# New dirt pedals from Empress



## zurn (Oct 21, 2009)

I wonder if these are from the Multidrive? I really wish Empress would stop using those knobs though, I find them way to small to play around with my foot.


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## Macki (Jun 14, 2010)

It must be "almost" each circuit with a tone circuit is my guess. For 179.00 I think I would rather save up another 100 bucks and get the Multidrive. They always make great stuff though (I have the VMSD, Trem and Phaser).


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Well, Steve Bragg (from Empress) is supposed to be coming over to the house on the 22nd, when I host my pedal-builders and DIY-ers "summit" ( http://www.guitarscanada.com/open-m...all-diy-ers-pedal-makers-open-invitation.html ). I'll ask him then.

Personally, if it was me, I wouldn't jump into the distortion-pedal game unless it was something especially unique _*like*_ the Multi-Drive. There is just so much on the market right now, you'd have to have a big whack of confirmed sales, or else something *very* different, to move much product. If you go to a site like musictoyz, how the hell do you tell anything apart anymore? That's not to suggest these pedals aren't "new and different" in some way, there's just a helluva lot of other stuff people have already heard of, that they have to work through first.


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

No question it's a busy market. There is just so much to choose from it's overwhelming


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

zurn said:


> I wonder if these are from the Multidrive? I really wish Empress would stop using those knobs though, I find them way to small to play around with my foot.


You may get a shot at one of these free. We are running a giveaway with empress next week sometime


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## -TJ- (Aug 28, 2006)

It may be a saturated market, but I'm in Ottawa, and I like trying different flavours of fuzz. I already have enough high end dirt boxes that I cant find a real use for a larger unit like the multidrive.... so you can bet I'll be buying the little yellow fuzz box


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## neldom (Apr 29, 2009)

I have to say, I have the Multidrive and although I can't really find any love for the overdrive circuit, both the fuzz and the distortion are outstanding (especially enjoy the crunch) and the eq section does a ton for both circuits.
The only gripe I have is half of the pots on the pedal are loose, and not just the knobs but the actual pot shafts. Some are tight others are very very wiggly.
Apart from that though I could see having either of those 2 circuits in a stand alone pedal, they are that good on their own.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

I'll pass on your compliments to Steve when I see him.:smilie_flagge17:

I have one of these things - http://www.bossarea.com/other/rod10.asp - which is sort of kind of the ancester/precursor, except that the 5 different sounds can only be used one at a time, and not concurrently, or blended in any way. And, rather than mere revoicings or tweaks of a single basic circuit, these ARE five distinct different circuits. One is in the vein of the BD-2 (Blues Driver), and another is closer to a Superfuzz. Sadly, it doesn't let you remotely footswitch or cycle through the distortions, just bypass the whole thing.


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## sulphur (Jun 2, 2011)

Ya the pedal and especially dirt/fuzz market is pretty stocked right now.

I can see some logic to sell these seperately though. 
If someone already has one or even two of those effects covered from the Multidrive, 
they may spring for a single pedal.

I may try the fuzz.


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## KujaSE (Jul 30, 2006)

I'd like to check out the drive actually. I'm attempting to move to an all Canadian-built setup. Pedals have been the hardest to switch over, haven't found many decent Canadian built boosts/drives.


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## zurn (Oct 21, 2009)

KujaSE said:


> I'd like to check out the drive actually. I'm attempting to move to an all Canadian-built setup. Pedals have been the hardest to switch over, haven't found many decent Canadian built boosts/drives.


You might want to check out my thread, I tried to do the same thing a while back and also found it hard to find replacements for my Timmy and OCD. I made a list of all the pedal makers with the help of members on the forum.

http://www.guitarscanada.com/effects-pedals-strings-more/38061-all-canadian-pedalboard-help.html


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## Guest (Oct 13, 2011)

neldom said:


> The only gripe I have is half of the pots on the pedal are loose, and not just the knobs but the actual pot shafts. Some are tight others are very very wiggly.


Tell them. They'll help. They have outstanding customer service.

I'm digging fuzz + distortion in parallel. You get this huge wall of noise that's pretty awesome.


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## Guest (Oct 13, 2011)

zurn said:


> I wonder if these are from the Multidrive?


Didn't see if this got answered. Yes, they are based on the multidrive circuits. Modified slightly. But 99% the same.


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## Guest (Oct 13, 2011)

GuitarsCanada said:


> You may get a shot at one of these free. We are running a giveaway with empress next week sometime


Sweet! This giveaways are awesome.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

iaresee said:


> I'm digging fuzz + distortion in parallel. You get this huge wall of noise that's pretty awesome.


One of the things that producers will do to get a "bigger" sound is use multiple amps in parallel, presumably mic'd in a way that there is juuuuuuuussssttt the slightest time/arrival difference between them, and of course set for different flavours of distortion/overdrive.

Running more than one overdrive pedal in parallel, with the teeny tiniest amount of delay on one of them seems like a great way to nail that kind of technique without mics.


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## neldom (Apr 29, 2009)

iaresee said:


> Tell them. They'll help. They have outstanding customer service.
> 
> I'm digging fuzz + distortion in parallel. You get this huge wall of noise that's pretty awesome.


I did tell them, I may have been a little beligerent in my second response and i think I put them off a bit...
My bad.
I was just dissapointed to drop $300 and have an issue like that.
But the variety of great tones has made me get past that very quickly.
I completely agree about the fuzz + distortion simultaneously incredible huge sound. Absolutely outstanding.


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## sulphur (Jun 2, 2011)

So is running pedals parallel different than just stacking them?

I've had good success stacking my fuzz with my dirt.


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## neldom (Apr 29, 2009)

Definitely different than stacking. I've had some great success with stacking too.
But in parallel the tone of one does not affect the other, they just run beside each other but independent. Other than the eq section of the pedal. And with the high/low pass filters available on each module it really lets you get creative.
I love using the crunch on no filter and kicking in the fuzz on high pass just to add some top end sizzle. Really a whole new pallette available beyond stacking.


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## sulphur (Jun 2, 2011)

OK, I get the concept now but what do you run them into?

How are you running them into the amp, I guess is what I'm asking.

They go into something before the input of the amp?


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

The thing with parallel is that one gets a lot more "animation" resulting from the different patterns and durations of harmonic production. I might also note that running two harmonic-generating devices in parallel is also different than something like the Voodoo Labs Sparkle Drive, which blends clean and overdrive.


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## sulphur (Jun 2, 2011)

So is this through a looper or something then?


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## neldom (Apr 29, 2009)

Essentially what happens your guitar signal comes in to the pedal, it is split into three different signals one to each the fuzz, overdrive and distortion circuits. Each of those circuits has seperate gain, volume and high/bypass/low pass filters. After they pass through these circuits they are combined and run through an overall TMB eq section (with a 3 way selectable mid Q) and into an overall level and out of the pedal.
Everything is done internally, there is no option for cascading these effects they are a parallel only configuration.


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## sulphur (Jun 2, 2011)

Oh, I see, it's with the Multidrive you're talking about.

Got it.


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## Guest (Oct 13, 2011)

sulphur said:


> So is running pedals parallel different than just stacking them?
> 
> I've had good success stacking my fuzz with my dirt.


Very different. With the Multidrive you can even apply low pass or high pass filtering to the parallel channels. Imagine fuzz on the low notes but searing distortion when you play the high notes. It's pretty cool.


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## sulphur (Jun 2, 2011)

That is a cool idea.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Though I have to finish wiring it up, my modular system, that I made for myself, has a pair of nondedicated splitter/mixer (2 send/ 2 return) modules, so you can blend any two things you want. There's also a variable lowpass/highpass filter module on the bench. What I should _probably_ do is make a voltage-controllable "morphing" module, so that one could pan between any two input signals you want via an expression pedal. So, in theory, I'd be able to split my signal, feed it to a Tube Screamer, and a compressor+Bluebox (octave divider), run in parallel, and pan between them to fade the octave-down in over time. Or better yet, a Bluebox and a Foxx Tone Machine so you start out with octave down and morph to octave up.

Gotta love modular!:rockon2:


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