FEATURE
Empress Effects
Our interview with Steve Bragg of
Empress was made possible because
Bragg had just blown up a converter for
a new analog delay. Such is the life of a
stompbox builder pushing the envelope.
Empress Effects—which manufactures the
Superdelay (which won a Premier Gear
award in our November 2009 review), the
Vintage Modified Superdelay, and the Tap
Tremolo in Ottawa, Canada—is another company that’s carving out new territory in the
high-end stompbox realm by wholeheartedly
embracing digital technology while maintaining an appreciation for what made early analog circuits sound so good.
“I love the idea of combining electronic and acoustic com-
ponents, using drum triggers, having one instrument affect
another, or having effects sync to tempo. There’s a bunch
of bands I listened to growing up . . . that do that kind
of stuff really well. Jonny Greenwood from Radiohead
continues to be a big inspiration.” —Empress Effects’ Steve Bragg
Unlike some builders, Bragg didn’t fall in
love with any particular pedal in his for-
mative years. He was more interested in
pedals as a means for learning the way
electronic circuits work, and he gravitated
toward making effects for keyboard play-
ers. He did, however, love the way certain
songs and records sounded. And his first
pedal—a sort of syncopated tremolo that
ultimately found its way into the Empress
Tremolo—was inspired by the song “Vow”
by Garbage.
or having effects sync to tempo,” Bragg
says. “There’s a bunch of bands I listened
to growing up—like Archive, Radiohead,
Björk, My Bloody Valentine, and Garbage—
that do that kind of stuff really well. Jonny
Greenwood from Radiohead continues to
be a big inspiration.”
“I love the idea of combining electronic
and acoustic components, using drum trig-
gers, having one instrument affect another,
That contemporary frame of reference
may have released Bragg from the bag-
gage that keeps many analog devotees
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