Winners of the Sonicstate NAMM 2018 New Technology award, the Zoia from Empress Effects is a completely unique programmable modular pedal system.

They call it "a platform for creating musical anythings" and thats not an overstatement. The 5x8 grid matrix represents 40 slots (per page) which can have a large assortment of DSP effects, routings, pedal input function and intuitive routing options. Not only do you have all the usual suspects - delay, reverb, synths (it has MIDI in and control voltage input too) - they have around 50 modules, and are adding more all the time.

Its an incredibly flexible system, with presets being saved to an online repository, so you can load and save additional user created patches for a large potential library. It seems to be based on a Pure Data DSP engine but with a more user friendly programming system.

Empress are aiming to launch in late spring 2018 price $449/499 (tbc)

More Information

• Empresseffects.com - not listed on the site yet

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