Ecstasy Blue

Name: Ecstasy Blue
Brand: Bogner
Availability: OnlineOnly

Overdrive

Distortion

Steve Vai's touring rig. Five Class-A gain stages capture the Ecstasy Blue channel, from Plexi sparkle to JCM roar.

Reinhold Bogner arrived in Los Angeles in 1989 with a modded JCM 800 that Eddie Van Halen bought on the spot. Within years, players like Steve Vai, Allan Holdsworth, and Steve Stevens were lining up for his amps. The Ecstasy became the flagship, a three-channel monster that defined modern high-gain versatility.

The Ecstasy Blue captures the amp's cleaner blue channel, built around five discrete Class-A gain stages with no op-amps or diode clipping. The Plexi/Blue mode switch moves between Marshall Plexi crunch and later JCM-style saturation. A Variac switch simulates the sag of a tube amp running on dropped voltage.

The Structure switch accesses voicings from different Ecstasy generations (100, 101, 20th Anniversary). Full amp-style EQ with Treble, Middle, and Bass plus a Boost switch for lead tones. Internal voltage elevation creates genuine tube-amp dynamics and touch response.

Used by Steve Vai on the Sex & Religion tour and countless studio sessions, the Ecstasy Blue delivers Bogner's legendary crunch in pedal form.