“What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”
Names are important. Names mean stuff, usually. How many times have you pulled the trigger on that pedal because of its name? How many times are you not admitting to, breaking eye contact to more easily lie?
We've all been there. The Eviscerator Fuzz, the Shellshock Bass Compressor, the Hardlight High-Gain Overdrive. Man, what a name, right? The effect under the footswitch has got to live up to it. Sometimes you need that name to put yourself over the edge, to pull that trigger. You want Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner on your movie soundtrack? Of course not. Sting? Now we're talking.
On the docket today, we've got a classic case of a great combo of words: simple and clean. Straight from one of the most consistently showstopping names in pedals today, we've got something sweet.
This is the Empress Effects Drive Analog Overdrive.
Shut Up and Drive
Introducing the Empress Effects Drive Analog Overdrive
The gang over at Ontario's Empress Effects are not usually ones for pageantry in design. A longstanding name in high-end effects, Empress has likely landed on most players' radars through their expansive Reverb reverb and delay pedals, their Buffer line of powerful buffer pedals, and their studio-grade ParaEq EQ and Compressor compression pedals. They've flirted with more extravagant designs with their Heavy Menace distortion pedals, but by and large, the Empress Effects line is a collection of pedals that cuts straight to the chase for incredibly high-fidelity effect experiences.
Today's release balances the best of both worlds. The Empress Drive Analog Overdrive matches classic Empress tenets of ultra-modern, ultra-high fidelity with deep control interfaces and a special kind of instantly-gratifying and inspiring musicality. Whereas the Empress ParaEQs, Compressors, and Buffers might seem intimidating and maybe a little more outside your list of average use cases, the Drive stays well within the realm of inspiring analog effects that don't stress you out and make you crack open the instruction manual.
There's a ton going into and coming out of the Empress Drive. Let's talk about it.
Driven to Win
Empress Effects Drive Analog Overdrive Design and Controls
The Empress Drive is pretty much exactly what you'd expect from the prompt "Empress Effects analog overdrive." Empress went ahead to stick their more usual guns with a design, control scheme, and name that is effortless and clean. It's the Empress Drive, what else do you need?
Let's talk about a few of the foundational elements that kick off the Empress Drive.
Empress Effects Drive Overdrive Controls and Settings
- Output – Centrally, the Empress Drive sets off on its driving and distorting journey with a master volume control. Letting us in on its modernity from the jump, the Empress Drive splits its gain and volume-shaping experiences across a master effect volume control, Output, and...
- Gain – The second half of our overall distorting pie. Splitting the volume and gain controls this way allows the Empress Drive to fill a room with forceful, boosted punch or fire up a thick, saturated distortion at apartment-friendly levels. Either way, we're off to a good, intuitive start.
- EQ – Below, our next row of controls offers up a three-band EQ that gives you the kind of amp-like frequency control to get truly down-and-dirty with your drives. Of course, this being an Empress creation, the EQ shaping experience doesn't just emulate your basic tube amp three-way control scheme. On top of it being much deeper and more precise than an old amp, there's more magic afoot.
- Mid Freq – Our lowest row of smaller knobs introduces a control that works in tandem with the Midrange frequency EQ knob. The Mid Freq control allows for even closer dialing in on midrange frequencies, introducing a much more robust, studio-grade sound meant to fit every rig.
Along with our more basic gain and EQ-shaping setup, we have, unsurprisingly, plenty of ultra-modern, Empress bells and whistles readily accessible. Let's briefly cover those.
- Mix – Dead center, the Empress Drive features a dedicated clean blend mix control. This precise and powerful piece gradually introduces affected wet signal for making perfect balances of clean and dirty sounds. If you're a studio rat or just would like some more room for note articulation, the clean blend has you covered.
- Gate – In addition to keeping things manageable and articulate with the clean blend, the Empress Drive features an adjustable noise gate used for cleaning up stray noise that can be produced from overly noisy pickups or real high-gain flavors.
- Boost – Topping everything off for now, the Empress Drive features an onboard clean boost effect, engageable via its own footswitch and routable before or after the overdrive for a crunchier drive or a fuller lift of volume. Thirty decibels are on tap with this boost to introduce a small bump or an all-new distortion channel, effectively.
With all that out of the way, how about some tones?
"Shape how gain behaves, not just how much of it there is." - Empress Effects
Be Quiet and Drive
Empress Effects Drive Analog Overdrive Tones
Across this Empress creation, the brand offers an incredibly vast and versatile overdrive experience through its deep but intuitive control scheme. The Empress Drive delivers on its namesake for oh so many varieties of overdrive and distortion from an edge-of-breakup boost to help your teetering tube amp to full-on, onboard native saturation.
The Empress Drive excels in the two primary realms overdrives funnel into: Pushing a cranked amp or summoning drive all its own. Let's talk about these.
Tube Amp CompadreLike so many other analog drive pedals of generations past, the Empress Drive is your tube amp's next best friend. Stick this pedal in front of your favorite teetering tube amp and watch it bloom with all the breadth, force, and natural saturation you know it has, letting it spread its wings and live its best life. This is made possible by the Drive's independent Output, Gain, and Boost controls that can stack up a solid push on demand to get your old tube amp to break a sweat.
Standalone Drive EngineProbably the more common use of overdrive pedals these days is as an ingredient in a larger pedalboard gumbo, where your amp might not factor into your gain character much at all. The Empress Drive flourishes in this realm also as a standalone drive machine. The pedal's Gain control cranks up and breathes full, lush, tube-like distortion into a signal and is then shaped closely with clean blend Mix and noise gate Gate controls on even the cleanest amps.
Working as either a straight-to-amp assistant or the star of the show when it comes to drives and distortions, the Empress Drive swings on either level. The Empress Drive carries with it enough heated, distorted muscle under its hood to act as your standalone drive machine* as it fires up thick, searing sustain that can carry your whole rig forward. Where you might initially be skeptical of the Drive's ability to get along to the kind of crunching, modern flavors of drive that you might not always associate with tube amps, Empress defies expectation. Fire up the Empress Drive for all your modern rock, punk, metal – whatever mix of those three they're doing these days – needs. Empress does it all with style and finesse.
Not to mention its onboard boost circuit
If the high-gain, no-questions-asked world of modern distortion isn't really for you, the Empress Drive has you covered there also. Getting into the weeds with your low-gain, transparent, or edge-of-breakup overdrives is equally easy and equally fulfilling. Those who are constantly kneeling to their boards, inching this knob just barely and that knob even less to get the ideal mix of tube-like bite and ultra-modern clarity have an ally in Empress. The Drive swings effectively on the smallest, lowest-gain levels to act as your first-stage drive onstage or a one-size-fits-all studio companion to drop in at a moment's notice.
Drive All Night
Empress Effects Drive Analog Overdrive Further Functions
As we wind down on this Empress experience, let's run down a few of the smaller functions that put a ribbon on the whole deal, here.
- Buffered Bypass – Onboard, the Empress Drive's footswitches land with a buffered bypass design. This feature works alongside the Drive's other thoroughly modern features for a switching experience that is airtight and clean, wherever this Empress pedal lands.
- Standard Power – With so many exceptional features under one roof, you'd understand if Empress had to bust out different power requirements for their latest drive. You would understand, but luckily you don't have to with the Empress Drive's industry standard nine-volt DC center negative power requirements at a 250mA minimum.
- Clipping Meter – We've gotten this far but we can't help but shoutout one of the showstoppers of the Empress Drive. Onboard, the pedal features a real-time analog clipping meter that shows your present overdrive clipping position between "Lite," "Crunch," and "Dist" as a great way to watch your analog drives build up and act out. The meter's screen additionally switches between a red or blue LED display whether you route your clean boost before or after your overdrive circuit.
Empress Effects Drive Analog Overdrive Final Thoughts
As one of the modern effect market's most celebrated but understated names, Empress have really outdone themselves with the Drive. Empress successfully packed an ultra-modern drive and distortion experience all in a compact form under two footswitches, making for an overdrive effect that anyone and everyone can – and should – get into. The pedal's ability to swing from a more traditional tube amp companion to an all-in-one distortion engine seamlessly makes it a truly adaptable and expressive effect to check essentially every box on your drive pedal "to-do" list. Let this be your sole pedalboard overdrive – it certainly has the juice. At very least? Entertain the idea.
