Empress Effects Compressor MKII Compression FX Pedal (Silver)

Building upon the success of its predecessor, the silver Compressor MKII from Empress Effects packs high-end studio controls into a compact guitar pedal. Sporting Attack and Release controls, Mix for parallel compression, and a 500 Hz tilt-style tone control, Compressor MKII is like having a studio compressor rack on your pedalboard.

Studio-Style Control

Input gain control for adding saturation and increasing compression

Attack control with a 50 microsecond to 50 milisecond range

Mix control for wet/dry mixture, enabling parallel compression

Ratio switch for determining how aggressive gain reduction is

Output level control for makeup gain, does not affect compression

Release control with 50 ms to 1 s range

Tone control, which boosts treble and cuts bass (clockwise) or vice versa

Side-chained high-pass filter helps avoid excess compression especially on bass

External Side-Chain Input

The 3.5mm TRS side-chain input provides an incredibly useful studio feature in an exceptionally compact form factor. Use the jack as a send and return for side-chain compression triggering. Additionally, the circuit comes with an integrated high-pass filter that can be toggled automatically via detection or set manually to 120 or 240 Hz.

Ratio Selection

2:1: good for gentle gain control and very transparent

4:1: a great general purpose setting, 4:1 keeps your signal transparent but offers a large range of compression

10:1: heavy compression, close to limiting

True Display LEDs

Bright multicolor LEDs always let you know what the compressor is doing. Continuing the theme of high-quality studio features in a low-profile stomp, Compressor MKII includes a 10-stage LED meter for gain reduction (-1 to -25 dB) and a 5-stage LED meter for input gain (-2 to -14 dB).