I just received an email that Becos is done building the TS8-JZ and it'll head over now - fingers crossed it arrives before the weekend - which starts on Thursday in these parts.
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My Dirt Bender - Another Jounal
- Thread starter el murdoque
- Start date
Here's the full article on the empress Drive. A bit more thorough than usual, but I think it's well worth it!
thedirtjounal.com
Empress Drive – The Dirt Jounal
thedirtjounal.com
Oh no, that's what I was afraid of. Now I need to get an FPT.
When you already dig the sound, wait until you get your fingers on one and find out how it feels to play into it!
You could set the boost to post and the boost level 0dB, then all the second FS does is switch the LED color.
Hey y'all! Zak from Empress marketing here. Going to try and add some info to the Drive, but first want to thank @el murdoque big time for putting in so much of their own time to demystify it!
I just want to address the pre-boost HPF first: it was born of necessity because frequencies below 100Hz had too much energy for the clipping stage and were causing the pedal to behave erratically (low notes were sputtering in a non-cool but somewhat fuzz-like way, and high notes were dropping out). Turns out 30dB of boost into a 40dB gain circuit is a recipe for malfunction
Second, there is a LPF on the dirty signal, but it's at about 7kHz and just removed unpleasant sizzle.
I think some of the confusion around these frequency points is coming from using white noise instead of pink noise for the frequency response tests (but I am so happy to debate this). To try and keep this repeatable for anyone at home, I went into Logic and ran pink noise into the Drive and metered the results, which match what the theoretical cutoffs should be:
The honest truth is that we did test the Drive on bass while developing it, but there are inherently going to be tradeoffs because of the style of clipping that we went with. I wish we could have just removed the pre-boost HPF but the pedal doesn't sound great without it hahaha. The mix knob should let you bring in the low-end from your clean signal in parallel, but the overall characteristic may not be everyone's cup of tea and I get that!
An aside, but I'm a guitar player and tbh I think there's still too much low-end in the boost so I have a modified Drive where the HPF frequency is actually 500Hz and OH BOY does it feel different. It is practically unusable on bass hahahaha.
Anywhoos, I'll be checking the forum for the rest of the day so lmk if you have any questions about the Drive
I just want to address the pre-boost HPF first: it was born of necessity because frequencies below 100Hz had too much energy for the clipping stage and were causing the pedal to behave erratically (low notes were sputtering in a non-cool but somewhat fuzz-like way, and high notes were dropping out). Turns out 30dB of boost into a 40dB gain circuit is a recipe for malfunction
Second, there is a LPF on the dirty signal, but it's at about 7kHz and just removed unpleasant sizzle.
I think some of the confusion around these frequency points is coming from using white noise instead of pink noise for the frequency response tests (but I am so happy to debate this). To try and keep this repeatable for anyone at home, I went into Logic and ran pink noise into the Drive and metered the results, which match what the theoretical cutoffs should be:
The honest truth is that we did test the Drive on bass while developing it, but there are inherently going to be tradeoffs because of the style of clipping that we went with. I wish we could have just removed the pre-boost HPF but the pedal doesn't sound great without it hahaha. The mix knob should let you bring in the low-end from your clean signal in parallel, but the overall characteristic may not be everyone's cup of tea and I get that!
An aside, but I'm a guitar player and tbh I think there's still too much low-end in the boost so I have a modified Drive where the HPF frequency is actually 500Hz and OH BOY does it feel different. It is practically unusable on bass hahahaha.
Anywhoos, I'll be checking the forum for the rest of the day so lmk if you have any questions about the Drive
Hi Zak and thank you for showing by!
After playing around more with the Drive I do think that I see where you're coming from regarding the HPF.
Just as an info (I do post it regularly, but the less regular visitors of the thread might not know it), I play flatwound strings on my basses, so my tone usually has a massive fundamental, but is weaker in the overtones. I do run into drive pedals that struggle with that frequently and have to twist knobs until I get a halfway decent low end that does not have that 'speaker farting out' sound. The Drive has a rather big sweet spot where I do get a solid note down low but a singing drive higher up - and I'd guess that when a few more decibels hit it, there's a narrow corridor where both boost and normal signal work, but with +10dB or more, the low end would surely be a mess. I had not thought about that at all.
One question I'd have is if my speculation that the Drive is getting its dirt from clipping Mosfets ?
The nature of the clipping is not mentioned anywhere I looked.
Also, kudos to you good people at Empress - for releasing a pedal that made quite a splash. It seems you managed to interest a lot of people with that one.
The choice of adding a completely useless, and probably expensive feature with the VU meter was absolutely on point.
I'm going to be honest, I'm not an electrical engineer so I'll probably mess up some terminology here, but on one side there are two 1N4148s, and the other is one 1N4148 + two 1N5819s. Silicon and Schottkys
This made me spit out my drink. So accurate LOL. I mentioned it in another forum but we were joking around with the VU meter just as an "insane prototype idea that will never actually make it to production" but it looked so frickin' slick that we had to find a way to get it into production. As silly as it is, the fact that some people here aren't hitting the clipping circuit enough to make the needle move is actually fascinating to me and gives some fun visual representation to the circuit
(The first giant round VU drilled into ancient prototype
Thank you for that! I hope you're not spilling corporate secrets here ;-)I'm going to be honest, I'm not an electrical engineer so I'll probably mess up some terminology here, but on one side there are two 1N4148s, and the other is one 1N4148 + two 1N5819s. Silicon and Schottkys
This made me spit out my drink. So accurate LOL. I mentioned it in another forum but we were joking around with the VU meter just as an "insane prototype idea that will never actually make it to production" but it looked so frickin' slick that we had to find a way to get it into production. As silly as it is, the fact that some people here aren't hitting the clipping circuit enough to make the needle move is actually fascinating to me and gives some fun visual representation to the circuit
(The first giant round VU drilled into ancient prototype
View attachment 7492909
I am not ashamed to admit that I would have been keenly interested in an empress Drive, had you guys released it without the meter. Keenly interested as in "I'm gonna move it to my short list and wait a while until they hit the second hand market and then I'm gonna snag one up when I find a good deal".
The pedal with the meter is the reason I'm eating ramen for the rest of the month because I had to order one the minute I learned it was released.
Seeing this, I kinda wish you had pushed that whacky prototype to production as-is. That janky look certainly has a lot going for it (if you ask me, that is)!
If you ever need to get rid of it, I'll gladly send you my address!
We bass players certainly use gear differently, and quite often, we're looking for that kind of breakup that feels like an afterthought. Something that leaves the initial attack of the note intact and only starts blooming once that has passed. There's a time and a place for really distorted bass, but Lemmy Kilmister has passed more than a decade ago and heavily driven bass is probably more niche than one might think - especially when talking about heavily driven bass through means of cascading a (literal) wealth of boutique level drive pedals.
Usually, heavy drive is for the kids and the kids can't afford boutique pedals with their tiny little income and their drug habits.
The elderly have the income and hangovers so bad, they need little money for drugs, but they also have tinnitus and their knees are so used up they can't play a high energy show without excruciating pain.
This made me spit out my drink. So accurate LOL. I mentioned it in another forum but we were joking around with the VU meter just as an "insane prototype idea that will never actually make it to production" but it looked so frickin' slick that we had to find a way to get it into production. As silly as it is, the fact that some people here aren't hitting the clipping circuit enough to make the needle move is actually fascinating to me and gives some fun visual representation to the circuit
Yeah, it's pretty funny. I guess a lot of the common bass settings really are living down on the bottom edge of drive. Do you know if there's an accessible calibration screw for the meter? I was thinking I might try to 'raise the floor' a touch. But not before putting a witness line across the screw and housing so I can reset it back to factory.
Agreed.
That "made in my garage using old RadioShack parts" look is pretty sweet.
A limited edition version that, in a wood box like the old Russian EHX pedals would be cool.
WRT that prototype, Like a buddy of mine says,I'm going to be honest, I'm not an electrical engineer so I'll probably mess up some terminology here, but on one side there are two 1N4148s, and the other is one 1N4148 + two 1N5819s. Silicon and Schottkys
This made me spit out my drink. So accurate LOL. I mentioned it in another forum but we were joking around with the VU meter just as an "insane prototype idea that will never actually make it to production" but it looked so frickin' slick that we had to find a way to get it into production. As silly as it is, the fact that some people here aren't hitting the clipping circuit enough to make the needle move is actually fascinating to me and gives some fun visual representation to the circuit
(The first giant round VU drilled into ancient prototype
View attachment 7492909
"That doesn't suck"
So there isn't a calibration screw
We do check every VU twice before it leaves the factory to make sure they're in spec, but I'm a little concerned that your VU isn't reacting much tbh! If you increase the gain, does it eventually start to move/max out? Hahahaha DANG didn't expect y'all to dig this!! That VU is maybe 3" deep so there's no way to get a back on it hahaha. I'll see what I can do for future limited editions tho
Oh yeah, it moves fine at higher as I add gain, but it's just barely hopping when I'm set up for an always-on touch of grit and harmonics setting - input gain @ 9 o'clock, mid gain @ 3 o'clock.So there isn't a calibration screw
I'm still dialing in the sound that's going to work best. I've been going between having the gain set as above with the mix full wet and raising the gain a bit with the mix set to 50/50 (the VU meter is definitely more active in this setting). On it's own the 50/50 mix sounds really great, but when I stack the Drive into downstream pedals I prefer the Mix at full wet.
I have noticed this - I've felt like I'm really cranking the treble controls to get it as bright as I want. Opening up the LPF on my ParaEQ helped as well, but I couldn't go too far.
If there is ever a mkII or a Bass version, internal dip switches to bypass some of the filters on the boost & drive might be nice!
Hahahaha DANG didn't expect y'all to dig this!! That VU is maybe 3" deep so there's no way to get a back on it hahaha. I'll see what I can do for future limited editions tho
You obviously underestimate the dedication gathered here.
What, do you think, would keep any of us of taking this
to the pedalboard and make room for a bit of VU Meter sticking out the back?
Same here. At really low settings, the needle barely shrugs from time to time, which is a visual representation of what the pedal does and therefore absolutely correct - but we all like our VU meters either happily dancing in the middle, or aggressively redlining.
Same here again. Treble maxed is barely enough and I wish I could dial in just one notch more from time to time.
I mentioned it earlier when I was A/Bing against my settings on the DCX - I added my sineEffect nanoPara into the chain just ahead of the Drive to try and approximate the wide lift of the DCX - set at 5.4kHz (highest frequency on the nanoPara) widest Q, and nearly maxed the gain.
HRMMMM okay I cannot promise a single thing but I can say that this is really good feedback. If anyone else wants to pile on with notions of their ideal bass overdrive pedal I'll jot stuff down. Always good to know how we can be improving!!
I do LPF my signal so I'm not really interested in anything above 5-6k, but while the bass boosts solidly and reaches the advertised +15dB, the treble could have gotten a little more. The Drive is a great pedal and I really like it, don't get me wrong - but this would be one spot of possible improvement I can instantly put my finger on. I guess that you're expecting guitarists to play that pedal into a tube amp and many of those are ridiculously bright and therefore the baked in tone curve sits perfectly well there - possibly even sounds flat'ish, but bassists often work with equipment that's more flat in its response, especially in the treble - either by going directly into FOH, or by using modern bass cabs (with tweeters).
I'd say it would all be fine if the treble boost saw a +5dB increase.
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