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A Box of High-gain Pandemonium





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The Empress Heavy Menace is the most versatile distortion pedal the company has ever built. With a tone conjured from the deepest pits of the fiery abyss, the Heavy Menace boasts three flexible modes: the company's renowned Heavy and Heavier modes, which gain you entryway to anywhere from the Sunset Strip to the Swedish underworld, along with a new Lite(ish) mode that's tailor-made for classic hard-rock crunch. This stompbox's 3-band EQ is as versatile as all get-out, with a sweepable midrange that really takes it over the top. You also get a Weight knob that tweaks the character of your low end. A footswitchable noise gate and switchable true/buffered bypass put the final anointments on this sinister dirt box. No matter what high-gain sound you're aiming for, classic hard rock to searing modern metal, the Empress Heavy Menace is destined to become the most valuable stompbox on your pedalboard.





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Three modes of menace





The Heavy Menace pedal includes a 3-way toggle that select between Heavy, Heavier, and Lite(ish) modes. Heavy and Heavier, which are culled from Empress' popular Heavy distortion pedal, cover every high-gain tone you could want. If it's metal tones you're after, it's metal tones you'll get. The Heavy Menace also includes a new Lite(ish) mode that delivers a muscular hard-rock wallop intended for those mellow(er) occasions that sometimes (albeit rarely) crop up.





Uber-flexible EQ





The 3-band EQ on the Empress Heavy Menace is among the most flexible we've seen here at Sweetwater; at least on one built into a distortion pedal. For starters, you get standard Low and High knobs, both of which boast usable gain sweeps. Beyond that, you also get a Mid knob, which is sweepable from 200Hz to 2.5kHz, for really dialing in your midrange. Midrange is the key element to killer high-gain tone, and the Heavy Menace tackles it with 100% assurance. This distortion pedal also includes a Weight control that adjusts a highpass filter in the distortion circuit to shape your low-end character. From thick, mid-heavy chugging to tight, scooped riffage to aggressive, screeching leads, the Heavy Menace is your one-way ticket to high-gain perdition.





Footswitchable noise gate





The Heavy Menace's built-in noise gate takes everything you love about the Heavy's gate and amplifies it to the nth degree. First of all, the Heavy Menace's gate is footswitchable, with an adjustable threshold and two available operating modes. In normal bypass mode, the gate doesn't affect the signal if the distortion is off, while independent bypass mode is like having separate distortion and gate stompboxes. Secondly, you also get a key input, enabling you to trigger the gate with an external signal ? a must-have feature if you stack lower-gain pedals before the Heavy Menace in your signal chain.





Empress Heavy Menace Distortion Pedal Features:


Versatile distortion pedal that covers everything from classic hard rock to searing modern metal


3-way toggle selects between Heavy, Heavier, and Lite(ish) modes


3-band EQ with sweepable midrange from 200Hz-2.5kHz


Weight knob adjusts a highpass filter in the distortion circuit to shape your low end


Footswitchable noise gate with adjustable threshold and 2 operating modes


Key input triggers the gate with an external signal


Switchable true/buffered bypass