Empress Effects Drive Distortion Pedal

The Drive includes up to 30 dB of stomp-switchable pre- or post-overdrive boost, giving you control over whether you push the Drive’s overdrive circuit or push whatever comes after it in your signal chain. By default, the boost is assigned pre-overdrive. The boost position can be changed via Advanced Configuration.

• Pre-overdrive boost: when set to pre overdrive, the boost increases the signal level going into the overdrive stage. This behaves much like hitting an amp with a clean boost, increasing saturation and changing the feel of the overdrive. In this mode, a high-pass filter is applied to the boost to reduce low-frequency rumble at higher gain settings. This keeps the low end tight and focused, even when pushing the Drive hard.
• Post-overdrive boost: when set to post-overdrive, the boost is applied after the overdrive stage and raises the overall output level of the pedal. This is ideal for pushing the front of an amp or the next pedal in your signal chain without changing the Drive’s gain character. You can use the Mix control to blend clean and driven signals to taste, then engage the post-overdrive boost to increase volume for lead lines.

The midrange controls let you shape the character of the overdrive itself, rather than EQ it after the fact. On the Drive, the midrange tone control is placed before the clipping circuit. Adjusting the mids changes which frequencies are driving the gain response, directly affecting the harmonics that are created when the signal clips.

The mid-frequency control selects which frequencies are affected, while the midrange control sets how much of those frequencies are boosted or cut. At its minimum, the mid frequency is centered around 200 Hz for thicker, lower-mid emphasis. At noon, it sits around 1.2 kHz for presence and articulation. At its maximum, it reaches up to 2.5 kHz, adding bite and upper-mid clarity.

The bass and treble controls are designed to help manage the low and high frequencies that most often cause overdrive tones to sound boomy, shrill, thin, or muffled. Both use shelving filters with ±15 dB of gain, allowing anything from subtle shaping to more dramatic tonal changes. The bass control is centered around 200 Hz, while the treble is centered around 2 kHz.

The bass and treble EQ is applied after the Mix control, ensuring that adjustments affect both the clean and overdriven signals together and prevent unexpected changes in low or high frequencies when blending clean signal back in.

The Drive’s adaptive noise gate keeps your signal quiet when you’re not playing, without getting in the way of your dynamics or note decay. The gate is triggered directly from the signal at the input jack, before any filtering or clipping takes place. Its adaptive design responds to how you play, allowing sustained notes to decay naturally while clamping down quickly when it detects a sudden stop.

This keeps the gate feeling musical rather than abrupt, even at higher gain settings. When the gate is closed, the red LED beneath the Gate knob will be lit. When the gate is open, the LED will be unlit.