# Talk me out of a Multidrive



## mrfiftyfour (Jun 29, 2008)

So I have an Empress Multidrive on hold at L&M. Never paid north of $200 for any pedal in my life, but this particular one seems to be the gas ending overdrive pedal for me.
So friends, should I go for it, or is there another pedal I should consider?


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

They are nice, thats for sure.


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## zdogma (Mar 21, 2006)

Nice but complicated, if you're a tweaker it has great potential. I LOVE Empress pedals in general. I had one for about a week and returned it to L&M. Everything was in there, but every time I plugged it in I had lost my settings and had to find them again. I ended up getting an Empress Fuzz and I run it with my OCD for the OD/distortion. YMMV.


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## JBFairthorne (Oct 11, 2014)

I can't say definitively whether you should go for it or not but...I CAN say definitively that it WILL NOT end the GAS.


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## davetcan (Feb 27, 2006)

Don't buy it !!

(does that help?)


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## Adcandour (Apr 21, 2013)

Multidrives are racist. If you buy it, everyone here will hate you.

Buy a nice and white Fulltone OCD.


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## amagras (Apr 22, 2015)

adcandour said:


> Multidrives are racist. If you buy it, everyone here will hate you.
> 
> Buy a nice and white Fulltone OCD.


Can you expand that?


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## Adcandour (Apr 21, 2013)

amagras said:


> Can you expand that?


Sweet. No one has ever indulged me.

Well,...

I once knew a guy named Clifford who had the misfortune of purchasing a Multidrive from a farmer just northof Barrie, Ontario. When he brought it home, he set it up on his gigging pedalboard at the beginning of the signal change. He played for a while and then went to bed. He LOVED it. His Lynyrd Skynyrd chops were dead on for a change.

Long story short...

When he woke up in the morning, all of his other pedals were dead and segregated to the back of the pedalboard. One had even caught on fire, but it's still unknown as whether it was bad wiring or something the multidrive had done.


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## mrfiftyfour (Jun 29, 2008)

adcandour said:


> Sweet. No one has ever indulged me.
> 
> Well,...
> 
> ...


That story was better than the new Star Wars


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## amagras (Apr 22, 2015)

I don't even know what indulged means but now I like even less those multi knobs pedals.

It is possible that it was spontaneous combustion?


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## mrfiftyfour (Jun 29, 2008)

Well, you guys failed to talk me out of it. I tried it out and brought it home. I'll post a npd thread after rehearsal tomorrow.


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## sulphur (Jun 2, 2011)

Though I haven't tried the Multidrive, I do have the Empress fuzz on my band board.

That was after trying quite a few fuzzi before I found something that worked.
I think that the four knob setup helps tailor the sound quite well.

Congrats on the NPD!


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## the5chord (Oct 7, 2011)

I have been down the empress multidrive road twice. Thing I liked most about it was the distortion but the overdrive never got along with my Vox amps. The fuzz was okay. I have a palisades and a blackout sst now. Works better for my tastes. On a different setup the multidrive could be great.


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## mrfiftyfour (Jun 29, 2008)

...and it's going back. Damn, so wanted to like it. My original setup of a Dist+ into an OD11 sounds better. It makes my strat sound so fat. I think I just like the sounds of stacking pedals better than the parallel configuration of the Multidrive.
I'm gonna take the $400 and retube my amp instead.


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## JimiGuy7 (Jan 10, 2008)

Earthquaker Devices Palisades


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## mrfiftyfour (Jun 29, 2008)

Damn you JimiGuy7!


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## JBFairthorne (Oct 11, 2014)

JBFairthorne said:


> I can't say definitively whether you should go for it or not but...I CAN say definitively that it WILL NOT end the GAS.


Hate to say it but...I told ya so...lol.


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## JimiGuy7 (Jan 10, 2008)

mrfiftyfour said:


> Damn you JimiGuy7!


It's so nice though lol


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