Empress Reverb User Manual

user manual

version 3.01

INT RODUCTION

Jason Fee - Designer

Steve Bragg - Designer

We're stoked you've chosen to make the Empress Reverb part
of your sound! We've worked really hard to provide beautiful
realistic studio-quality reverbs, as well as many creative new
modes. You'll soon discover the tone palette is deep and
diverse.

It was important for us to create a pedal that's tweakable but
fast to dial in. We wanted all the functions at your finger tips
and accessible with your toes. The many advanced
configuration options let you customize the pedal to meet your
needs, so be sure to check those out.

If any section of this manual is unclear, check our tutorial
videos online - sometimes a moving picture with sound is
worth a million words.

The Empress Reverb firmware can be updated via an SD card. If
you want a say in what features we add to future firmware
revisions, sign up for our voting forum at

www.empresseffects.com/votingforum

Now go make some music!

QUICKSTART

All modes are designed to sound good with all knobs at 12 o'clock.
Start there and then tweak to taste.

Concert Hall

Modulated

Ghost

QUICKSTART

Room

Delay + Reverb

Reverse

MODE REFERENCE CHART

Mode

Description

Thing 1

Thing 2

Hall

Concert Hall

Classic large hall sound,
very warm, slow build,
with long smooth decay.

Modulation

Early Reflection
Level

Modern Hall

Hall that's very smooth
and warm without any
modulation.

Pre Delay Time

Early Reflection
Level

Plate

Classic Plate

Modeled after a vintage
plate, works at both short
and long decays.

Pre Delay Time

Bright Early
Decay

Studio Plate

Very smooth decay, no
modulation.

Pre Delay Time

Early Reflection
Level

Spring

Bright Spring

In the Fender Twin Reverb
realm.

Rattle Decay

Rattle Level

Dark Spring

In the Fender Deluxe
realm.

Rattle Decay

Rattle Level

Overdriven

Spring

Dirty 60's Surf Sound.

Rattle Decay
and Level

Break-up
amount

Room

L.A. Studio

Very Realistic room with
dense early reflections.
Great at short decays.

Pre-Delay Time

Early Reflection
Level

Sparkle

Sparkle

Adds smooth octaves and
long decays.

Sparkle Level

Sparkle Length

Glummer

Octave down and up

Octave down
blend

Octave up
amount

Modulation

Modulated

Very smooth and adds lots
of thickness, width and
airiness to the sound.

Modulation
Rate

Modulation
Depth

Chorused Reverb

Similar to Modulated but a
more muted sound in the
mid range frequencies.

Modulation
Rate

Modulation
Depth

Flanged Reverb

Has a wide-sweeping
flanger type effect on the
output.

Modulation
Rate

Modulation
Depth

Tremolo Reverb

Tremolo is applied after a
smooth hall reverb.

Tremolo Rate

Tremolo Depth

Ambient Swell

Triggered Swell

Detects pick attacks and
fades in the notes,
eliminating attack in the
reverb line.

Swell Time

Modulation

Gate Swell with

Octave

Has a gate that then feeds
a dense set of delays with
octave. It will fade in your
playing to create smooth
swells.

Gate Attack

Octave Up
volume

Delay+Reverb

Single Tap Delay

Adds a delay to the warm
hall setting, very cool for
lead parts.

Delay Time

Delay Feedback

Blend-able Delay

Delay time is set with
select stompswitch.

Blend of delay
vs reverb

Delay Feedback

Filtered

Feedback Delay

The Hi and Low knobs
filter the delay feedback.

Delay Time

Delay Feedback

Reverse

Reverse with

Decay

Reverse Reverb with a
nice smooth decay.

Reverse Swell
Time

Reverse
Modulation

Reverse and Stop

Reverse Reverb with no
decay.

Pre Delay

Diffusion

Reversed Delay

Reverse Delay with ability
to add Reverb.

Reverse Delay
Length

Amount of
Reverb added to
the reverse
delay

Ghost

Resonant

It's a spooky sounding
decay because of
aggressive resonances in
the response.

Mod Rate

Resonance
(aka spookiness)

Casper

A Friendlier, less spooky
ghost

Modulation

Diffusion

Lo-Fi

50's Radio

Grainy, filtered lo-fi sound
with an AM radio quality
to it.

Delay Level

Dirtiness

Warble

Distorted and wobbly
delay lo-fi sounds.

Warble

Dirtiness

Beer

Glitch

The reverb tail is fed into a
filter that randomly
changes between low-pass
and high-pass.

Glitch Speed

Glitch Tone ­determines the
time spent on
HPF vs. LPF

Gated Reverb

When you stop playing, a
gate mutes the wet signal.

Gate Threshold

Gate Release
(10ms - 1sec)

Destroyer Pad

For sternly communicating
with household appliances

Robot screams

Pitch shift

This manual only lists modes that were available at the time of printing.
For the most up-to-date firmware and manual refer to empresseffects.com

FIRMWARE UPDATES

This pedal has firmware that can be updated with an SD card.

Performing A Firmware Update

1) download the firmware file off the website
www.empresseffects.com/reverb-firmware

2) copy the file to the root directory of the SD card
(a high-capacity SD card that's been formatted FAT32)

3) insert the SD card then power on the pedal.

4) The preset LEDs should marquee yellow for a bit, then all
turn green when the update is complete.

5) remove SD card, cycle the pedal's power, and you're good!

SD Card Constraints

There should only be one partition on the SD card because the
pedal only looks at the first partition on the disk. SD card must
be V2 high speed. Nowadays this is the most common type.

Firmware Update Error Codes

The preset LEDs will blink to signal an error:

1. unusable card

2. V1 card

3. V2 standard card

4. unable to read disk

5. valid FAT volume not found on SD card.