a pedal). dunno... I won't sell it though.
My Barber Compact Direct Drive is covering my plexi-ish tones.
Update.
Well, switching amps changes everything! I just switched back to the Tweaker and suddenly remember why I love this pedal. It sounds fantastic with the Tweaker. I had been dialing the Mini Rec for whatever clean tones I wanted, and not necessarily a "OD pedal friendly" setting. This thing sounds killer with the Tweaker! It cleans up fantastically well with the volume knob. With single coils, it goes from sparkling clean with guitar volume on 5, to killer blues at 7 to hot blues at 8 and hard rock at 10.
That said, the boost still ticks me off! He put level and gain on the boost. Perfect! But choosing to boost bass is a fatal flaw. Nobody boosts bass for solos. Flat, or some choice of flat and mids or upper boost, and this would be a desert island pedal. As is, it's one of the best ever, but unnecessarily expensive due to the boost which is useless. Still, killer pedal.
I can take an affordable Tweaker, the Red and my Carvin Bolt T and conjure up a pretty wide spectrum of pretty High end tones.
I had already mentioned that this pedal kills with the Budda. I will definitely play with it more with the Mini. But I am telling you right now, if he changed this boost to even just flat, you could gig with this pedal and any good clean amp.
More update: This pedal sounds killer with the Mini Rec with my "other" clean settings on the amp. I have several forms of clean tones that sound great on the amp. The one I was using wasn't working well with several of my pedals, although the cleans themselves certainly sounded good. Tried the other general settings for the other clean tone, and all the good pedals sound killer.
So, the Bogner sounds killer again. And, as much as I love it, I still get ticked off about the boost every time I play it. LOL SO great of a pedal, and IMHO just a flaw in THINKING when adding what could have been a super feature. As is, wasted money and space. Boost is never turned on. I am trying to see if there are ANY settings where this works. Using the "tight" setting obviously helps, but.... again boosts bass back that you were trying to get rid of. ::) Otherwise though, simply great. Take any good clean amp and add a boutique tube quality tone that you don't have, unless you own a Bogner.
Speaking of the Red, I finally got around to finishing up a video for the one song I used it on (leads only). Just upped the completed version to YT, hope it represents the pedal well enough to get it some love even though I decided to ditch mine, lol. I personally had no complaints with the pedal, just a preference thing (amp gain w/clean boosting over "distortion pedals").
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3P-yjaBbNpg
Those are great lead tones. If I had a nice 15 watt Marshall that sounded like that, wouldn't need the Red.
(That said, my Class 5 is going under the knife as soon as we get our living room remodeled).