Empress Tremolo or Catalinbread Semahore?

[CliffD]

I'd like to add a trew pedal to my board and have narrowed what I want to the Empress Tremolo or Catalinbread Semahore, if anyone has input on either or both I'd appreciate it.

[Jared Lash]

You can't go wrong with either one. Great pedals.

But IMO, the Empress is the best tremolo in production.

[Mingus Addict]

Maybe this will help. I was interested in the Empress and I asked fightthepower if he would make me a clip of some specific settings I wanted to hear. He was cool/kind enough to do so! I hope he doesn't mind me posting this but it really shows some of the power of the square wave of this pedal. It is capable of more traditional tones but check this out: http://soundclick.com/share?songid=7363734

Props again to ftp for doing that for me.

[Chronicle]

I find the Semaphore a little more practical in size and ease of use. Both are great tremolos that aren't on trick ponies. Check out my review on the Semaphore, which can be located in my Chronicle of Effects thread (in my sig).

[Jared Lash]

Originally Posted by Chronicle

I find the Semaphore a little more practical in size and ease of use. Both are great tremolos that aren't on trick ponies. Check out my review on the Semaphore, which can be located in my Chronicle of Effects thread (in my sig).

Have you used the Empress?

The Semaphore definitely has a smaller footprint, but I found it harder to dial in with the speed switch and the shape knob.

Getting a basic trem sound with the empress is just a matter of tapping in a tempo and selecting the depth. I also liked it's asymmetrical (tube) setting.

Sure, it has additional features (7 different rhythm modes, two speed mode) that take some time to work with, but I found it easier to use for normal trem sounds.

Again, no slight on the Catalinbread, I think it's a great trem. But as I said, the Empress is the best on the market IMO.

[CliffD]

Originally Posted by Mingus Addict

Maybe this will help. I was interested in the Empress and I asked fightthepower if he would make me a clip of some specific settings I wanted to hear. He was cool/kind enough to do so! I hope he doesn't mind me posting this but it really shows some of the power of the square wave of this pedal. It is capable of more traditional tones but check this out: http://soundclick.com/share?songid=7363734

Props again to ftp for doing that for me.

Dude that's a really cool sample, thanks and thanks to fightthepower.

[CliffD]

Originally Posted by Chronicle

I find the Semaphore a little more practical in size and ease of use. Both are great tremolos that aren't on trick ponies. Check out my review on the Semaphore, which can be located in my Chronicle of Effects thread (in my sig).

Yeah I checked that out to, thanks.

[newbold]

Can't go wrong with empress anything.

tap tempo trem with rhythm settings and it sounds awesome?

rugged pedals...
...made in Ottawa.

can't go wrong.

[fightthepower]

Originally Posted by Mingus Addict

Maybe this will help. I was interested in the Empress and I asked fightthepower if he would make me a clip of some specific settings I wanted to hear. He was cool/kind enough to do so! I hope he doesn't mind me posting this but it really shows some of the power of the square wave of this pedal. It is capable of more traditional tones but check this out: http://soundclick.com/share?songid=7363734

Props again to ftp for doing that for me.

Per Mingus's request, I tapped in about 120bpm in the 1:2 and squarewave settings, and with the maximum depth- and scrolled through each rhythmic pattern while clicking fuzz on an off a couple times.

Here's the second half of that clip, that I just kind of jammed out at the end. It's Pollyanna-Empress-BMS, and in parts I stepped on a couple other filters, moved the start and stop freq's on the BMS around, and brought octaves in an out with the Pollyanna- Very similar to the 'step filter-gyroscope-prometheusesque sound I had mentioned a while back, and never got around to making the clip of(at about the 6min mark you can here what I was talking about).

http://soundclick.com/share?songid=7373422

The Empress in in pattern 4, squarewave with max depth. Great pedal, very easy to use- Highly recommended!

[iualum]

...both the Semaphore & Empress are super trems...we're lucky to live in a great age of effects pedals!...

...but the best sounding tremolo on the market is the Cusack Tap-A-Whirl...do yourself a favor (even if you wind up not buying it) & check it out before buying anything...

[Jared Lash]

ftp, I dig the clip a lot. Nice.

As for Cusack stuff, I played with both the Tap-A-Whirl and the Tap-A-Phase at my old guitar players house. It should be noted that I was slightly intoxicated, but they both just had WAY too much going on for me.

That said, I thought the Tap-A-Whirl sounded great. The basic phase tone of the Tap-A-Whirl didn't make much of an impression. Also, a lot of the modes were too subtle to really be worth it on bass. But it sounded great on guitar.

[Mingus Addict]

Wow, that clip is even better than the first. You just sold one of these didn't you bigO? Having any sellers remorse?

[CliffD]

Originally Posted by iualum

...both the Semaphore & Empress are super trems...we're lucky to live in a great age of effects pedals!...

...but the best sounding tremolo on the market is the Cusack Tap-A-Whirl...do yourself a favor (even if you wind up not buying it) & check it out before buying anything...

I'll give it a look, thanks.

[Jared Lash]

Originally Posted by Mingus Addict

Wow, that clip is even better than the first. You just sold one of these didn't you bigO? Having any sellers remorse?

Sort of.

I say that because I knew I would miss it. I sold the majority of my pedals because I needed to start fresh and build a board that would fit with what my band was doing. And I just wasn't using my trem enough to justify having it, though it was the hardest pedal to part with.

I may end up buying another one at some point. We'll see.

[Mingus Addict]

If they replaced the rhythm knob with a set of dip switches to create your own rhythm settings I would not be able to resist.