UberMetalDood
New member
Empress, a Canadian company, has a nice little selection of pedals. They seem really well made but I'm no expert. I love the aluminum knobs. Their pedals have a rugged and somewhat industrial look. The Empress Distortion is a red box with the four knobs (treble, bass, gain, level) and a 3-way toggle for crunch, mild OD, and lead. It has enough distortion in lead mode to do stuff like Metallica with humbuckers. Crunch mode does a great job with a slightly driven amp while mild mode does a great job with a fairly overdriven amp. All modes are nice with a clean amp.
It's a little warm with a Marshall crunch that's slightly smooth. It's a good sound that's not bland yet doesn't have a lot of flavor. It's an appealing sound. The crunch channel is a lot of fun to play rhythm, classic rock and blues. The lead channel does a bit of the old school Satch thing. Mild is smoother and slightly darker so it can do kind of the tube screamer thing. It's not super defined, but it's not muddy either.
If I had a single complaint, it's that the gain knob does something weird to the sound and feel if you go past about 3:00. Past the 3 o'clock mark, it starts acting almost as if there's a noise gate and it kind of cuts the notes off in some weird kind of way. It's kind of a spongy, bursty thing. I don't know how to describe it, but I don't like it. Fortunately, 3:00 offers the ideal amount of gain anyway so it's not a big deal.
It's not a real gainy pedal. It's kind of what you would expect from a Marshally kind of pedal. Not that it's a Marshall in a box or anything because it seems to have enough of its own character, but it probably fits in that category.
The EQ knobs are pretty good because at 12:00 they're neutral. Under 12:00 makes a cut, above 12:00 boosts the frequency. The level control doesn't equal the bypass sound until about 1:30 or 2:00, but after that there is a pretty good sweep which allows the pedal to get a substantial level boost. Using any one of the toggle positions and the level on full produces some cool tube screamer kinds of sounds.
This pedal is pretty satisfying overall. It's a lot of fun to play on clean amps as well as channel-switching amps. Empress seems to me to be kind of the Traynor of pedals in Canada. Traynors aren't the most expensive amps, but they are good quality and sound great. I've always been and still am a big fan of the Traynor YCS50Blue. This purchase has me considering their "Heavy" pedal which is a more brutal distortion with some neat options.
It's a little warm with a Marshall crunch that's slightly smooth. It's a good sound that's not bland yet doesn't have a lot of flavor. It's an appealing sound. The crunch channel is a lot of fun to play rhythm, classic rock and blues. The lead channel does a bit of the old school Satch thing. Mild is smoother and slightly darker so it can do kind of the tube screamer thing. It's not super defined, but it's not muddy either.
If I had a single complaint, it's that the gain knob does something weird to the sound and feel if you go past about 3:00. Past the 3 o'clock mark, it starts acting almost as if there's a noise gate and it kind of cuts the notes off in some weird kind of way. It's kind of a spongy, bursty thing. I don't know how to describe it, but I don't like it. Fortunately, 3:00 offers the ideal amount of gain anyway so it's not a big deal.
It's not a real gainy pedal. It's kind of what you would expect from a Marshally kind of pedal. Not that it's a Marshall in a box or anything because it seems to have enough of its own character, but it probably fits in that category.
The EQ knobs are pretty good because at 12:00 they're neutral. Under 12:00 makes a cut, above 12:00 boosts the frequency. The level control doesn't equal the bypass sound until about 1:30 or 2:00, but after that there is a pretty good sweep which allows the pedal to get a substantial level boost. Using any one of the toggle positions and the level on full produces some cool tube screamer kinds of sounds.
This pedal is pretty satisfying overall. It's a lot of fun to play on clean amps as well as channel-switching amps. Empress seems to me to be kind of the Traynor of pedals in Canada. Traynors aren't the most expensive amps, but they are good quality and sound great. I've always been and still am a big fan of the Traynor YCS50Blue. This purchase has me considering their "Heavy" pedal which is a more brutal distortion with some neat options.
