Just got the Empress. Was on the fence between this and OTO Bam (but as a Bim owner, expecting it to be equally menu-divey/indirect, e.g. high/low cut filters not continuous, need scrolling through to get to etc.). Not tonnes of reverb experience, but the empress sounds lovely so far.
Mainly chipping in because there seems to be a misunderstanding in various posts here and there that the empress midibox is necessary for it to connect to midi clock, ccs etc - I emailed Adam at empress about this, and he pointed out that this inexpensive cable will do the trickâŚ
âŚActually you donât even need that cable, if you (like me) have the ZOIA, as they use the same standard.
However Iâve run in to an issue which I canât get around, posted about here:
Basically, whenever I run a midi LFO from OT or DN to the Reverb, even a slow-ish square wave, and twiddle the knobs a bit (cc value, speed, depth), the Reverb invariably freezes up: the knobs on the unit become unresponsive, including the algorithm selector, and only a power cycle gets you out of it.
I take it some devices are more sensitive to lots of midi data being sent, but given the Empress pedigree, I expected pretty tight midi implementation ⌠Thinking I have a faulty unit (have tried different midi cables, 3.5mm to quarter-inch adapter plugs etc.)
Curious if Empress Reverb owners can chip in on whether midi implementation is tight enough for it to handle OT LFOs, tweaking etc, and if they can get glitchy with it, without issues?
Kept trying different cables, settings etc., still no luck. Ended up getting a second unit, because I thought I had a lemon - but still the same issues! Infuriating. But I updated to the latest firmware (6.0) - the two units I had these problems with were both running 5.06 (or 5.05?) - and everything is working now as expected (using the midi-to-trs that came with the Zoia).
No more freezes or knobs on the Reverb becoming unresponsive, no matter how much midi LFO I throw at it.
Happy that it is all fine and dandy now, but what a strange thing.
I just got my empress reverb yesterday. Pretty impressed!
Question:
I noticed all knobs are pretty firm/solid, except the upper left (mode selector) knob, its a bit wobbly. Do you have this too? is this normal?
(the foot/stompswitches are also a bit wobbly, but these are different kind of knobs)
I have noticed lately that the Right output was 6dB louder than the Left one.
Empress support was ace and pointed that in my almost exhaustive tests I had forgotten to swap my balanced cables on the Reverb inputs with balanced ones.
Have in mind that "there isnât a way to resolve this as the pedals are designed for unbalanced audio".
Thinking about buying a really good guitar pedal.(for a analogue synth). No point in having a digital pedal for an analogue synthâŚyes? Stupid questions incoming.
Is it fully analogue(how can you tell as in write ups on guitar pedals they donât seem to mention digital or analogue)
I have a cheap Zoom ms70 that does everything okay )is this a digital pedal)?
Is there a cheaper analogue pedal that does an adequate delay reverb job?
Add anything else you might want to add.
The only reason i ask for cheaper as i would like to buy 4 pedals for a Vermona Perfourmer which can have four different fx pedals inputted.) Or may go with this Empress and just have one).
Typically reverb effects themselves are all digital, since itâs such a complex task with lots of parallel delay lines and filtering and feedback and whatever.
In some cases the manuals mention that the mix knob is analog â dry signal stays truly analog, the fully wet âdigitalâ signal gets mixed into it also in the analog domain. However, some pedals do the mixing digitally for some reason â on the output, the dry part of the signal is the digitized version.
edit: If youâre really hot on analog; you can get some sort of analog faux reverb going on if you take two or three BBD delays, set them to very short slapback echoes â all with slightly different time settings â and have them all feedback into eachother.
But uhm⌠compared to a run of the mill digital reverb effect, this will sound veeeeryy lo-fi.
Or go all out and set up speakers and microphones in an empty room and have that be your analog reverb â itâs actually pretty fun, but takes up quite some space, haha.
Hnng, what a chamber! And that next-level mic placement
They need to get an impulse-response pack going for download or purchase, I mean the marketing almost runs itself with that setup!
Hopefully they also record all their tests tones on tape, otherwise the tru-analog NASA sparkle hi-fi sound quality would be for nothing if it gets converted to these nasty 0s and 1s.
This is a bit baffling for me as surely if you buy an Analogue synth you do so because you want all that extra warmth. If you run it through a digital pedal doesnât that counteract why you bought the synth is the first place?
Well, some pedals donât mess with the dry signal at all. Your nice analog fatness stays fully analog, only the wet reverb sound on top is digital.
A lot of people praise the Strymon Deco for sounding really nicely like tape and use it on all sorts of analog synths, while it is a fully digital emulation.
Iâd say donât be so caught up with analog vs. digital. There is some truth to it, but for reverb usecases youâre not gonna be happy staying completely 100% analog.
Check the pedal if the wet/dry mixing is done analog too â or do that manually via an external mixer, if you want â that ensures that your core synth sound is not being messed with.
I dont think its a given that it will counteract the analogueness of the your synth. In fact, to my ears, analog stays better âintactâ when processed with fx; digital synths get kind of immersed in the mix.
The old reverb units used lower quality bit rates, and that is what people attribute to the warmth and vibe of these old units. The OTO Bam makes full use of this notion, and, imo, is the best sounding reverb pedal second only to the CXM 1978 (in productionâŚold school reverb units - Eventides, Alesis, Yamaha et al - is another story)âŚand I dont exactly love what Ive heard from it. Ive found reverb taste to be extremely subjective, and people swear by Empress, Eventide, TC Electronic etc.
But, yeah, if you dont want to get a spring reverb pedal or build your own plate or chamber, then youll have to âsufficeâ for digital.
You could use the send and return function on a mixer to send the effect to each channel on the mixer so you wouldnât be limited to just using effects on the Vermona.
For me it doesnât matter if its digital, analog or an emulation of either. The main thing is if it sounds good and easy to use.
In the end, if you ever release music, despite your best efforts to be all analog (because people think it sounds better), it will most likely be listened through a phone or a TV anyway.
