If you are a guitar player who has often hankered after adding a Bogner Ecstasy to your arsenal of guitar amps, you are not alone. The Ecstasy 101B is one of the most sought after amp heads ever.
The thing is, however, they are not cheap, and not every recording space – especially a home recording setup – can accommodate one. Well, Nembrini Audio might have the answer, with its new BG Extasy Boutique plugin offering a digital replication of the high-powered tube amp.
Furthermore, Nembrini says the plugin extends the tone possibilities across its three-channel setup, offering six different speaker cabinet emulations, and a four microphone emulations with an on/off-axis position switch and comprehensive controls over mic placement.
This signal can then be processed in a Mixer section equipped with solos, mutes, pans and faders, allowing guitarists to blend the mic emulations with the plugin's studio-quality reverb.
You can upload your own or third party impulse responses – after all, this is the 21st century – and similarly blend these with volume, pan, phase, solo and mute controls to dial in the sound you need. These third party IRs are easily managed via their own browser window.
Elsewhere, you'll find a noise gate to keep this fire-breather in check, and a cleaner circuit to tidy up any "rumbling or harshness". In the words of Igor Nembrini, the plugin is, "Classy, Versatile and Ecstatic, breathing like high gain boutique amps with infinite options."
The BG Extasy Boutique Guitar Amplifier plugin (AAX-, AU-, VST2- VST3) is available now at an introductory price of $39, and is priced $137 after 19 September. You'll need to be running Mac OS1.9 and above, or Windows 7 and newer, and also have a free iLok account. There's also a AuV3 format for iOS, priced $9.99, rising to $19.99 once the introductory period is over.
You'll note that these prices are cheaper than a real valve-driven Bogner Ecstasy head, which should set you back around two grand. This has been a good week for Bogner fans on a budget, with the newly launched Ecstasy Mini head offering some of that high-gain Red Channel hot sauce in a 30W solid-state format.
For more details, head on over to Nembrini Audio.
