Mercuriall Audio Software

To be honest, I personally am not really a fan of most of the Mercuriall amp simulations, alo not really of neural network based plugins. The Reaxis sounds good, but I'm no real Mesa Boogie fan, while the Spark's Marshall simulations could not seriously convince me. The Euphoria sounds averagely good, but not outstanding, for my taste too "nice". too polite, the typical punch, heaviness, but also the tube character of the real amp is missing too much for my taste, but also a Bogner is not really my sonic homebase. Too many knobs, too little great, unique tones, to say it simple. I prefer one or two perfect, authentic tones instead of some dozens, which only come close to maybe 80 to 90%, but do not really hit the spot.

Quite the opposite is this - cheapest - (preamp) simulation, they offer. Sonically very flexible, 3 channels from 2 slightly different voiced units, the A offfers more (vintage) bass, the B a tighter, more modern voiced bass, while everything else remains the same. Choosing 12AX7 or 6N2P tubes also makes a difference.

The additional features, noise gate, the different, very good sounding overdrive pedals (especially the Greed Smasher and the SD-1), cabinet IR loader, reverb IR loader, mono/stereo mode makes this plugin a very flexible working horse. As a standalone solution equally well, as if used in a DAW.

Sonically the three channels cover almost everything, you need, the Clean channel offers nice, Fender voiced clean tones, although some additional American crunch would not have been a disadvantage at higher gain levels. the Crunch channel is sonically - for my ears - Marshall (hot rodded) Plexi territory with a lot of gain, maybe even already too much, a starting point with less gain, which also enables some better adjustable semi-clean to cleaner crunch tones I personally would have preferred, nevertheless the tones sound really very good, react well, sound authentically and are widely adjustable, while the lead channel has a similar voicing but offers even more gain, also sounds good, for me maybe comparable with the lead channel(s) of a VH-4, which also can be seen as a compliment.

These critics of course rather concern the basic design of the real AMT pedals, but this is complaining at a high level, the plugin itself offers some nice features as the reverb IR loader and really very convincing sounding tube (per)amp tones, which you easily can refine with your favorite cabinet IR's, in case you do not use the built-in ones, which in general also do a good job. But I personally usually prefer using some of my favorite speakers, I am not really a G12M nor a V30 fan, I prefer eg. an ET-90, V-Type and of course, the very rare, for me sonically almost unbeatable Sidewinder. Sounds gorgeous here and loading external IR's is easy and works well, which is not always the case.

I did not really miss a power amp section, as the tones just sound right, as they are, the sound, feel and are playable very much like a real tube amp.

Input volume adjustment also additionally can improve the tones, in this case more is not necessarily better.

For me personally the best sounding Mercuriall plugin.

For all the useful features and the sonic quality the regular price already is a bargain, if Mercuriall offers it at reduced price, even more.

In the same quality also a simulation of eg. the Gurus Double Decker Mk. II, of the Victory The Sheriff pedal or of the Koch Pedaltone Mk. I would be nice in my opinion.

Or an - in my opinion - urgently necessary sonic upgrade of Spark...

Addition, after I had the chance to run the plugin against the real pedals:

The plugin sounds good, but in direct comparison the tones of the real pedals and the plugin still are worlds apart. The Clean channel of the plugin has some digital treble harshness, which I did not like, while the Clean Channel of the pedal has a much warmer, sweeter sound with much more real tube character, a really good, professional, Fender-based clean to semi-clean tone, the same concerns Crunch and Lead channels, the one of the pedals just sound more organic, have more real tube amp character, sound much more like a typical Marshall-based tube amp, even with the stock EHX tubes.

So, even if the plugin is AMT approved, there is still some place left for sonic improvements, especially concerning a more accurate, more authentically sounding and behaving, more breathing and a sweeter, more organically behaving tube amp character.

The general character matches, but the plugin - in my opinion - comes close to the real gear up to maybe 85 - 89%, 99 - 100% would be a much more convincing result for me.

The basic for this fine-tuning is already there...

I owned a first version Ecstasy 100B for a few years, so when someone recommended me to try the Euphoria Plugin, which emulates a very well equipped 101B and Classic, I checked out the Demo version.

For me the XTC (which this is modeled after) was always all about the blue channel. I used to run red only in Plexi mode.

When I tried the plugin, I loved the blue channel right away on it. It's a very organic and real feeling emulation. Transparent and dynamic. Fast/low latency too. The Red sounds great in Plexi mode and I was surprised about how good the cleans were in green. I didn't remember the clean channel to be very good on my 100B.

I like to run the masters slightly above 12 o'clock, which means I have to ride the output control in the plugin very low, it's a bit frickely to set but doable.

It was only after a while that I realised you could improve the sound quality even more by upping the oversampling from 2x (default) to 4x or 8x. But it also boosts the processor load quite a bit, so I am fine with 2x.

For the effects that are included, I particularly liked the Greed Smasher and the Wah. The Chorus/Delay/Reverb are nice add ons but there are better ones out there. The tuner is quite good and so is the cabinet/speaker sim. But I prefer the results with Torpedo WOS and my favourite impulse responses (you can only use one IR in the integrated cabinet sim or use two microphones on one of the included cabs).

Overall:

+very organic, authentic simulation of the Bogner Ecstasy
+low latency, reasonable processor load
+added versatility with Class A/AB and Cameron Mod switch for Red Channel
+Great Overdrives and Wah
+Cabinet simulation is usable
+choice of 2x/4x/8x Oversampling
+it is very possible to perform a whole gig with just this one plugin (like it is with the real Ecstasy)

-integrated effects like Chorus/Delay/Reverb just OK, not necessary IMO.
-It would be great if the integrated cabinet sim could mix and pan 2 or 3 user IRs.

I would call it an Overdrive.

Amazing Sound, exactly what i searched for.

Easy to Download and Install.

Sounds awesome for a free plugin. I still use the free TSE Tube Screamer as in my main tone chain, but will use the same setup, but with this instead for layers, and it sounds amazing.