One of the brand new pedals that were on display at the 2017 first Montreal Stompbox Exhibit was the Empress Effects EchoSystem, the Canadian company’s take on the “large-ish” multi-function digital delay pedal concept (its release date of May 4th, 2017 was just two days before our event!).
The stompbox features 36+ studio quality algorithms including emulations of classics like digital, tape and analog delays, and also ambient, multi-tap and reverb modes (you can see the demo of many of these modes by clicking on the links at the bottom of this post, before the video).
However, what makes this baby special, is its duality: its dual engine allows two of any of these effects to be used together, routed in either parallel, series, or left/right configurations.
Dr. Seuss fans will be happy to know that this pedal features two knobs named “thing 1 and thing 2,” which, exactly like the original cartoon characters, are extremely useful little guys who do anything you ask them to do (i.e. they affect different parameters depending on the selected effect mode).
Cabinet simulator, up to 35 presets, tap tempo, intuitive foot-controlled navigation, and a wide range of connectivity options round up nicely a pedal that’s bound to find many lovers.
We added this pedal to our article about the best multi-mode delay pedals.
Here’s a cool video of a theremin playing through the Echosystem, and check out Empress’ own demo videos of the various modes here:
First Look – Digital Mode – Tape Mode – Analog Mode – Multi Mode – Mod Mode – Filter Mode – Ambient Mode – Delay and Reverb Mode – Reverse Mode.