EMPRESS EFFECTS
MULTIDRIVE
BY STEVE OUIMETTE
If you’re a pedal-crazed tone chaser who has a hard time making decisions (is there
any other kind?), Empress Effects might
have just made life a little less difficult for
you with the Multidrive. The Multidrive is
three pedals in one—a fuzz, overdrive, and
distortion. That’s far from a revolutionary
concept. But with a parallel—rather than
stacked—circuit, the Multidrive offers a
lot more flexibility than a stacked multi-pedal or even a set of stompboxes in series.
This all-analog device effectively produces
panoramic tone-shaping power that’s more
akin to what you’d get from simultaneously
running multiple amps. And the end result
is a stompbox that’s significantly easier to
control and tailor to multiple needs.
Driving Under Control
Housed in a gray, die-cast aluminum box
that’s bedecked with 10 knobs, five 3-way
toggles and two stomp switches, there is a
lot happening in a relatively small enclosure
( 3. 5" x 4. 5" x 2"). The controls are separated into the three drive sections— Fuzz,
Overdrive, and Distortion—followed by a
master EQ and output section. The Fuzz,
Overdrive, and Distortion sections each use
the same three controls—Volume, Gain,
and a 3-way filter switch (Low Pass, None,
High Pass), as well as a corresponding LED
(fuzz is red, overdrive is yellow, and distortion is green). The Distortion section adds
another 3-way toggle for selecting between
Crunch/Mild/Lead distortion types. The
master EQ section has Hi, Mid, and Low
knobs that cut or boost a given frequency
by 10 dB. In addition, a super-useful toggle
determines which midrange frequency—500
Hz, 250 Hz, or 2 kHz—is the zero position
for the Mid control. At the bottom of the
pedal are stomp switches for Select and True
Bypass, as well as a blue LED.
Another very important control set lurks
behind the back panel. Six DIP switches
configure the Select switch presets and dictate which combination of distortion, fuzz
and overdrive are activated for a given state.
Switches 1-3 are dedicated to State and
switches 4-6 are assigned to State A.
Triple Play
Running the Multidrive into a 3rd Power
British Dream on the ’ 68 Plexi channel and
with my Hamer Korina Special at the ready,
I set the pedal up to combine all three gain
channels at once. This allowed me to dial in
as much or as little (or none) of each channel, as well as fine tune the tone of each
channel individually.
I tackled the Fuzz mode first. With the
filter switch off and all settings at noon,
the Fuzz channel coughed up a thick, gain-heavy, stoner-rock chunk. Maxing the gain
thickened the tone considerably and created
sustain that seemed virtually endless. Low
notes on the 6th string held up well, though
they weren’t necessarily as tight as you might
find on the Distortion channel. Engaging
the Low Pass filter darkened the tone considerably—like shaving the top off almost
completely—though you could effectively
dial some highs and mids back in via the
master EQ section. Switching on the High
Pass dropped out the bottom almost entirely
and made the fuzz sound like it was coming
through a telephone—a great potential effect
setting for an intro or breakdown in a song.
High- and low-pass filters for each channel
REVIEW > EMPRESS EFFECTS
The Overdrive section is perfect for pushing a Stratocaster to the edge and getting that
extra punch to cut through a track. This gain
channel is the most dynamic of the three. It
cleans up beautifully by rolling off the guitar’s
volume control, and it’s inspiring, spanky,
and expressive. In the highest gain settings it
has enough headroom to feel powerful, but
not over-saturated. Engaging the Low Pass filter and cranking the mids from 2 kHz I was
able to get a killer, Ty Tabor “Gretchen Goes
To Kansas” rhythm and lead tone.
With my Les Paul running through the
Distortion channel, I set the distortion type
to Lead and pulled down the mids (500 Hz)
to get a Montrose “Rock Candy” sound. And
with a few tweaks and a bit of treble, it wasn’t
hard to get into modern metal territory, even
though the bass isn’t voiced quite right for
super-aggressive modern chunking. Too much
bass made the sound a little on the tubby
side, but that could also be attributed to the
Celestion Alnico Gold in my signal chain,
which is not a metal speaker by any standard.
Switching to mild distortion shaved off a ton
of gain and sounded fairly tame in comparison. But my favorite setting had to be the
Crunch position. Diming the Gain control in
Crunch mode resulted in a little collapse of
the signal, but backing off this control ever so
slightly resulted in a smoking tone that was
the very definition of heavy-rock rhythm guitar. Malcolm Young would have been proud.
Combining the three channels is a
process of investigation that could occupy
many happy hours. Over the course of my
time with the Multidrive, I was able to
pull out convincing takes on classic tones
from Kansas’ “Carry On Wayward Son” to
Switch for
variable mid-
frequency in
master EQ
Master EQ
section
