The Heavy Menace is an evolution of Empress's Heavy dual-distortion pedal in a pedalboard-friendly compact enclosure.
In addition to the original Heavy and Heavier modes, the Heavy Menace adds a new Lite(ish) mode. It’s a versatile pedal that can comfortably cover any higher-gain sound from crunch to crushing.
The adaptive gate in the Heavy has been particularly well-received by our customers and artists. The circuit responds naturally to sustained notes, but clamps down quickly during fast stops. The gate on the Heavy Menace is now footswitchable, and players can choose whether the gate status is linked to the distortion or can be switched independently. We’ve also added a Gate Key Input for additional flexibility.
Players can also choose between true bypass or buffered bypass modes.
The Heavy Menace expands on the robust tone-shaping of the original Heavy with a midrange frequency control that is now sweepable from 200 Hz to 2.5 kHz. In addition to the three-band EQ, the pedal also features our Weight control that tailors low-end response for thick, full chords or tightpalm muting.
The original Heavy will remain in production, and will continue to appeal to customers who value its two-channel operation with independent gain, EQ, and gate settings for each channel.