If you’re a pedal-crazed tone chaser who
has a hard time making decisions (is there
any other kind?), Empress Effects might
have just made life a little less difficult for
you with the Multidrive. The Multidrive is
three pedals in one—a fuzz, overdrive, and
distortion. That’s far from a revolutionary
concept. But with a parallel—rather than
stacked—circuit, the Multidrive offers a
lot more flexibility than a stacked multipedal
or even a set of stompboxes in series.
This all-analog device effectively produces
panoramic tone-shaping power that’s more
akin to what you’d get from simultaneously
running multiple amps. And the end result
is a stompbox that’s significantly easier to
control and tailor to multiple needs.
Driving Under Control
Housed in a gray, die-cast aluminum box
that’s bedecked with 10 knobs, five 3-way
toggles and two stomp switches, there is a
lot happening in a relatively small enclosure
(3.5" x 4.5" x 2"). The controls are separated
into the three drive sections—Fuzz,
Overdrive, and Distortion—followed by a
master EQ and output section. The Fuzz,
Overdrive, and Distortion sections each use
the same three controls—Volume, Gain,
and a 3-way filter switch (Low Pass, None,
High Pass), as well as a corresponding LED
(fuzz is red, overdrive is yellow, and distortion
is green). The Distortion section adds
another 3-way toggle for selecting between
Crunch/Mild/Lead distortion types. The
master EQ section has Hi, Mid, and Low
knobs that cut or boost a given frequency
by 10 dB. In addition, a super-useful toggle
determines which midrange frequency—500
Hz, 250 Hz, or 2 kHz—is the zero position
for the Mid control. At the bottom of the
pedal are stomp switches for Select and True
Bypass, as well as a blue LED.
Another very important control set lurks
behind the back panel. Six DIP switches
configure the Select switch presets and dictate
which combination of distortion, fuzz
and overdrive are activated for a given state.
Switches 1-3 are dedicated to State and
switches 4-6 are assigned to State A.
Triple Play
Running the Multidrive into a 3rd Power
British Dream on the ’68 Plexi channel and
with my Hamer Korina Special at the ready,
I set the pedal up to combine all three gain
channels at once. This allowed me to dial in
as much or as little (or none) of each channel,
as well as fine tune the tone of each
channel individually.
I tackled the Fuzz mode first. With the
filter switch off and all settings at noon,
the Fuzz channel coughed up a thick, gain-heavy,
stoner-rock chunk. Maxing the gain
thickened the tone considerably and created
sustain that seemed virtually endless. Low
notes on the 6th string held up well, though
they weren’t necessarily as tight as you might
find on the Distortion channel. Engaging
the Low Pass filter darkened the tone considerably—
like shaving the top off almost
completely—though you could effectively
dial some highs and mids back in via the
master EQ section. Switching on the High
Pass dropped out the bottom almost entirely
and made the fuzz sound like it was coming
through a telephone—a great potential effect
setting for an intro or breakdown in a song.
The Overdrive section is perfect for pushing
a Stratocaster to the edge and getting that
extra punch to cut through a track. This gain
channel is the most dynamic of the three. It
cleans up beautifully by rolling off the guitar’s
volume control, and it’s inspiring, spanky,
and expressive. In the highest gain settings it
has enough headroom to feel powerful, but
not over-saturated. Engaging the Low Pass filter
and cranking the mids from 2 kHz I was
able to get a killer, Ty Tabor “Gretchen Goes
To Kansas” rhythm and lead tone.
With my Les Paul running through the
Distortion channel, I set the distortion type
to Lead and pulled down the mids (500 Hz)
to get a Montrose “Rock Candy” sound. And
with a few tweaks and a bit of treble, it wasn’t
hard to get into modern metal territory, even
though the bass isn’t voiced quite right for
super-aggressive modern chunking. Too much
bass made the sound a little on the tubby
side, but that could also be attributed to the
Celestion Alnico Gold in my signal chain,
which is not a metal speaker by any standard.
Switching to mild distortion shaved off a ton
of gain and sounded fairly tame in comparison.
But my favorite setting had to be the
Crunch position. Diming the Gain control in
Crunch mode resulted in a little collapse of
the signal, but backing off this control ever so
slightly resulted in a smoking tone that was
the very definition of heavy-rock rhythm guitar.
Malcolm Young would have been proud.
Combining the three channels is a
process of investigation that could occupy
many happy hours. Over the course of my
time with the Multidrive, I was able to
pull out convincing takes on classic tones
from Kansas’ “Carry On Wayward Son” to
Soundgarden’s “My Wave” to Dire Straits’
“Money For Nothing.” Having the Low
Pass/None/High Pass filter for each gain
channel is a super-effective way to carve
out a distinctive sonic space for each gain
section. For instance, I engaged the High
Pass filter on the Fuzz channel, left the
Overdrive channel set to None, and the
Distortion channel to Low Pass. The extent
to which the 3rd Power took on the expansiveness
of a three-amp setup was remarkable—each pedal channel claimed its own
frequency spectrum without stepping on
the toes of another.
With the fuzz searing on top, I could
mix in just the right amount of bottom-heavy
distortion and blast the overdrive to
give body to the guitar’s basic voice. Even
though I’ve used pedalboards with multiple
drive units extensively, the Multidrive made
balanced blends of mixed-gain tones easier
than ever, thanks to its filters alone. The
highly functional tone-shaping with the
master EQ section is icing on the cake.
My quibbles with the Multidrive are
very few. The Output knob is situated
directly above the Bypass switch and given
the easy travel on the knobs, more than
once I bumped it, and either pushed up or
dropped my volume by quite a bit. It would
also be nice to see the DIP switches on the
exterior of the pedal, where they could be
accessed more easily, and a few extra preset
states would be nice.
The Verdict
To say I’m impressed by the Multidrive
would be an understatement. It’s a genuinely
fun pedal that will take your playing in many
directions. Given that it packs exceptional
versions of the three most popular gain
effects and myriad options for combining
them into such a small footprint, it has the
potential to be the only pedal a lot of gigging
guitarists will haul to a show. The dedicated
filters for each channel make tailoring them
to a multi-gain environment easy, and the
master EQ section is a handy tool for shaping
the collective output. Powerful, smart,
and compact, the Multidrive will be a serious
contender for the number-one pedal on a lot
of boards in the years to come.
Buy if...
you want Fuzz, Overdrive, and
Distortion in one pedal, as well as
the ability to combine or switch
between them.
Skip if...
amp overdrive is all you need or you
already have a channel-switching
monster of an amp.
Rating...
