I bought this pedal to fill out my fly rig for a tour of the Czech Republic last March and this pedal absolutely kicked butt!!

Two channels plus built-in noise gate made this the best choice for me.

Expensive but worth it. Wide range of sounds. Recommend it.

Received it today, might be in the honeymoon phase but I really like it.

The noise gate works great and the varsity of sounds is impressive. 80s to current. Need to play around with it more of course but happy with it.

Not cheap but it's a keeper.

I've been playing for over 40 years, and this Heavy overdrive pedal sounds killer running through a clean channel on a tube amp. It's straight up killer. Do yourself a favor and buy this pedal or by 20 more pedals and end up buying this one anyway. B GOOD All

I purchased this pedal after watching Ola Englunds Will it Chug episode. It took Ola 8 seconds to get it to chug. It took me 1.5 seconds to get it to chug, so Ola... But I still love you.

On a serious note, this pedal is worth every cent. Knaggs Kenai loaded with Suhr Doug Aldrich pickups into the Heavy pedal, into the low sensitivity channel 1 input on a Suhr SL68 with volume at 4, master at 6 and into a 4x12 Marshall 1960AHW. Sounds amazing in every way. When my wife pulled in the driveway from work I was playing some Pantera. She got out of the car and was head banging because she rocks.

In summary... It's a no brainer purchase if you dont want to spend a bunch on a good metal amp.

Thanks again for the recommendation, Ola.

The Empress Heavy Pedal is a versatile overdrive and distortion pedal that delivers a wide range of tones. It offers easy-to-use controls that allow you to shape your sound from smooth overdrive to heavy distortion. The pedal maintains clarity, even at high gain, and works well with various playing styles. Overall, it's a reliable and dynamic option for guitarists looking to enhance their tone.

Do you like obituary or early florida death metal? Maybe you prefer something super tight with a really effective noise gate? Or maybe you just want something with so much distortion that is must be dialed back... tone control; check. Variability and dynamic range of mids, lows, and highs; check. Now shred the hell outta your guitar. Buy this, you will not regret it.

I'm constantly searching for the heaviest distortion known to mankind. This beast of a pedal from the mad scientists at Empress, at least for now, is it. It absolutely crushes. It has a knob labeled 'weight'. . Just order it, it's killer.

Just received my "Heavy Empress" pedal.If Metal is your game? This is your "crushing pedal" to get the job done. You'll get more inspiration out of this unit then most of the others out there! You honestly can't go wrong for the price, and the power you'll receive. If you can't find that killer sound? You need to check for a pulse!! STAY HEAVY!!!

Been making my living playing music since 1969 this is an excellent pedal. The chugging videos fail to highlight the incredible versatility of this pedal. Very EMPRESSIVE.

Best high gain distortion pedal I have ever owned and I have had many… My only regret is I didn't find it sooner… Plug into a clean amp and prepare to get blown away!!!

I bought this while working on my guitar recording rig. I fed this into the iridium round channel for "heavy" and boy did it deliver!
This pedal is made for a clean pedal platform amp. It can get a tremendous amount of gain and distortion.
The downside is you cannot get the gain low enough for an amp on the verge of breakup or already driven.
The noise gates work perfectly. If you are running a clean amp and "Heavy" is what your looking for, this is it!

So I've not got a few hours on this pedal and it's my favorite distortion of all time. I recently bought it and the Electro-Harmonix Hell Melter Distortion Pedal and this pedal MELTS the hell melter. Absolutely a beast. Highly recommend if you can afford it. This is now my gigging distortion pedal. it's amazing

So I've been looking for something to replace my Line 6 Uber Metal pedal. That pedal is/was great with the exception of when it wasn't (explanation: You could have that pedal on the same settings forever but it wouldn't always sound like it. Not sure if it was a bad pedal or that's the norm for Line 6 stuff, no idea. Sometimes it was godlike and other times the devils hind end.)

I saw this pedal on Ola's channel and thought the pedal sounded good. I've spent probably a thousand dollars over the last year on new distortion pedals, and honestly they have been all good but just not there. This one got me where I wanted to go.

Love the pedal, I've only put about an hour on it thus far, and it is loud. Combined with my Blackstar Amped 3, this thing is a beast. If you have the $ for one, I would recommend. They certainly are not cheap, but for me, on this pedal, it's been worth it.

Not sure about the price but the pedal answer every question I had about getting the sound I wanted. It's weight button plus the low creates insane bottom end so be careful. The noise gate is ok, it could be better but for what it is and that you can turn it off to use something else is just icing. There are two channels, basically the same but the right seems a bit bottom heavy, left feels more high end sizzly. It's like a 5150 lead channel, there really isn't just an over drive sound, it's just balls to the wall from the get go. All around an amazing pedal and you can get it for less used so it's worth it.

This is the best sounding distortion pedal I've ever heard. Noise gate is strong and sensitivity can be changed to meet your needs. Two side drives are not stackable but you don't need to stack anything with this pedal, it's perfectly tight and epic as it is. When I stack a light overdrive it's almost overboard but still quite epic. Buy this pedal and you'll most likely enjoy your distortion setup for the rest of your life!

Sounds more like an amp than "just" a distortion pedal. Two different sides so you can jump to-and-from rhythm/leads. Soft-click switches are really quiet when pressed. Global hi/low EQ makes it easy to use with more than one amp. Each side has separate controls for mid-range frequencies and noise gate, plus a global threshold pot on the side. I thought I'd still need to keep a tube screamer or blues driver on my pedalboard for crunchier bits, but this thing cleans up enough with both P90s and humbuckers if you don't go too buckwild with the pedal's gain knob. Wish I'd tried this sooner.

After coming across Ola Englund's YT demo, I snagged one of these Heavy distortion pedals...normally I don't go for this much gain, but there's something unique and organic in the balance between chug & chew that's pleasing to the ear. I also love the tweakability.