Empress Effects has released the Empress Drive, a versatile analog overdrive built for players who want enhanced control over how their gain behaves. Instead of locking players into a single flavor of overdrive, The Empress Drive provides players with tools to shape the harmonic structure that defines how a drive sounds and responds.
With pre-overdrive mid shaping, flexible boost routing, clean blend, and post-mix EQ, the Empress Drive can move from classic edge-of-breakup tones to saturated, harmonically rich drive, either enhancing the character of a guitar and amp or taking a rig somewhere entirely new.
Designed as a complete gain-shaping platform, the Empress Drive combines overdrive, boost, EQ, and noise control into a single, flexible pedal. The circuit is based on Empress’ earlier Germ Drive, which simulated the breakup characteristics of an old Tweed amp. The new Empress Drive is an asymmetrical hard-clipping overdrive but cleans up by varying your picking dynamics and guitar’s volume knob.
Key features of the Empress Drive include:
- Tube-like overdrive with advanced tone control
- Sweepable Midrange for precise harmonic shaping
- Mix control to preserve your amp’s natural breakup
- Active Bass and Treble shelving filters
- Up to 30 dB of pre- or post-clipping, footswitchable boost
- Built-in analog clipping meter with selectable LED color
- Adaptive noise gate
The Empress Drive carries a street price of $299 USD. For more information visit empresseffects.com.
