Empress Effects

The best pedals for noise, experimentation and transformative sound design.

Empress is continuing to push the boundaries of what stompboxes can do while still being user-friendly and looking the part. Head honcho Steve Bragg tells us how it was inspired by Dookie and aspirations of building a robot.

Get freq-y.

The Zoia is much more than a multi-effects unit—you can patch together synth modules, arrange loops, build ‘pedals,’ and sequence oscillators.

In search of the ultimate digital reverb pedal? Gary Walker pits two established heavyweights against a new challenger from Empress.