Bogner Wessex Overdrive - a brief love affair (Review)

Cirrus

Earlier this week I stumbled across some Youtube videos for the Bogner Wessex. It sounded pretty sweet, and I own and love the Bogner Burnley. A quick google revealed that a well known store has them on sale, then this weird fog descended - I don't know what happened, I lost track of time, next thing I knew I was looking at the order confirmation in my inbox.

Therefore, I give you a review.

When it arrived at my office I tried it out through a Yamaha THR10 I was selling with an AC30-ish clean sound, and initial signs were very promising - the gain goes from basically clean all the way through to a fairly decent crunch, and the gain knob has an excellent taper - the overdrive comes on very gradually over the course of the rotation so that it's very easy to dial in and every setting gives you something useful. In the bottom half of the gain range, the pedal just adds a bit of compression and very subtle overdrive to the sound, and though it's a cliche it is quite amp like in its response. At half gain, it starts taking on a bit more of a raunchy character. With a strat and the gain at about 11am into a clean amp sound, I got quite convincing chimey breakup for U2-style stuff - not something I expected! At full whack, if I dug in, Moving Pictures era Rush riffs were within reach. My coworkers shuffling past my office on their way to the kitchen can attest to that.   




The pedal has quite an interesting character. It's in the "transparent" camp and is relatively flat EQ-wise, but has pretty dense low-mid harmonics which draw your ear to them, which I think is a bit of a Bogner thing - "fat" wouldn't be a bad description. The low mids are quite compressed, but the upper midrange and treble is a bit more dynamic so you still get a sense that the tone is quite open and detailed - pick attack on the upper strings comes through nicely on chords.

The bass knob is pretty useful for controlling not just the bottom end thump, but also shape the bottom of the midrange. But even with the bass rolled back, those thick low mids never go away - there's no way to make this pedal sound thin! Likewise, turning it all the way up gives you lots of low end energy, but the pedal stays usable and never becomes farty or bloated sounding.

The treble knob is useful too - much like the bass control, it does quite a lot but there aren't any unusable settings. Fully off is smooth and mellow but doesn't get to the level of the amp sounding like it's on the other side of a wall, and pushed all the way up it's bright, clear, but somehow doesn't get shrill - there's no icepick in this pedal.

That bright but not shrill sound is pretty key and that characteristic alone makes this a really cool pedal - being able to be bright, clear and cutting in a mix without hurting people's ears is a really useful thing to be able to do! It's also typically what I'd expect from nice transformer saturation, though without taking the pedal to pieces, it's hard to know exactly what the transformer's function is in the circuit. Definitely the cynic within me wouldn't consider it beyond the realm of possibility that the transformer is more of a gimmick, especially since the base plate has a hole so you can *see* it with your own eyes - which puts me in mind of, say, Behringer with their voltage-starved valves lit up by warm coloured yellow LEDs so you can *see the warmth, maaaan*... 

... That said, it *is* a very rich, sweet sounding treble. So maybe the transformer is vital!

Switching the little switch to the left puts it in "Enhanced" mode, where it has noticably MORE lower mids and a bit more gain + compression. Frankly, it already has quite a lot of lower mids. But if you had a particularly thin or scooped amp, I can see how this would help

Something that definitely IS a gimmick is the LED. When you turn the pedal on it's Red, but there's also a blue LED that lights up with high signal levels. On my Burnley distortion, it's very sensitive - if you're playing at all, the light is turns blue. On the Wessex, it's tied to the output volume rather than the input volume. And if you set the pedal at unity volume, the blue light barely flickers on the loudest passages - you'll only enjoy that distracting tiny disco-in-a-pedal if you use it as a volume boost.

Cirrus

It was load-in night at the practice room for my band that evening, so I didn't get a chance to dial it in for my rig before practice. I just plugged it in in front of my board during setup and decided to give it a baptism of fire. I used my Gibson Explorer with low output SD alnico II pickups, and Fender Strat with single coils. It was going through a stereo rig - AC30 and Genz Benz Black Pearl (4xel84 voxy amp), with both amps set loud but clean. So it was a voxy, mid forward sound but with no particular amp breakup or much compression.

And this is where it unravels slightly. In a full band context, with a drummer, bassist playing away, I stomped on the switch and it was very... polite. At lower gain settings, it basically didn't do much. I think that because it's adding harmonics in the low mid area which is a very busy range with lots of competition from all the other instruments, what it was adding to my base tone just didn't *do* much in a band context other than make my sound seem a bit bloated, congested - maybe even boxy - when what I needed were more harmonics in the upper mids to grab my ears and say "I am an overdriven guitar now! behold! No longer am I clean and boring!".

Never mind, I said, I just need to dial it in for my rig and this band.

So I cranked up the gain and treble up to about 2pm, turned the bass down to 11am, and it did get better. But it still had this slightly bloated lower midrange thing going on that just didn't seem to jive with my rig and playing. Plus it was now quite compressed - a little too compressed for my taste. Out of curiosity, I flicked it over to "enhanced" mode. Now it had way too much low mid, to the point that it sounded very cloudy. The output volume also went up, and it got even more compressed. Definitely no good - I swtiched it back to normal mode.

With this kind of pedal, I tend to arrive at one setting that I consider the best for my playing and my rig. For example, with an SD-1 it's volume just above unity, tone at 1pm and gain at 8:30. With a rat it's gain at 9:30am, tone 3pm, volume 2:30. All other settings are the wrong answer in my world. Towards the end of the practice, I finally arrived at "the best setting" for the Wessex: Volume at 11am (unity), Gain at 2:30, treble at 2pm, bass at noon.

That gave me a nice crunchy but still low to mid gain sound that was usable within the band context - slightly tightens things up, puts a bit of hair and compression on the sound.

I still felt, though, that it was slightly too compressed for the gain level, and too thick sounding - that lower mid emphasis and compression just never goes away. Again, I stress this is for my taste, with my rig. The pedal it might have replaced, an Xotic BB, revealed a classic lesson in band vs. solo playing: Alone, the Wessex sounds nicer - richer, thicker, more musical and the BB sounds a little honky in the mid-mids and more spikey up top. Once the band starts, the things that make the Wessex sound nice are lost in the mix, and the BB shines because it shapes the tone where it counts.

So, I went back in to the studio again last night because I did like its basic tone and wanted to find a place for it, but alas - I just couldn't justify it being on my board alongside the BB and ultimately if it doesn't work for me alongside bass and drums, it doesn't work full stop. So, it's going back. Farewell, sweet pedal.

One final word about the footswitch: It's rubbish. It's the same with the Burnley. Quite close to the knobs, and requires a lot of pressure to get it to click. So you need to stomp with precision *and* power. For me, I tend to find it's one or the other. Especially if you're wearing shoes with flexible soles, you'll need to push down with your toes to engage/ disengage the pedal with any kind of reliability.

TL:DR;

Lovely sounding pedal that didn't quite sit right in a full band mix for my taste. Will work better with an amp that's some combination of bright, thin, scooped and/or uncompressed. Every setting is usable, the designers have clearly thought through the gain and tone controls, but there's no escaping the basic low-mid character of the pedal. 

johnhe

Mine is probably the most natural sounding overdrive I've ever owned. But all gear is very rig dependant. I've had wonderful pedals which just didn't work with my setup. What I was looking for from the Wessex was the low gain, Marshall type tones of the Ecstasy Blue in a smaller box, and less bright than the Blue, and the Wessex does that job perfectly.

Cirrus

Oh, absolutely! It was just my rig, my band and my style. I suspect I've had rigs in the past it'd be perfect with!

And thanks for replying too, I was feeling a bit despondent that I'd written a load of waffle nobody cared about. 

Wazmeister

Brilliant review mate - thanks for taking the time and effort.

Ive never played one of these; but they may be a 'sleeper' pedal. I know some on TGP love them.

Ill keep my eyes open for one

kjdowd

I liked mine for home playing, but like you it didn't work in the band context at all. Thanks for the review.

absolutpepper

I'm selling mine on here at the moment. I love it but moving to helix so it's not needed. Can't say I've ever found the switch to be either poor quality or badly situated. How big are your feet lol?

Cirrus

10 1/2. Not crazy sized! There's a few complaints over at the gear page forum, by the looks of it. I mean, to a fair degree a switch is a switch and I'm sure there's some pedals in this range that are better or worse on that front.

I've drawn a diagram that in retrospect was a total waste of time. 



But seriously, it's still a great pedal and the fact I love the Burnley so much means it's a niggling little issue I'll live with until I can be bothered to change the switch for something with a nicer action.