The Empress ParaEq w/Boost
Are you someone that’s always striving to enhance your tone? It’s time to un-leash the power of the Empress ParaEQ w/Boost EQ Pedal on your instrument – sadly, it may piss you off that you haven’t been using it for years.
Most Beta testers were not excited to test this pedal for us – it didn’t have the bells and whistles of the superdelay…but they were pleasantly surprised. Here are a few comments:
I'm beginning to dislike my clean tone without this pedal on.
- Ian, electric guitar player.
Wow, the eq is the best I’ve heard in a pedal. It out-performs my _______ eq and I’m able to get a huge variety of tones. I also love that it’s so small
– Jake, upright bass player and recording engineer.
What's been really nice about this pedal is how fast I can get to really nice sounds with it. I wasn't expecting that. I was expecting to have to hunt for a while. That's been my experience with DAW-based para eq plugins. Not so with the pedal. It's very quick to sweep and find a sweet frequency spot, both cutting and boosting.
– Peter, guitar player.
Design Philosophy
The Empress ParaEq w/Boost EQ Pedal is designed to be a simple device that does its job extremely well. We noticed that the EQ section of many instrument amplifiers offer a very limited range of control. We designed the Empress ParaEq w/Boost to give musicians a powerful, musical, high quality EQ in a conveniently small package. The signal path of the ParaEq w/Boost is comprised of the highest quality components chosen for their transparency, powerful tone shaping capabilities, and low operating noise. With the Empress ParaEq w/Boost your instrument will still sound like your instrument, only better.Features & Specifications
- Ultra Transparent Sweet Sounding EQ – enhance your sound without masking the tone of your instrument.
- Lots of Control - with switchable q, fully over-lapping sweepable frequency selection, and 15dB of cut and boost you’ll get all the control you need.
- Ultra-Quiet – You’ve come to expect our pedals to be noise free and we’ve delivered once again. If you put this at the front of your chain and boost a bit you’ll also cut down on the noise your other pedals are introducing.
- Loads of Headroom - Internally switchable to run off 9/12/18V power supplies.
- 30dB of Boost - making it an ideal candidate before long effects chains and overdriving tube amps.
- Pristine Clean Sound – We measured the distortion to be less than 0.03%. Pretty remarkable for a guitar pedal.
- True Bypass - The Empress ParaEq w/Boost EQ Pedal employs true bypass, so you can be sure that it's not affecting the signal when disengaged.
- Perfect Size - The enclosure measures approximately 4.5" by 3.5" by 1.5", which is delightfully small when considering all the features packed into this unit.
- 45 Day Money Back Guarantee - If for any reason the ParaEq w/Boost isn't for you, send it back within 45 days for a refund. Read our Guarantee for more details. This guarantee does not cover Empress products not bought from www.empresseffects.com.
- Two Year Warranty - The Empress ParaEq w/Boost EQ Pedal comes with a two-year warranty. Read our Warranty for details. You can extend the warranty to 4 years by simply registering online.
- Great Value - The Empress ParaEq w/Boost, a perfect blend of quality and innovation, will retail on empresseffects.com and in select music stores for $249 USD. Order one now!
- The Empress ParaEq w/Boost does not run off of batteries. It is powered by a standard 9, 12 or 18VDC negative tip wall wart (like the BOSS PSA-120). Power supply sold seperately.
| Power Input Voltage | 9 - 24 V DC (Negative tip) |
| Power Input Connector | 2.1mm barrel connector (Negative tip) |
| Power Consumption | ~75mA at 9V |
| Enclosure Material | Die Cast Aluminum |
| Input connector | 1/4" Jack |
| Output connector | 1/4" Jack |
| Height (Enclosure only) | 1.5" |
| Height (including controls) | 2" |
| Length | 3.5" |
| Width | 4.5" |
| weight | 1 lb |
| Q's | 0.5, 1.5 and 3 |
| input impedance | 500K ohms |
| output impedance | 510 ohms |
Soundclips
Here's an example on bass. The unprocessed signal is boxy sounding and flat. We used the ParaEq to add a bit of bottom, cut the low mids and give a gentle boost in the high mids. Unprocessed Signal ParaEq EngagedVideoclips
Here's some videos of the Empress ParaEq w/Boost that Jason did. We're going to put up a couple more. If you have trouble playing the files below, I've also put them up at YouTube. Check them out on youtube.Manual & FAQ
Empress ParaEQ User Manual Here are a few applications: General Sweetening - Say you really like the tone of your guitar but find it could just be a little brighter and detailed. With the Empress EQ adding a small boost in the range of a of 3kHz to 5kHz with a broad Q can add a bit more detail while still retaining the sound of your instrument. Similarly, adding to the lows would bring out some warmth. Tone Correction - Say you’ve set your amp up in the venue and find that the acoustics of the stage are making your rig sound too ‘boomy’ or ‘boxy’. By cutting some of the frequencies in the lower mids (200Hz- 600Hz) with a medium Q you can bring minimize the negative effect caused by the room acoustics. Also, if you find your guitar isn’t cutting through the rest of the band you can boost in the upper mids instead of just turning up the volume, which could lead to you drowning everyone else out. Feedback Stopper - With Di’d acoustic instruments playing live can sometimes be a nightmare because of the feedback coming through the monitors. Using the Empress Mid and Hi controls in the ‘tight’ Q setting you’ll be able to cut at the frequencies causing the feedback while retaining much of your instruments tone. With most equalizers the Q is not very tight, so by cutting higher frequencies your instrument gets much duller and ‘muddy’ sounding. Distortion Enhancement - Having eq control before the amp can shape distortion sounds. For instance, if you want the treble of your signal to distort more you can boost it before the amp. The boost control on the EE Eq is also great at overdriving the input of tube amps in a very musical way. The Empress ParaEQ has three ‘bell shaped’ bands of eq : low, mid and high. Each band has the following three controls: Low/Mid/Hi Frequency - This control selects the frequency at which you’d like to boost or cut. For flexibility, the frequency controls span a wide range. This makes the eq good for bass players who want to adjust the low frequency part of the signal and for acoustic guitar players who may want to remove a high frequency that is prone to feedback while playing live. Q - The Q determines the range of frequencies which the eq affects. i.e. If you have a wide Q and you’re boosting than the frequencies around the frequency selected will get boosted as well. Conversely, if you select a tight Q and are boosting you’ll tend to only boost at the selected frequency and frequencies close to it, the other frequencies will remain un-touched. When looking at the eq, ‘medium q’ is the left switch position, ‘tight q’ the middle, and ‘wide q’ on the right. Lo/Mid/Hi Gain - This determines the amount of boost or cut. At 12 o’clock there is no boost or cut. At the extremes the unit will provide 15dB of boost or cut. Boost - This is an output boost control. It is perfect for providing gain before an effects chain to minimize noise, or to overdrive the input of a tube amp. The range goes from 0dB to 30dB. Input pad - This control lowers the level at the input of the eq. Ideally, this control should be set at 0dB to maximize the signal to noise ratio of the unit. However, if you are adding lots of gain with one of the gain controls you may be clipping the eq internally – you’ll hear distortion when this happens. In this case switch the input pad to -6dB or -12dB. By lowering the level at the input you’ll prevent the distortion. Bypass - This is a true bypass switch, which does exactly what its name implies. Q: What are the ranges of each band of EQ?A: Low Frequency - 35Hz to 500Hz
Mid Frequency - 250 Hz to 5kHz
High Frequency - 1kHz to 20 kHz
A: Each band of EQ has -15dB to +15dB available
Q: What is the range of the boost knob?A: The boost ranges from 0dB to +30dB (That's a lot of boost!!!)
Q: What Q's are available?A: Each band has 3 Q settings. Narrow, Medium and Wide. The Q's are about 7.4, 2.9, and 1.2.
Q: What input pads are available?A: The input pad is selectable between 0dB, -6dB and -12dB.
Q: Is the ParaEQ true bypass?A: YES!
Q: What power supply does the ParaEQ need?A: The power supply must be 9v DC, negative tip. We recomend the Boss PSA-120 adaptor. Internal dip switches can be configured to accept up to 24V DC.
Q: Does the Para EQ come with a power adaptor?A: Nope, but unless this is your first pedal, you probably already have one that will work. As long as it's 9v DC, negative tip... you're good to go.
Q: Can the ParaEQ work from batteries?A: Nope.
Q: Will the ParaEQ work with the BBE Supa-Charger?A: Yes
Q: Will the ParaEQ work with the Voodoo Labs Pedal Power and Pedal Power II?A: Yes
Q: What is the input and output impedance of the ParaEQ?A: The input impedance is 340 Kohms and the output impedance is 510 ohms.
Warranty & Money Back Guarantee
Products ordered through the Empress Effects website come with a two year warranty against failures resulting from defective parts and/or faulty workmanship. This warranty can be extended to 4 years by filling out an online registration.× Learn more about warranty.
Products ordered through the Empress Effects website come with a 45-day money back guarantee. This means that if you are not completely satisfied with your Empress Effects product, you can return it for a refund.× Learn more about the money back guarantee.
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