MusicRadar Verdict
An upgraded version of one totally tasty tremolo.
Pros
- +
Versatile feature set. Sounds rival the best. Expression pedal control.
Cons
- -
Not much.
MusicRadar's got your back Our team of expert musicians and producers spends hours testing products to help you choose the best music-making gear for you. Find out more about how we test.
The latest version of the very first Empress pedal, the Tremolo2 offers a choice of three waveforms - a standard triangle with a smooth ramp from loud to soft, a gorgeous asymmetrical throb, as found in a 'brownface' Fender Vibrolux amp and a choppy square wave.
"There's also a choice of eight rhythms for the undulations"
There's also a choice of eight rhythms for the undulations. Rhythm 1 on the rotary switch is standard tremolo as we all know it, but the others offer musical variations by putting an accent on, say, every fourth beat - there's even one rhythm in 5/4 time!
You can set the tremolo rate with a knob or via a tap tempo footswitch, and there are eight footswitch-recallable memory slots.
On top of all this, there's an advanced configuration mode, where you can customise the pedal's functionality and control of parameters by expression pedal, CV, external tap switch or MIDI.
As good a trem as we've heard, with an impressively versatile range of facilities.
“A synthesizer that is both easy to use and fun to play whilst maintaining a decent degree of programming depth and flexibility”: PWM Mantis review
“I feel like that song had everything we needed to come back with”: Bring Me The Horizon’s Lee Malia on Shadow Moses, its riff and the secrets behind its tone, and why it was the right anthem at the right time
“I said, ‘Are we sure we can write a song about death?’”: The story of Mike + The Mechanics' classic No.1 The Living Years
