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The brand Empress
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Guitar and bass effects shopping guide
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Overdrive, distortion & fuzz effect pedal
Empress Drive gives you control over the harmonic structure and gain behavior that determine how an overdrive reacts to your instrument, your attack and your amp. It's based on a rich, amp-like saturation circuit, then provides the tools to sculpt it into something unique.
At the heart of the circuit is an adjustable midrange EQ placed before the saturation stage, allowing you to choose which frequencies will push the circuit towards saturation. This alters the response of the overdrive, allowing you to obtain both precise sounds bordering on crunch and fuller, fuzz-like drive textures, with just a few adjustments.
A flexible boost section adds up to 30 dB of gain and can be placed before or after the overdrive stage. In pre-overdrive mode, it increases saturation and modifies the feel of the circuit. In post-overdrive mode, it provides a volume boost for solos, or pushes the amp input further.
A clean mix setting preserves clarity and articulation, allowing pick attack and low frequencies to be reintroduced into the signal. Active shelving bass and treble equalizers allow precise shaping of the sound after the mix stage.
The Empress Drive also features an adaptive noise gate designed specifically for this circuit, letting through the sustain and touch sensitivity of your guitar while suppressing unwanted noise.
With its all-analog signal path and transparent bypass with buffer, the Empress Drive offers expressive, scalable overdrive, while combining boost, EQ, noise control and gain management in one compact pedal.
At the heart of the circuit is an adjustable midrange EQ placed before the saturation stage, allowing you to choose which frequencies will push the circuit towards saturation. This alters the response of the overdrive, allowing you to obtain both precise sounds bordering on crunch and fuller, fuzz-like drive textures, with just a few adjustments.
A flexible boost section adds up to 30 dB of gain and can be placed before or after the overdrive stage. In pre-overdrive mode, it increases saturation and modifies the feel of the circuit. In post-overdrive mode, it provides a volume boost for solos, or pushes the amp input further.
A clean mix setting preserves clarity and articulation, allowing pick attack and low frequencies to be reintroduced into the signal. Active shelving bass and treble equalizers allow precise shaping of the sound after the mix stage.
The Empress Drive also features an adaptive noise gate designed specifically for this circuit, letting through the sustain and touch sensitivity of your guitar while suppressing unwanted noise.
With its all-analog signal path and transparent bypass with buffer, the Empress Drive offers expressive, scalable overdrive, while combining boost, EQ, noise control and gain management in one compact pedal.
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Technical sheet
- for electric guitar Yes
- Overdrive Yes
- Fully analog gain architecture
- Produces rich tube-like overdrive with natural compression and dynamic response.
- Midrange adjustment before overdrive
- An adjustable midrange equalizer is placed before the saturation stage, allowing you to control which frequencies push the circuit to saturation.
- Flexible boost routing
- Up to +30 dB of clean boost can be placed before or after the overdrive stage for extra saturation or volume gain.
- Clean mix control
- Mix your clean signal with the saturated signal to retain clarity, articulation and bass definition.
- Active bass and treble equalization
- Powerful shelving filters allow precise shaping of the sound after mixing, without disturbing the balance between clean and saturated signal.
- Adaptive noise gate
- Maintains precise, controlled high-gain settings while preserving sustain and touch sensitivity.
- Analog clipping indicator
- Provides visual feedback of gain level to easily see how much the circuit is being stressed.
- High dynamic range
- Accepts high signals without unwanted saturation, for clear, responsive overdrive.
- Bypass with buffer
- Preserves signal integrity on long cable chains and complex pedalboards.
- Settings: Gain, mix, output, bass, midrange, treble, boost, mid freq, gate.
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