# Empress effects - ZOIA



## Ti-Ron (Mar 21, 2007)

Is that a pedal?
Is that a computer?
Is that the future?

No, it is the new empress pedal!


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## neldom (Apr 29, 2009)

While every sound I heard was terrible, and it's way beyond anything I can even comprehend, I still really want one. Which I will then sell after having no idea how to use it.


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## Ti-Ron (Mar 21, 2007)

neldom said:


> While every sound I heard was terrible, and it's way beyond anything I can even comprehend, I still really want one. Which I will then sell after having no idea how to use it.


Guilty as charged! While I won't any practical use for it, I would totally lost a whole day toying with it!


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

The Roland Aira modules have a similar sort of sensibility. Each physical module comes with not only audio and CVinputs and outputs, but a large set of virtual modules internally, that one can patch in whatever way you want. See here: Roland - AIRA Modular Customizer | AIRA Modular Customizer

I would imaging that Steve and Co. at Empress will provide or outsource applets for more easily visualizing patches between the various virtual effects in the unit.

I really have to speak to him about this one, so that maybe I'll be able to explain it better.

ADDENDUM: Just heard back from Steve, and have an invite for a tour once they get back from NAMM. Like with a great many products being debuted there, they're engaged in a lot of last-minute coding to eliminate bugs. Last thing you need when the folks with the cams and mics are there is a knockout product that chokes on you. Somehow, "I don't know what's wrong. It was working before I set it up here." just doesn't cut it on Youtube.


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## Cups (Jan 5, 2010)

Way to go empress. The blues guy won’t get this but noise dudes will be all over this.


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

I saw the pic on IG and went "uuuh whaaat?"

So naturally I need to see what it can do.


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## Ti-Ron (Mar 21, 2007)

Budda said:


> I saw the pic on IG and went "uuuh whaaat?"
> 
> So naturally I need to see what it can do.


I can do EVERYTHING! 
I guess.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Naturally, I will give a full report that will consist of more than "Cool!".


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## Adcandour (Apr 21, 2013)

Well, I just saw a video on the furute of looping. Have you seen the EHX 95000? Shazaaam!!!

Edit: in the future, furute means future.


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

I just watched the video from the Reverb page. 

Damn.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

The little display screen looks a lot like the "scope" on the Korg Minilogue. Makes one wonder if such a device comes in a plug-n-play form for other applications.


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## Ti-Ron (Mar 21, 2007)

Do you have a project in mind?


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## Chitmo (Sep 2, 2013)

May do the same weird shit as this maybe?

Magneto - Four Head dTape Echo & Looper Eurorack Module - Strymon


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Ti-Ron said:


> Do you have a project in mind?


I don't, personally, but wonder if we might start seeing such teeny screens/oscilloscopes showing up in other things. For instance, would one be able to "design" a waveform on a distortion, by tweaking knobs to achieve a _visible_ result?



Chitmo said:


> May do the same weird shit as this maybe?
> Magneto - Four Head dTape Echo & Looper Eurorack Module - Strymon


Very cool. I love voltage-controlled stuff. The Roland Demora module has many of the features found in the Strymon unit. Except that it also comes with a bunch of virtual "modules" that one can virtually "patch" in software, to complement what the physical mini-jacks are doing.


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## zdogma (Mar 21, 2006)

OK this is a stupid question, is there a guitar going into that, or a keyboard or is it just making all sorts of weird noises on its own?


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Ideally, it's a synth module, to fit in with the rest of Roland's modular series, although it can be used with guitar, assuming one gets the levels right. So, the input could be anything that provides a signal. The source could be a keyboard, a sequencer, or what have you.

I gather these were not hot sellers, because Steve's sold them off cheap. I bought the Torcido distortion unit, early last year. Still learning how to use it.


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## Chitmo (Sep 2, 2013)

mhammer said:


> I don't, personally, but wonder if we might start seeing such teeny screens/oscilloscopes showing up in other things. For instance, would one be able to "design" a waveform on a distortion, by tweaking knobs to achieve a _visible_ result?
> 
> 
> 
> Very cool. I love voltage-controlled stuff. The Roland Demora module has many of the features found in the Strymon unit. Except that it also comes with a bunch of virtual "modules" that one can virtually "patch" in software, to complement what the physical mini-jacks are doing.


Just the picture makes my brain hurt


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## Dorian2 (Jun 9, 2015)

From a tech point of view, cool beans. From a rock guitarist point of view. F**k that s**t.


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## High/Deaf (Aug 19, 2009)

Cups said:


> Way to go empress. The blues guy won’t get this but noise dudes will be all over this.


Or maybe it will change Mustang Sally to Shelby Sally. And Crossroads to a multi-level cloverleaf. 

Or not.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

I get the weekly newsletters from Effectsdatabase, where they notify recipients of new effects "companies" and new pedals. Given the huge number of Me-too companies and pedals (fuzzes are into the 4-digits these days, and there are usually two new companies making a complete line of the usual pedals in 1590A boxes), it's nice to see something _different_ for a change.

But yeah, not really the sort of thing that gigging players are going to bend over and tweak for requests.


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## Dorian2 (Jun 9, 2015)

I hope my reply didn't sound condescending to Empress or those folks who use those types of sounds. Just sounds like something that an Artist that makes a living at sound tracks or other types of music that I'm really not familiar with. I can see where a more Progressive band like Rush woould use it for a specific part (see Cygnus X-1). @zdogma , if it's a stupid question, I have the exact same one. The video seems to mention effects that could be utilized for a guitar player, but then kind jumped back into Dr. Who, What, Where, Why, and How.


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

Some players want to get super weird.

I expect something out of this to be on LP4 haha.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Dorian2 said:


> I hope my reply didn't sound condescending to Empress or those folks who use those types of sounds. Just sounds like something that an Artist that makes a living at sound tracks or other types of music that I'm really not familiar with. I can see where a more Progressive band like Rush woould use it for a specific part (see Cygnus X-1). @zdogma , if it's a stupid question, I have the exact same one. The video seems to mention effects that could be utilized for a guitar player, but then kind jumped back into Dr. Who, What, Where, Why, and How.


I don't think your post was insulting or dismissive in the least. I mean, heck, the line-up of players who have abandoned menu-heavy multi-FX for 2 and 3-knob stompboxes is pretty damn long.

That said, I think many pedal-makers are happy to have a flagship product that prompts a "Man-oh-man" response from customers. Folks who may have neglected something like the Echo System in the landslide of me-too products may be prompted to give it a second look now.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

So Steve's coming over to show me the Zoia next week. I'm stoked.


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

mhammer said:


> So Steve's coming over to show me the Zoia next week. I'm stoked.


Please report back. 

I hope we get the loaners we asked for haha.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Budda said:


> Please report back.


Oh, I _will_.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Oh.....my.....goodness.
Steve came over and we put it through its paces for a few hours.

First impressions:

1) It's so_ small_! I thought it would be about the size of one of the larger Diamond pedals, but it's tiny for what it has and does. Same size as the Echo System. I also can't get over how much information can be displayed on that tiny screen. It's a little hard to read, but Steve said that the next size up, in terms of both resolution and size was a very big price differential. The one big knob lets you scroll through menus and submenus. But bring your reading glasses.

2) It does everything. And I mean _everything_. Steve brought an Arturia keyboard controller, set up the Zoia as a multi-oscillator synth, and used it as the tone generator for the keyboard. After I demonstrated reprocessing for him, using the TC Alter Ego that Scott/zdogma had left with me for fun, Steve started working on a patch in his notebook. I plugged a guitar in, and he simulated the re-processing of the guitar through a two-channel delay, where the output of one channel is fed back to the input of the other.

So, it slices, dices, makes Julienned fries, can have more oscillators than you'll ever need. There is the flash-card slot in the back for both upgrading and saving/loading patches. It reminded me of the Tom Waits song below, except this one delivers the goods. Steve said they had about 60 "modules" that can be connected at present, and are planning others. A "module" could be an oscillator, an envelope generator, VCA, a delay, and a whole buncha others that one might normally find in a deluxe modular synth....except it fits in the palm of your hand.

Did I mention it was small?

If you wanted to make a through-zero flanger you'd set up a patch that had two parallel delays, one fixed and the other swept, such that the swept one would sometimes be "ahead" of the fixed one by a smidgen. I was mentioning to Steve about what is termed "theta processing" last night. It involves inserting a few specialized stages of phase shift after the delay signal in a flanger, such that the notches in the bass range are spread out a little differently, to remove the "boxiness". Eventide used this in their old Instant Flanger. But it could be replicated in the Zoia. I gather the phase shift stage modules in there now are of the "lead" variety (i.e., phase shift increases with audio frequency). Theta uses "lag" (more phase shift the lower you go). BUt that's simply another, albeit less common, module that could be programmed or form part of a firmware flash update.

3) It is as deep as deep gets. Steve started developing it about 2 years ago, so by now he is nimble in quicklyprogramming it. But for myself, it was a flurry of hand movements and a blur of flashing buttons. Each button/pad has an RGB LED under it so it can be any colour. I suggested that it come out of the box with a default colour scheme such that any printed instructions would make sense when referring to button colour, and let people assign the colours that make sense to them later on.

I was hoping that there would be some sort of fixed and predictable columns-by-rows structure to it. But no, it's more flexible than that. So sometimes, Steve would press a button on one row, and I'd see 5 consecutive buttons light up with that colour, one brighter than the others, but the same-coloured buttons "wrapping" around to the next row. I can safely say that, were I to have one right now, I would not be able to program it to do anything more complicated than be a tremolo, for maybe a few months. But the fact that it CAN do everything would certainly keep me trying.

If your comfort zone is a 3-knob overdrive, this is not for you. If your comfort zone includes accessing the second set of parameters on a big Strymon pedal, then it _might_ be for you, but it's not guaranteed. If your comfort zone includes programming a DX7, then you'll be fine with it. The big challenge for Steve and Co. will be producing the demonstration and instructional videos, and a "learner's guide" that would step the new owner through setting up a couple of sounds/functions, from the simple to the "mind-blowing killer patch". The hurdle will lie in making it _feel_ as comfortable and familiar to the user as a 3-knob overdrive or delay. Steve is understandably there, but the question is whether it would take the new user 2 years to be as comfortable.


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

So this bad boy starts shipping in two weeks.

I may have watched over an hour of YT stuff because I'm home sick (blech).

I'm a bit intimidated, but I want one.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Stumbled onto a very good, thorough, and instructive Youtube from one of the folks providing patches for the public-release. Worth watching.


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

I wonder if thats the same video posted to the fractal site. Either way I want to watch it.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

You'll enjoy it. When Steve first demoed the Zoia for me, it was mostly button-pressing and a result, with no real tutorial-like explanation along the way. This video is more along the lines of a tutorial.


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