The custom shop at Empress is currently closed as we are too busy dealing with the recent release of our Empress Tremolo. Hopefully things will calm down soon and we'll be able to take on custom orders once again.
Custom Designs Completed
March 27, 2006 - What do you do when you have to play two instruments into one amp? Get Empress to custom build you an ABY that actively buffers and mixes two signals to one output. We built this one for Paul Casey, who's presently recording at Sound of One Hand Studios, so that he could simulatenously play electric guitar and slide guitar at the same time. Quite the sight!
January 16, 2006 - The classic Mashall JCM 800 breaks up really nicely if you crank the preamp, but also has a sweet clean sound if you have the preamp gain set low. During a live show it's a pain because the amp only has one channel, so switching between these two sounds is pretty much impossible. My good friend Jon Chandler (of Amos the Transparent and former member of KYGC) wanted a second channel installed in his Marshall head. We built a relay-based system (in the picture it's the small circuit board at the bottom) that switches between two sets of pots. It's the best of both worlds.
October 27, 2005 - Clayton Fisher of For The Mathematics uses a 2 channel Fender DeVille. He found that commercially available footswitches were not rugged enough for his aggressive style (he tends to jump around a lot and cause trouble). We built him a custom Hot Red footswitch with both a battery holder and a 9V DC power jack.
Modifications Completed
February 27, 2006 - A lot of classic pedals sound sweet when engaged, but they suck tone when bypassed. We modified the DOD pedals below by adding true bypass and an LED indicator. There's a problem with adding true bypass to a compressor though. When the pedal is disengaged, the gain of the compressor goes way up. When the effect is turned on again, the "pop" is rather audible. We cured this by modifying the circuit slightly so that the compressor gain drops to zero when the effect is bypassed.
The Russian Big Muff was a mess when we got our hands on it. We switched out the LED, added true bypass, and installed a DC Power Jack.
If you need true bypass or an LED indicator installed on your vintage gear, drop us a line. You'll find our rates very reasonable.
November 23, 2005 - Ben Stanford plays bass for My Dad Vs Yours. He uses a Tremolo in his setup and wanted to be able to control the speed of modulation with a foot pedal. We modified his Nobels Tremolo pedal and a Bespeco Volume Pedal, and installed a 1/8" jack on each. They are connected using a stereo 1/8" cable. When unplugged, both pedals function as they did before the modification. When connected they form the most powerful union known to humankind.
October 24, 2005 - Greg Sherlock of Nectar employs a two amp and two pedal board setup to get monster stereo sounds on-stage. To route signals around, he had a custom box built several years back. We added the LEDs and fixed some faulty wiring to make the box hum and feedback free.
Repairs Completed
February 6, 2006 - The Theremin is one of the most beautiful sounding instruments if played correctly. If played by someone like myself, it's not so nice. Tom Herbert of My Dad Vs Yours bought a PAIA Theremax kit and put it together himself. After some years of abuse, it was in need of repair. We changed one of the oscillator coils and modified the circuit to make it more stable and play better.
January 16, 2006 - Jake Von Wurden is very tall and his list of musical accomplishments is very long. He's played bass for the biggest jazz guys in town (from Rob Frayne and Brian Browne to Mark Fergusson and Steve Boudreau) and is a member of one of my favourite local bands, The Second Glance. It seems that someone plugged a powered output directly into his Tech21 Sampsamp pedal and fried the input circuitry. Remember: speaker outputs and guitar pedals don't mix! We replaced some burnt components and now it sounds as good as new. Judging from the picture I'd say Jake is pretty happy about it.
