What more can I say ? If you are looking for a crunch or something super heavy this pedal will work. Superior build quality and the gate is amazing. All that gain can make your signal noisy. The gate eliminates that. A tool for any hard music lover.

I've bought a lot of distortion pedals, but I saw the Limited Edition version and had to grab it. And it did not disappoint! This is by far my favorite. It's one of the most versatile distortions I've bought… so it took me a couple days to dial in. But it was worth the time. And the noisegate keeps it clean, tight and quiet.

Definitely a staple on my pedalboard!

I wasn't really looking for a new distortion pedal but after a few YouTube demos, it had to be had. Running it in front of a Sovtek Mig 100 through a Orange cab w/ V30's and it's Metal Goodness. I'll try it with the RevG Dual Rec but I think the Sovtek will be the Menaces new companion..

I've been looking for a distortion pedal with a wide range of tones, regardless of the amp or guitar being used. I had honestly for the last couple of years focused on purchasing the Boss GX-100, Friedman BE-OD and the Revv G3 but, wasn't happy. but recently happened across a few YouTubers showcasing the Empress. So I gambled on it and Purchased it from the Ever Awesome Sweetwater Folks and I stuck GOLD! The Heavy Menace is exactly what I was looking for. I play it through my Cannabis Rex Fender Blues Jr and/or Marshall Origin 20 Head & Cab and it Sounds Fantastic with either. I got the AIC and Harder sounds I was looking for and so much more. Plus the Noise Gate- "Forget About it!" the Best I've ever heard especially so since it's built in. Great for if you plan to push this pedal Hard. But, on a Small note: my only Negative is it seems a little picky on Power and I really wish at this price they could include an Adapter, that's all. But truly, this is a Beast of Kick Heavy Menacing Power. It has the stuff to make my US Strat sound menacing and my Guild Polara and Ibanez semi-hollow sound downright Nasty. If you are looking for a Glorius Distortion Pedal this, in my most humble opinion would be at the Top of the List.

This pedal lives up to it's name. It is versatile and easy to use. It's easy to find the sound(s) I want to hear and use. It's very adjustable. The built-in noise gate works. Everything from classic rock and electric blues to death metal and black metal and every other kind of heavy....
This pedal is made in Canada.
It's covered by either a 2 year or 4 year warranty. I chose the 4 year warranty.
I think the "Heavy Menace" is well worth the price I paid for it.

This thing totally rips and has a nice range of tones from bluesy to face melting. The noise gate works exceptionally well also, thanks!

A bit of backstory as to why I ended up choosing this pedal. I've been playing for around 30 years. When I started as a kid, my friends all recommended a Boss Heavy Metal distortion. The music store was out, but they recommended the in stock Metal Zone, which they said could get me the same sounds for around the same price. My friends all laughed and said I'd been played. But the music store was right. I could not only get the same tones my friends were getting, but I could get a lot more once I learned to manage the mid and frequency. It just took a lot more work and finessing to get there. Several years later, I received a Digitech effects board and my Metal Zone remained forgotten for years, then eventually stolen. Many years later, after several years of not really taking guitar too seriously, I rediscovered my passion for the instrument and decided to build a pedal board instead of fiddling around with a processor. I bought a cheap Behringer Ultra Metal distortion, which was a pretty good Metal Zone clone. It's served me well. But as my playing has grown more serious, the budget nature of the pedal has become more of a hindrance than I expected. So I looked online and saw the MXR Fullbore Metal pedal, which seemed to match the Behringer in many ways plus has a noise gate built-in, so I picked up a used one for around half the price of a new one. The fact that there were so many used on the market for so cheap should've been the first red flag. Second being the very mixed reviews, but Metal Zones also get those mixed reviews, so I gave it the benefit of the doubt. It sounds really washed out for the sound I'm going for, and has an almost comically saturated gain. Unfortunately going back to the Behringer feels like going from a HDTV to an old-school pixel definition television. Love that pedal for the price, but it's just not up to what I've been writing. It's kind of low-output while still retaining volume. Kind of like playing an old CD you bought in the 90s that hasn't been remastered. It still sounds good, but lacking compared to newer recordings. Great for a cheap dirt pedal, not for serious writing. Thankfully the internet turned me onto the Empress Heavy Menace pedal. It has all the features that sold me on the MXR, and a consistently loved brand name behind it (MXR is very hit or miss).

First impressions: I've only spent maybe an hour with it so far, but that's enough to tell me that this is better than the Fullbore in every conceivable way. The noise gate is far more responsive, and able to be adjusted without taking apart the pedal. The different gain channels all feel unique while retaining the tone and output I have set. My tone and clarity never sounded washed out, no matter where I set the dials. Every note comes through loud and clear. The gate is definitely more responsive. Thankfully it has a dedicated foot switch that's easy to switch with, so if it does start acting funny, like with certain harmonic bends, it can be quickly turned off and on again. Without really diving too into nuanced settings, I was able to dial in an impressively heavy tone that sounds great but gets nice voicing variation on each channel within a few minutes of playing around. I'm already loving this thing. I was worried about the cost, as I'd never dropped this much on a single effect, but it really is 2 quality effects in one with the very responsive noise gate and fantastic sounding distortion. I wasn't able to find any used online, which tells me people are keeping them. As I said, I've only spent an hour with it. So I'll almost definitely be able to dial in an even better sound with time and fine tuning.

A couple days later: I just cannot speak highly enough of this so far after the disaster that was the Fullbore. That pedal feels like they slapped a gain program onto a board, slapped on some EQ knobs, and called it a day, with at least 40% of the settings being useless for getting a good sound. The Heavy Menace sounds like they meticulously programmed just the right tonal ranges from low/light gain to high/heavy gain for metal, then just as meticulously set up the means to adjust all the sound in between to make sure every combination was usable and sounded good. It's so crazily versatile for heavy music, and never sounds oversaturated or washed out. Everything from old-school hard rock to modern nasty metalcore breakdowns comes through clear and sounds great so far. It's not very good for actual light gain/overdrive tones from classic rock, as even the lowest gain setting on light(ish) channel has some decent dirt to it. Think 80s hair metal. And it only gets heavier from there. I have a separate pedal for low-gain, which covers a pretty good range for low-gain distortion for classic rock and such, so it's not at all a bad thing that this kind of picks up where that pedal ends. And it is so good for everything in the higher gain distortion ranges. Between the two, I can play pretty much anything with distortion and have it sound as good as any solid state amp gain without needing to stack effects. So as pricey as this pedal may be, it is worth every penny so far, and I don't see that opinion changing unless something changes about the functionality of the pedal itself over time.

Speaking of functionality, I wanted to quickly address the streamlined footprint of the pedal itself over the original Heavy, which I was also considering. Heavy is pretty bulky, with each channel basically taking up an entire pedal's worth of space on the board. That's nice because each channel can be individually dialed in with its own dedicated EQ. The Menace however, packs that all into one pedal's footprint, with the trade-off that each channel shares one EQ. So you lose that bit of versatility. What you get instead is that third channel, a wider range mid frequency, and the ability to treat the noise gate as a separate pedal. All with half the footprint of the Heavy, making it very pedal board friendly. Personally, I much prefer the Menace on my board. But I do wish the second foot switch swapped channels instead of turning the gate on/off, as I'm likely to change channels more than switch the gate. That's really the only nitpick I have about this pedal so far. That I'd make the toggle for gate, and foot switch for channel selection. A very minor complaint, if you can even call it that. More of a wishlist item.

There are better pedals out there for thrash, or metalcore, or death metal, or whatever genre tickles your fancy. But those pedals all really excel at those specific types of sound, and usually end up being part of a stacked gain on the chain for anything else, meaning 2 or more pedals are needed to really optimize that sound. I've never before played a pedal that sounds this good with so many styles on its own. You might not always have the very best version of a specific sound using this pedal, but every way you set the sound on this pedal sounds very good for what it's best used for. There are no bad sounding settings on it.

Update: After having the pedal for a couple weeks, I was able to really fine-tune some great sounds out of this. This thing is really responsive when making fine adjustments thanks to the clarity of notes. It's nice to be able to turn down the low, increase the mid, then lower the frequency, all while hearing how each subtle shift helps shape the fine-tuning of the sound. Most pedals I've worked with shift too much with each adjustment, not really hearing a difference until you've hit a certain amount of movement on the knobs and drastically changed the sound, then moving onto the next dial you think you need to adjust until the same happens, and repeating for each dial until things start coming together. With this pedal, each subtle adjustment comes through clearly, making it it feel a lot better shaping each setting and hearing what might be needed next. Which makes finding the right sound feel very satisfying, instead of feeling like a compromise with finding the best sound you could coax out of the pedal. Something I've been dealing with since I was a kid learning the Metal Zone.

Update 2: I just rerecorded a song I've been working on using this pedal and am blown away! Note clarity was not coming through how I wanted using the Behringer, which prompted my hunt for a new dirt pedal, then the Fullbore was much worse, lacking clarity at a higher output. The Menace did the trick. Every note comes through loud and clear, while still sounding appropriately heavy. I was even able to use the light(ish) channel to improve a volume swell leading into a heavy chorus after a clean tone interlude in the middle of the song. It made for a much more natural progression from clean to heavy. I knew I dug this pedal, but that was the moment that cemented that "this is the missing piece to my sound" feeling I've been chasing. Absolutely love this pedal! It's a little pricey, so I'm not sure I'd recommend it for beginners or casual players. I'd probably recommend the Behringer to start with for them. But if you're a serious player who likes playing all kinds of heavy music, this is absolutely worth every penny.

Extremely versatile pedal that sounds great, love the fact it has a noise gate too, happy with it..

It's a great pedal ... If you think of it as a big, mean OD pedal and not a distortion pedal per se. Yes, you can get some decent distortion tones if you REALLY REALLY mess with it, but you can get most of the same tones much easier from a Wampler Dracarys. I literally had them side by side. The Empress sounds a little more ... high def, if that makes sense, but it's also not meant to be capturing the spirit of Ola Englund's sound. Not worth $, IMO, because it was also very touchy with what power supply it took (preferred MXR mini ISO brick over Voodoo Labs PPX8) and the signal coming into it. I ended up getting fed up trying to figure out where to stick it and put it in an isolated loop from the other pedals. Noise gate was freaking fantastic though, better than my $ Boss NS-1X in many aspects. If you want distortion, fork over the extra $ and get a Fortin Natas or go cheap and get an MXR Fullbore Metal.

Maybe I got a bad one here, but as they say dont shoot the messanger. No chug, none, zero chug. It's more of a gain pre-amp than a distortion pedal. Why does it need 2 mid range settings that both seem to do the same thing? Total mystery. Disappointed beyond belief.

This pedal is amazing. I've tried, and own, various high gain pedals. My current favorites are the BE-OD, JHS Hard Drive and Jackson Audio Asabi. The Strymon Riverside can get up there as well... And then, just below all these, the J.Rockett The Dude, and the Kernom Ridge. Those last two are great, but can't quite get up there into metal territory without help. Now, the Empress Heavy Menace is the best of all. And I LOVE the the noise gate... The character and feel of this high gain drive is amazing. Keep in mind that even though it has lower gain settings, it doesn't do those all that all. Much like the BE-OD, that in my opinion is high gain or nothing. But what it does, it does amazingly well. I'm super stoked I bought this.

I was looking for a true distortion pedal capable of an extremely wide range of tonal hues. The combination of a sweepable mid-range as well as three stages of gain allows one to truly sculpt your desired tone, regardless of the amp used, be it clean or already overdriven. While I don't use the noise gate, it does work very well and is a very useful addition for those who intend to push this box to its highest gain. IMHO, this is the best distortion in pedal being made.

I've ran this on my Mesa Badlander 100, Mesa Triple Rec, EVH Iconic 40 combo, Orange Crush 60 and a Marshall Megastack and it just rips! I live in Alaska and this pedal would wake a grizzly bear out of hibernation!!

Pretty nasty tones straight out of the box but when you match it up to others it starts to show its weakness. It can pull off a wide variety of rock-metal tones but in the high gain stuff it can't get there. Unfortunate as it's a sweet design just not executed properly.

Fit and finish doesn't come close to how a $ pedal should feel. Maybe it was the once I received but it's quite light and the knobs felt a little cheap and had a little play to them as well. For the price of this you could snag a handful of used boss(or any other brand) pedals that can do about the same for far less.

I love the flexibility of the Menace for high-gain tones. The EQ controls are awesome. I specifically love the flexibility of the midrange and weight controls. They really allow you to dial in the exact tone you are looking for. Even the Lite(ish) channel packs some punch, so I would not use this for genres outside of rock/metal.

The noise gate ended up being better than I thought too. It ended up kicking my TC Sentry off my board since it functions so well.

I dont write reviews normally. The written word is not a strong suit of mine but if you are into metal, hardcore or even just rock n roll this pedal should be in your arsenal. With such a wide array or different tones you will get the best sound you are looking for with this menace.

This little guy is a beast, probably the best distortion pedal I've ever owned. I would be hard pressed to ever part with it

The Empress Heavy Menace pedal is truly a masterpiece. It doesn't just deliver powerful distortion; it boasts incredible versatility that can handle nearly any genre with ease. Each tone adjustment is clear and intuitive, allowing you to dial in the exact sound you're looking for effortlessly.

One of the standout features is the exceptional noise gate. Even at high gain, it perfectly suppresses unwanted noise, ensuring your sound remains clean and crisp. With the 3-band EQ and mid-sweep functionality, you can fine-tune your tone with precision, making it easy to craft your own signature sound.

Additionally, the Tight control allows for accurate articulation of fast and complex riffs. I also love the True Bypass feature, which ensures that the original tone is preserved when the pedal is off.
Heavy Menace has proudly claimed the main drive spot on my pedalboard!

this is an excellent distortion pedal !! thank you Empress !

After playing around for a bit with this pedal , I have found that brutal tone I've been striving for.If you looking for an evil sound you've found it.I feel like something sinister is gonna break out of my amp.Empress you have out did yourself on this one!!

This is a great pedal. Quite versatile really. Enables rock kick to amazing high gain tones while still allowing for varied guitars to express particular character. Excellent EQ. The noise gate function is outstanding. It is really nice to be able to switch the gate into essentially a separate pedal.
I am really happy with this purchase.

I won't discuss the sound. That's all rather subjective but I love it ! So many variables, nice gate…
The amazing thing is the build quality. Unlike any pedal I've ever owned (lots) metal knobs, center detente on the eq knobs. Awesome smooth foot switches. Which are taller than normal. A nice touch so you can hit them reaching over other pedals and don't hit its knobs. And Empress has great customer support. I had a question about the pedal and had a reply the next morning. This won't be the last pedal I buy from them. And thanks Nick Graham for being a superb sales engineer. \M/

This pedal is very versatile. Push this through my Marshall MG15 Mini Stack and produces amazing crunch. It excels with Metal for sure but can tone it down and produce some great classic rock n' roll sound.

High gain Distortion pedal with noise gate,eq,has variety of great sounds,excellent build quality

Truly the best heavy distortion in a box. Empress products are always top notch!

The pedal is amazing. This is the best pedal in class. The featured adjustments in sound - especially the weight feature is the best I have ever used. The Sweetwater crew is also a pleasure to do business with. Thank you this amazing product

I've been looking for a really heavy distortion pedal for some time and this is it. This pedal offers tons of gain and great tone shaping from the EQ, Weight, and Mid Frequency knobs. It's really easy to dial in a great tone.

The noise gate is the best I've ever used. I haven't tried the keyed gate yet, but the gate on the normal input works fantastically. I've only tested a few other noise gate pedals and this is the fastest one I've found. The threshold is easy to set and it opens fast and closes fast based on your playing.

The noise gate does seem to slightly change the tone, like maybe it's attempting to filter out some of the noise while it's open, but it's not very noticeable.

I've also put a JHS Prestige clean boost in front of this and it pushes this pedal even heavier. I recommend pairing this with a boost if you're wanting a modern heavy tone.

The 3 switches for Lite(ish), Heavy, and Heavier are neat, but Heavier is where I leave it.

It may be an expensive pedal, but the build quality and sound quality justified the price for me.

If you want a really heavy sound with lots of tone shaping and a very well tuned gate, then this pedal is the perfect choice.

It has a great 3 band EQ as well as a mid frequency knob and a weight knob that all affect the sound drastically.

If you're using the pedal by itself, you might not even need the gate as the pedal is pretty quiet, even at full gain, compared to other distortion pedals and even high gain preamps. But, when you pair this with a clean boost (I'm using the JHS Prestige), you might start getting some noise. The noise gate on this pedal is fast and easy to tweak the threshold. I think it also filters some noise out while the gate is open as well, so it does change the sound a little bit.

The switch for lite-ish, heavy, and heavier is a neat feature, but superfluous for my needs. Lite-ish gets you a fairly overdriven breakup, even at the lowest gain, so that might appeal to people wanting a nice sounding overdrive. The heavy setting is probably enough gain for just about anything. I leave it on the heavier setting because that's the setting that sold me on the pedal in the first place. The heavier setting is the sound I've been looking for.

Now that I have this, I think I'm done looking for distortion pedals, for awhile anyway. I highly recommend this and it's well worth the price for what you get.

This thing is versatile AF, just watch sum youtube videos and i can tell you, what you hear on the videos is how it sounds, i can get basically my 25watt tube sound through/from my 100w solid state head, deff top 5 distortion pedals of all time(that i own) right up there with the revv G4, Diezel VH4. i play alot of old-school tube recto scooped mids nu-metal rhythm stuff and this is a great choice for that and much more so its slightly edging out the revv G4(for me) because you have more tonal options/control than the G4.

Sits next to a variety of dirt pedals on my board - it's the one I kick in when it's time to chug. Not sure I need another pedal for playing metal. Very flexible pedal and the noise gate is great to have built in. Love that you can tweak the mid range frequency, and the weight control. Very empressed with this pedal (see what I did there?), worth the $$, simply sounds great through any of my amps (Katana, Orange, PRRI…).

I purchased this thinking that I could replace the Fortin Zuul on my board and get the bonus of having a killer distortion in the same space. The noise gate is "keyed" in the same fashion, but for whatever reason, it falls short when you have other distortions and drives ahead of it in the chain. The tiny potentiometer is most likely the culprit. It functions okay if you have just one pedal in front of it, but if you have 2 stacked drives, It either grabs too soon, or doesn't work at all in that type of setup. On top of that, the distortion really is nothing to write home about. It's not bad - but I also have a Walrus Eras on my board, and find that pedal outshines it. With all that in consideration, it wasn't worth keeping to me.

I was looking for a good distortion pedal. This is the one. This pedal rocks.

I run a clean, high head room amp. I get my dirt strictly from my pedals, whether that be overdrive, distortion or fuzz. Distortion pedals have always disappointed me. I could never get the mids right & my tone had too much of a nasally quality. Also, the harmonic break up is more interesting with overdrives & fuzzes. Distortion pedals I used were sonically boring & dry.

This pedal has the EQ chops to get the mids how I need them. The "light-ish" setting if my go to channel. This setting sounds like Smashing Pumpkins Gish which precedes their use of the Big Muff op amp pedal. Think Marshal JCM 800. From time to time, I go up in gain to the "heavy" setting for palm muting Practice.

The noise gate is glorious! The amp is dead silent when I stop playing. It took me a couple weeks to get used to this. Even if you volume knob of the guitar is off, as long as a high gain pedal is on, you get noise from the amp. With this noise gate, I have way more endurance to play high gain music. I never realized how much the hiss wore me out playing fuzzes. That all said, I've had the pedal close to a month and definitely keeping this! I appreciate Sweetwaters quick shipping & packaging. No buyers remorse here.

tone range & quality are superb
love the weight control, 3 setting
heavy channel, gate control
i don't usually go on & on about
products like this but i have to
because if you love metal, then
you MUST have this essential
weapon in your arsenal
I have a lot of pedals - I have
several metal pedals - the heavy
menace is by far my favorite

This pedal is a beast, it straight up kicks ass! The features and tone options are all you need for any style music! Killer tube tone! I fully recommend this pedal you won't be disappointed!

It's a good pedal.

Beat distortion pedal out there and I've gone through a bunch. Only the Boss MZ Waza is still on my board.

Awesome pedal all around.

This pedal can give you a multiple range of tone. It sounds amazing by just running it on the front end of a Boss Katana MK II clean channel. From heavy metal to blues rock this pedal is for you. Find your own tone with this magic box. It'll be an instant classic.

Been looking for this sound for a long time, some came close some not so. The heavy menace just nails it all from hard rock to yes heavy. The best part no Mudd just great tone.

This is the best distortion pedal that I have found for hard rock and metal. The independent noise gate is veryusful and saves space. I also have the 2 channel Empress Heavy and I refer the Menace.

Years ago I had a solid state amp when I purchased the Empress Heavy. Didn't fully know what I was doing back then, and sold it because it was difficult tweaking it. Years later with a Peavey Invective MH, and the new Empress Heavy Menace, now I wish that I didn't sale the original Heavy. The Heavy Menace is a freakin beast. It has so many options to dial in what ever tone that you want. I play Thrash and Death Metal, so it's right down my ally. But with all of the options on the pedal, you can go from Classic Rock, to every genera to the other end of the Thrash, Death, and Black metal. You won't get the HM2 Swedish vibe, but you can get the Dark, think gain type of Black and Death Metal if you want it. I used the advanced configurations where I can use the Gate individually as a Gate pedal for my board. So you're actually getting 2 pedals in 1. You get all of the options to tweak the mids like the original heavy, but instead of having the 2 channels, you just get 1 but get the Gate instead which the Heavy doesn't have. So you can't go wrong adding the Heavy Menace to your board. I still love my Revv, Amptweaker, and HM2 pedals, but this brings a different heavy vibe that I'll also enjoy playing.

Frederick