Empress Effects Heavy Hi-Gain Distortion Pedal

This a beast of a pedal. Very tube like tone, only better to my eare. Very effective eq controls and easy switching between channels. The less heavey channel on low gain produces this nice creamy overdrive I've been looking for, perfect for classics stuff. It sounds even better with a booster in front of it. I own more than twenty OD/Distorton pedals but I barely use any of them anymore. The heavier channel is quite heavy, very versatile, nicely made pedal. Empress makes good pedals. Just buy it if you can afford it, you won't regret it.

This is one of the best METAL pedals out there. And worth every penny. If you have Humbucker pickups ....the low end harmonics are sick. The adjustable scoop range is genus. Very Fine Quality Build and performs well on both solid state amps as well as tube amps, although the tube amps sound a bit warmer. 5 star all the way. If you can afford this ......Purchase it you wont be sorry......

Absolutely love this pedal! It's quite versatile for a heavy distortion pedal. The noise gate is great. I can get a lot of different sounds out of it. Watch the YouTube video reviews. They actually don't do it justice. Wish I bought this years ago. Sounds great with my Orange amp! It's probably among the top 3 best distortion pedals ever. Only complaint is the price. Ouch!

Great pedal, however the power supply input seperated from the circuit board after 9 months of extremely light use. Probably an easy fix for electronic repair guy, but I don’t have the skill 😡 Update.. not an easy fix. Power input cannot be fixed. Also the power input was not supported in anyway other than weakly attached to the circuit board. It should have been solidly attached to the outer box in some way . Since there was only a 30 day return or replacement I’m out $$$. Not happy with Empress.

First, the good - the pedal has great sound. just flat out, it's great. Next, the bad. 1) first pedal I got just flat out didn't work. The switches didn't engage, the sound was maybe the most bizarre I've ever heard out of a pedal - like changing the pitch on what I was playing weird. I thought it might be my cord? My amp? my guitar? A bit of troubleshooting later, and it was indeed the pedal. Just a lemon. Got the new pedal as a replacement and confirmed I wasn't crazy - it worked fine. Next, however, as I try to adjust the noise gate threshold...the screw in the side of the pedal that allows for adjustment is not secure - perhaps it's mounted on a spring, but when one goes to rotate the screw, it's very hard to actually turn it with a flat-head screwdriver without pushing the knob into the housing. well, I managed to push it all the way into the housing and then had to desperately try to extract the screw head out with a pair of needlenose tweezers. Why? because I can't open the box at all! 3/4 screws came out easily, and the 4th was so embedded in the housing that I am unable to extract it out with completely stripping the screw. So, while the sound is good, maybe Empress should consider some QC updates to their line - 1. the noise gate threshold screw is very difficult to work with. It's great that it's hard to turn, because you wouldn't want it to adjust accidentally, but it needs to NOT be on a screw mount, b/c attempting to adjust pushes the head into the housing completely. I guess I'll just live with the factory set threshold, since I can't get the housing open

I play organ, and rarely use pedals as they are usually dirty signalpath generators with silly graphics that rarely impress me in real time. I divined this on my own, but got good backup encouragement from my guitslangin" brother - Roland Rock.. "buy it! those guys make great stuff, if you don't like it, send it to me!" Sorry,Bro... this is a keeper!

I have finally found a great sounding "heavy" distortion pedal. Great tones, lots of variation between two independant channels, heavy & heavier, with soft touch switches making it very easy to turn on/off or switch between the two channels. It has natural & aggressive noise gate which keeps signal chain silent of any unwanted noise. No hiss or hum. All analog signal path. True bypass. Super high gain. Love this pedal. Highly recommend.

Depending on your setup, pedals work differently for everyone. With this pedal, I use a Blackstar St.James 6L6 amp on clean, MXR M108 EQ, and Seymour Duncan Blackouts. The high gain is razor sharp, you get 2 chanels and a noise gate with each. I stopped looking for a distortion pedal because I dig this, this is pretty much the top of the line for me at this point in time. I am still trying to figure out the Weight knob.