Empress Zoia // Euroburo

[Fabitwo]

Yey!

[mr_bernard]

Did you get a shipping notification ahead of time? My card was charged, but I haven’t gotten a shipping email. Congrats! (excitement all around!)

Edit: Just got my shipping notification!

[Fabitwo]

Super excited! I bought it from a local shop (Norway). Wrapping my head around this one now

[xidnpnlss]

Excited for ya’ll! Make sure to post some first impressions so we can all live vicariously through your lucky life! Very interested in how quickly one can use up the CPU…

Did anybody who ordered with Prymaxe get their tracking?

[shikawkee]

I haven’t heard a peep from Prymaxe yet. Hopefully they’ve paid their Empress bill .
I’m really looking forward to this!

[shikawkee]

Ooops, spoke too soon. Just got my Prymaxe shipping confirmation. Yay!!

[xidnpnlss]

Me too!

[Fabitwo]

I was playing around for a few hours and here are my first impressions for the ones that might be interested:

• very, very good sound quality - my favourite reverb is (was?!) eventide blackhole and the reverb algorithms in the zoia are better, to my hears; i normally don’t like digital distortion, but i absolutely love the one(s) in the zoia - specially the fuzz;

• it´s very easy to get create patches and it´s a very intuitive machine - like everybody that was waiting for this stuff to come out, i watched a lot of videos, but i didn´t bored to learn all the steps, nor to go trough all the shortcuts etc, before having the machine in my hands. Turns out that today when i had the zoia in my hands i was so eager that i just went hands on- still no reading of the manual - and i manage to create a few patches, very easily. As long as you know you need to press both the module you want to connect and the module to be connected, you will have years of fun just messing around;

• A lof of fun creating patches- The youtube videos fail to show how fun it is to connect things around and just see what happens- i guess for that you just need to try it yourself, no video can show that;

• It gets weird - and that´s a good thing. Just by scrolling and hearing the included presets you start to understand how crazy you can make a simple saw wave or a kicksnareckick sound. This weirdness tends to almost always sound good due to the amazing sound quality of this machine.

So yes, very happy so far . I bougth the Zoia to use it as a fx machine/pedal and i only tried it in this setting. I will ofcourse build some synth patches but that will be more for the fun, and not so much to use it in my music.

Also some information that might give you some tips about my taste in equipment. I sold my octatrack because i didn´t considered a good tool to use in my music the studio due to the harshness of the sound - the fx, changing the pitch of samples, etc. Amazing tool to use live though. I also didn’t click with the Waldor blofeld due to be very cold but i did like the access virus, minus the fx. I love my prophet 12 and my tanzmaus. Sold an eventide timefactor without never really using it and got a ocean machine which i absolutely love.

I hope that all of you guys that order it get it soon

[sovietpop]

Thanks for the “first impression” mini review
Really really tempted but im gonna wait just a little to have a better idea of the included fx. What do you think about the delay ? I was impressed by the Echo system demo so i hope Zoia have great delay algo.

[captain8]

does it import samples and have follow actions?

[Fabitwo]

No problem I have read a lot of opinions here and in other forums and i think it´s good to read opinions of just normal fellows, passionate about music making. Just giving something back

Haven´t tested the delays yet. There are a lot of presets with delays but they have a ton of more things on top of it so it´s hard do appreciate the delay. I guess that the propose of the presets is to showcase what the Zoia can do. I would say that the delay modules are in line with the other empress pedals, maybe just a but stripped down with modulations, since you can add those later.

I did one patch with 2 stereo reverbs, a couple of lfos, a looper, a distortion module, and a bit modulator (this one is awesome), with a few weird routings. This one was hiting 74% of the cpu.

The thing is that it´s so deep, yet so simple that you can really lose track of time inside a patch, so i´m just really scratching the surface here. Just exploring a bit of the module index and connect stuff is awesome.

Also the connections between modules are very simplified. For example, it seems that you can connect “unlimited” modules to the line out - you don´t need to have a mixer, just control the connections strength.

What seems to be a lof of fun is to use some of the audio to pitch modules, like the pitch detector and then send it to some oscillators and see what happens.

Note: When using a looper, whenever you change a patch the recorded looper disappears. Probably because it´s recorded in the buffer and the buffer is reset when changing a patch.

[Fabitwo]

Hi Captain8! There is no sample player yet. Only looper that stores samples with max 16 seconds on buffer, only while you are using that patch.

[captain8]

thank you

[captain8]

curious, why does he say that it’s like a monome, is it just the look he is referring too?

[ballener0]

To those who already have it, does it come with a power supply and the SD card? I don’t think it will come with a power supply, like any other guitar pedal, but I’m curious about the SD. It can operate without it, though?

[xidnpnlss]

Great write-ups. Thank you very much for that. Gets me more excited.

• Bold statement wrt eventide reverb. I’m mainly missing a good reverb in fx chain so this comes very much welcomed.

• YES on the distortion modules. Every time someone used them in videos I was pleasantly suprised by how nice they sounded (agreed don’t usually like digital distortion)

• have you noticed any bugs?

I have always been looking for an wild external fx to complement the capabilities of my OT. Close to buying an H9 once or twice; had my eye on the various open source units; iPad is OK. This is looking more and more like it can scratch that itch. Properly stoked.

[shikawkee]

BTW-FWIW Prymaxe hasn’t actually shipped yet. Just printed packing slips. Mine’s still in NJ and hasn’t reached the post office yet according to tracking. Not that I’m watching carefully or nothin’. Heh.

[mr_bernard]

Thanks for your impressions! Mine’s getting here tomorrow. mmmmmmmmmmYEAH!

[pidgeo]

anyone know what would be the easiest way to use headphones with the zoia for portable standalone use?

id totally overlooked it not having a headphone out

I’m guessing some kinda minii headphone amp, or into the digitone or somink. Any ideas?

[xidnpnlss]

Totally doable with a simple breakout cable. Check their IG for an example.