NPD: Empress Compressor

fretmeister · February 2015

After much gnashing of teeth I finally bought an Empress Compressor.

I wanted proper rack / studio compressor control of the parameters and as a bassist I wanted something that doesn't roll off the low end. Most pedal compressors roll off and on a guitar or even a 4 string it's not much of an issue. But I play a 5 and the reaction from most pedal compressors for the low notes is very different than on the others.

The Empress arrived yesterday and is very easy to set up. The instructions have a few suggested settings from light compression to squashed Country chick-pickin type things.

My low end is back completely and it sounds just brilliant - in that the tone of the bass is accurate. There doesn't seem to be any colouration of the tone itself, just highly controllable compression.

It wasn't cheap, in fact I think it is the most I've ever spent on a pedal, but I looked at it as a proper rack / studio compressor that just happened to be in a pedal enclosure.

I'm in the middle of a board rebuild so it isn't complete, but here it is with a few things I was experimenting with

The only slight downside is that the control names are in a very stupid colour that is difficult to see. No doubt I'll be adding a nice white sticker to the front of it at some point.

Very pleased with it indeed!