Empress Effects ParaEq MKII Deluxe: The EQ Pedal That Got Killed Off, Got Scalped, And Came Back Angrier

Here is a thing that almost never happens in the pedal world. A company discontinues a product, and instead of a shrug and a clearance sale, the used market goes feral. Prices climb. Forum threads fill with people asking what on earth Empress Effects were thinking. Rumours start. And when the replacement finally lands, it becomes the biggest launch in the company’s history and its best-selling pedal of the year.

That is the story of the ParaEq. Not a fuzz. Not a reverb. An equalizer — the single least glamorous box you can bolt to a pedalboard, the one that makes no noise of its own, generates no Instagram content, and gets left out of every “top ten pedals that changed music” listicle ever written. Guitar Player put it bluntly when the MKII arrived in December 2022: “When the original ParaEq was discontinued, many questioned why. Prices immediately shot up and rumors abounded as to what was on the horizon.”

What was on the horizon was two pedals. The ParaEq MKII, and the one this article is about: the ParaEq MKII Deluxe. Same footprint. Same 27-volt internal rail. But with variable Q on all three bands, a sweepable high-pass filter, a sweepable low-pass filter, and a pair of Baxandall shelving filters borrowed wholesale from hi-fi design. Empress head of engineering Jay Fee called it “the ultimate Swiss Army knife of tone.” Aaron Marshall of Intervals called it “a studio-grade Swiss Army knife of tone control.” They were not comparing notes, which tells you something about how obvious the metaphor is once you have the pedal in front of you.

This is a feature, not a review. What follows is what the Deluxe actually is, where it came from, who has genuinely been photographed or filmed using one, and how to get real work out of it.

Where The ParaEq Came From

A tremolo, a delay, and nineteen people in Ottawa

Empress Effects was founded in 2005 by electrical engineer Steve Bragg. The first product out the door was a tremolo. The Superdelay followed, and shortly after that Bragg added assembler Mike Stack and designer Jay Fee to the operation. By the time Bass Gear Magazine profiled the company in late 2023, Empress had grown to a team of nineteen — still Canadian, still building in Canada, still fronting a product line that is stubbornly weirder than its reputation suggests. This is the same company that makes the ZOIA, a modular synthesis platform disguised as a stompbox.

The original ParaEq, designed by Fee, arrived in 2008. It was, by the standards of the day, a monster: three fully parametric bands with switchable Q, 30dB of footswitchable boost, and a footprint of 4.5″ x 3.5″ x 1.5″. Bass players in particular seized on it. Guitarists who cared about signal integrity followed. Over roughly a decade and a half it quietly became what Guitar Player described as “an industry standard” — the reference point against which every other EQ pedal got measured, and usually found wanting.

The discontinuation, and the gap

Then Empress pulled it. The used market did what used markets do when something with a genuine reputation vanishes: it inflated. And there was no obvious replacement, because there genuinely was nothing else on the market offering three bands of full parametric control at that level of transparency in a pedal enclosure.

The answer took its time. Preorders for the MKII pedals opened on 16 November 2022, with shipping starting 12 December 2022. Guitar Player ran Rod Brakes’s interview with Jay Fee on 9 December, days before the first units went out. The MKII Deluxe listed at $349, the standard MKII at $274 — a $75 premium for the extra filters and the sweepable Q.

The biggest launch in Empress history

On 12 December 2023, Empress published a first-anniversary post that is worth reading precisely because companies rarely publish numbers-adjacent honesty like this. The launch of the updated ParaEq was, in their words, “the most successful in the history of Empress Effects.” The Deluxe was their top-selling pedal of 2023. For an EQ. In a market where the same money buys a shimmering, evolving, algorithmically-generated ambient reverb that does approximately eleven things.

The follow-up came in the form of the Bass ParaEq, a dedicated bass variant at $374 with frequency ranges and filters retuned for four and five strings. Empress explicitly framed it as a response to the success of the Bass Compressor and the ParaEq MKII Deluxe — which is a fair signal of where the company thinks its centre of gravity now sits.

Specifications

Specification	Empress Effects ParaEq MKII Deluxe
Type	Three-band fully parametric EQ + filters + boost, all-analog
Released	Preorder 16 November 2022; shipping from 12 December 2022
Designer	Jay Fee, Head of Engineering, Empress Effects
Made in	Canada
Low band	35Hz – 500Hz, ±15dB, variable Q
Mid band	250Hz – 5kHz, ±15dB, variable Q
High band	1kHz – 20kHz, ±15dB, variable Q
High-pass filter	Sweepable 10Hz – 330Hz, 12dB/octave slope
Low-pass filter	Sweepable 1.5kHz – 22kHz, 12dB/octave slope
Low shelf	Baxandall, fixed at 200Hz and below, ±15dB
High shelf	Baxandall, fixed at 1kHz and above, ±15dB
Boost	0 to +30dB, footswitchable, mini-pot level control
Footswitches	EQ bypass + boost engage, each with LED
Internal operating voltage	27V (switching regulator from a 9V supply)
Input impedance	1 MΩ
Output impedance	100 Ω
Frequency response (-3dB)	22Hz – 25kHz
Total harmonic distortion	< 0.05%
Noise	> 107dB signal-to-noise
Headroom	+30dBu
Bypass	True bypass (default) or buffered, user-selectable
Power	9V DC centre-negative, 2.1mm barrel, 300mA minimum, no battery option
Dimensions	4.8″ L x 2.6″ W x 1.5″ H (2.5″ including controls)
Weight	1 lb
Warranty	2 years, extended to 4 with online registration
Price (Sept 2026)	$349 list; street $349–$353, market average around $344

What The Controls Actually Do

Three bands, and why “parametric” matters

Jay Fee’s own summary is the cleanest one anybody has produced: “Graphic EQ is a bit of a shotgun approach, whereas parametric EQ is like using a sonic sniper rifle.” He then explains exactly why, and the explanation is the reason to own this thing rather than a slider box.

On a graphic EQ, the bands sit at fixed frequencies. On a ten-band unit each band covers roughly an octave. If you are trying to kill one specific howling frequency, you take out the whole octave around it. A parametric EQ centres on the exact frequency, and the Q control lets you decide how much of the neighbourhood comes with it.

The Deluxe gives you three overlapping bands — low from 35Hz to 500Hz, mid from 250Hz to 5kHz, high from 1kHz to 20kHz — with ±15dB on each and a continuously variable Q. On the standard MKII, Q is a three-position toggle: wide (Q=1, about 1.5 octaves), medium (Q=2.5, about two thirds of an octave), narrow (Q=4, about a third of an octave). On the Deluxe those toggles become pots, and you can sit anywhere in between.

The four filters that make it “Deluxe”

Underneath the three gain knobs sit four mini-pots that the standard MKII does not have:

• High-pass filter — sweepable from 10Hz to 330Hz at 12dB/octave. The single most useful control on the pedal for anyone who plays in a band with a bass player.
• Low shelf — a Baxandall filter fixed at 200Hz and below, ±15dB. Functionally your amp’s bass knob, but gentler.
• High shelf — a Baxandall filter fixed at 1kHz and above, ±15dB. Functionally a treble knob, and the one that adds “air” without the brittleness.
• Low-pass filter — sweepable from 1.5kHz to 22kHz at 12dB/octave.

The Baxandall part is not marketing garnish. Fee: “The baxandall filter has long been used in Hi-Fi systems because it has such gentle EQ curves. This tends to lead to adjustments that are very musical and unassuming.” That is the whole design philosophy of the shelving section — it is there to sweeten, not to sculpt. The parametric bands do the sculpting.

27 volts, and why an EQ needs headroom

This is the part most players skip and then quietly benefit from. Fee explains it directly: “You can run into trouble with headroom in parametric EQ circuits because you’re able to boost the signal level multiple times.” Three bands at +15dB each, plus a shelf, plus 30dB of boost — the internal signal can get very large very fast, and a conventional 9V pedal rail runs out of room and clips.

So the MKII pedals run internally at 27 volts, generated from a standard 9V supply by a switching regulator with filtering to keep the noise floor down. “They’re on par with rackmount equipment,” says Fee, and the published numbers back that framing up: +30dBu of headroom, THD under 0.05%, better than 107dB signal-to-noise. The redesign to achieve that is why the MKII is not simply the old ParaEq in a smaller box — Fee is explicit that it “required a complete change to the original design.”

The boost, and the config trick

The boost is up to 30dB, set by a mini-pot and engaged by its own footswitch. By default it is tied to the EQ, which is fine if you want the whole thing as one lead-boost unit. But hold both footswitches while you plug in power and you enter Empress’s “advanced configuration” mode, where two things become adjustable: whether bypass is true bypass (default) or buffered, and whether the boost operates independently of the EQ.

Set the boost independent and the pedal is quietly doing the work of two: a permanently-on tone-shaping EQ plus a separate clean boost for solos or for balancing a second guitar with a hotter output. Bass Gear Magazine’s Tom Bowlus noted exactly this, saying it let him take his dedicated boost pedal off the board entirely.

Famous Players — What Actually Holds Up

The names that do not survive contact with evidence

Any list of “guitarists who use an EQ pedal” tends to reach immediately for Tom Morello, Josh Homme and David Gilmour. We went looking, and none of the three connects to this pedal.

Morello’s EQ is famously a DOD FX40B seven-band graphic, which has been a fixture of his board for over twenty-five years alongside the MXR Phase 90, the DigiTech Whammy, a Boss DD-2 and a Dunlop Cry Baby. It is a $60 plastic-and-metal graphic EQ used as a mid-hump boost, and it is the conceptual opposite of what the ParaEq Deluxe is for. Homme and Gilmour turn up nowhere in Empress’s artist roster, on Equipboard’s usage list, or in any rig documentation we could find. Gilmour’s tone-shaping outboard has been extensively catalogued for fifty years and this pedal is not in it — it would have to be, given the MKII only shipped in December 2022.

Say it plainly: those three names are category filler. Here is who actually has one.

Julien Baker — the best documented, and the best quote

Julien Baker of boygenius received a pre-release Deluxe direct from Empress, and talked about it at length in one of her “12 days of Christmas” giveaway videos. The full quote is unusually honest about why guitarists avoid EQ pedals in the first place:

“A couple of months ago, my friend Steve at Empress said ‘we’re making another version of the ParaEQ and I’d like to send you one’ and I had never had an EQ on my board perhaps because I am a person who enjoys instant gratification with a short attention span and I like pedals that are super wacky, super fast… wacky delay, spaced out reverb sound or weird modulation or more dramatic overdrive or fuzz, and I thought maybe this a little too specific and intricate for my needs — and this has done wonders for my tone.”

That is the single most useful sentence anybody has said about this pedal, because it describes the conversion rather than the endorsement. (Baker is not currently in our guitarist archive, so no link — but the quote stands on its own.)

Misha Mansoor

Misha Mansoor of Periphery has the Deluxe visible in an Instagram post of his own setup, captioned “Fun setup. What would you change/swap?”, and he gave Empress a direct quote for their anniversary blog: “The MKII Deluxe is a permanent fixture on my ‘inspiration station’ pedalboard at home, and it’s going to see a lot of use in reamping on my next project. It just absolutely rules.” Note the use case — home writing rig and reamping, not the touring board. That is a studio tool being used as a studio tool. Bandmate Mark Holcomb has not been documented with one.

Gary Holt

Gary Holt of Exodus and Slayer gave Empress a line that doubles as the clearest argument for the whole product category: the Deluxe is “the ultimate tone shaper for guitarists of all kinds. The ability to tweak and tailor your sound beyond the standard Bass/Mid/Treble of most amps is more valuable than you can imagine.”

George Thorogood — the most unexpected one

An Empress ParaEq MKII Deluxe is clearly visible on George Thorogood‘s pedalboard at 29:15 in Premier Guitar’s “George Thorogood Rig Rundown Guitar Gear Tour with Guitarist Jim Suhler.” A studio-grade parametric EQ, in service of “Bad to the Bone.” It is the most enjoyable single fact in this article and a good reminder that transparent tools are for everybody, not just djent producers.

Tosin Abasi — verified, with an honest caveat

A photograph of Tosin Abasi‘s board shows an Empress ParaEq as the rightmost blue pedal, and Equipboard files that photo under the MKII Deluxe. We would flag one thing: the photo confirms an Empress ParaEq of some generation, and the original and the MKII share a colour scheme. The Animals as Leaders connection is real; the specific SKU is a reasonable inference rather than a confirmed one, and it is worth saying so rather than pretending otherwise.

Dann Huff, Tom Bukovac and the Nashville session world

The Deluxe appears on the studio pedalboard built for Dann Huff by XTS, documented in xacttone’s “Bucket list build: Dann Huff studio board” video. And Tom Bukovac — one of the most-recorded session guitarists in Nashville — was Empress’s deliberate acid test. Fee: “we got in touch with him to see what he thought about the ParaEq MKII pedals because he’s a serious studio guy. We thought if we got his seal of approval, we’d be hitting the mark.” Bukovac’s response, published on Empress’s own site: “This EQ is a total game changer. I wish you could hear it on this track I just used it on…the thing sounds unreal.” (Lightly censored. He was more enthusiastic than that.)

Paul Gilbert

Paul Gilbert‘s testimonial is a masterclass in explaining an EQ pedal to a guitarist in one sentence: “Sometimes I want my single coils to act more humbuckery. The ParaEq MKII lets me dial in the tone with scientific precision.” That is the pickup-treatment use case Fee describes in the Guitar Player interview, phrased by somebody who actually plays for a living.

The rest of the confirmed roster

• Justin Meldal-Johnsen — bassist and producer (Beck, St. Vincent, Nine Inch Nails), listed on Empress’s own artist page for the Deluxe.
• Aaron Marshall (Intervals) — shot several of the official launch videos; “a studio-grade Swiss Army knife of tone control.”
• Luke Mossman (Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats) — uses it on acoustics to carve out live feedback and as a lead boost on electric.
• Zach Householder (Whitechapel) — owns two, one on a guitar DI feeding an amp and one in the FX loop.
• Jason Suecof (producer/engineer) — runs it first in the chain, before any dirt, to shape whatever pickup he is dealing with.
• Mark Lewis (Megadeth, Cannibal Corpse, Trivium, Black Dahlia Murder) — emailed Empress two days after launch to rave about the headroom.
• Andrew Huang — on video at 9:25 in one of his rig walkthroughs, and credited on his 2023 album Cloud Collapse.
• David Carreire (TOPS) — photographed on the “Bury The Key” tour board; the pedal is credited on the 2025 album of the same name.
• Cory Wong, Kid Koala, Bryce Jacobs, Brian Kobayakawa, Ben Flanders, Ben Whiteley, Mark Webber, Chris Wrate, Kelen Capener and Douglas D’Lima all appear on Empress’s official Deluxe artist list.

The pattern worth noticing: this is overwhelmingly a producer’s pedal. Equipboard’s genre tally runs Rock 18, Metal 8, Jazz 4, Math Rock 3, with djent and progressive metal below that — but the human beings behind those tags are mostly people who also sit behind a console.

Tone Recipes And Settings

The Deluxe has no presets, so these are starting points to write down rather than recall. All frequencies approximate; trust your ears and the room.

How It Compares

Buying Guide

Who this is for

Buy the Deluxe if you record; if you play acoustic or semi-hollow instruments in loud rooms; if you use one guitar across many sounds; if you own a drive pedal that is 90% right and you want the last 10%; or if you have ever finished a gig knowing the guitar sounded fine on stage and terrible in the room.

Who should look elsewhere

If what you want is a mid-hump for solos and nothing else, a GE-7 or an M108S will do it for a third of the money and you will spend less time thinking. If you need presets or stereo, the Deluxe has neither — it is entirely analog, entirely knob-driven, and entirely of the moment you set it. Equipboard’s own summary lists “lacks modern features like presets and stereo connectivity” as a genuine limitation, and it is.

Price and availability, September 2026

The Deluxe remains in production and in the current catalogue at $349 list. Retail pricing across major dealers sits in a very tight band of $349 to $353, with a market average around $344 across seven merchants — this is a pedal that essentially never discounts. Empress ships free within Canada and the continental US on orders over $99, accepts returns within 45 days, and gives two years of warranty extended to four on registration. Used examples exist but are not plentiful, and the resale spread is narrow, which tells its own story: people who buy this pedal keep it.

Buying used

There is no revision history to navigate — the MKII Deluxe has been one thing since December 2022. Check that the removable rubber feet are present (they screw on rather than glue on, which is one of the nicer small design decisions on the pedal), check both LEDs, and confirm the seller has not left it in some obscure advanced-configuration state. A power cycle with both switches held will get you back to a known starting point.

Living With It

The 300mA problem

Read that spec again: 300mA minimum. That is a lot for a pedal with no digital processing in it, and it is entirely down to the switching regulator that generates the 27V rail. Many isolated power supplies offer 100mA or 500mA outputs and nothing in between — if yours is a bank of 100mA outputs, this pedal will not run properly, and “not properly” may mean intermittent misbehaviour rather than a clean failure. There is no battery compartment. Plan the power supply before you plan the board layout.

Small knobs, small print

Cramming a 4.5″ x 3.5″ pedal’s worth of controls into a 4.8″ x 2.6″ enclosure has a cost, and it is legibility. Bowlus: “In dim light and/or viewed from an angle, some of the smaller-font numbers can be hard to read, but in good lighting they are very legible.” Owners with larger hands report the mini-pots are fiddly. The gain knobs do have centre detents — including on the Deluxe’s shelving mini-pots, which is a genuinely thoughtful touch — so you can always find flat by feel.

The learning curve is real

This is the thing nobody says in the marketing copy. Owners consistently describe the Deluxe as steep but manageable, and specifically call out the Q knobs as hard to hear in isolation — the changes are subtle, and you have to spend time with them before they become intuitive. One owner describes the pedal as the only non-negotiable box on their board; the same discussions include people who took months to get there. If you buy this expecting immediate gratification, Julien Baker’s quote above is the honest warning label.

Noise

By every account this is one of the quietest pedals of any kind you can buy. The one exception, from Bowlus, is a small amount of hiss when the high shelving filter is pushed hard — and even then, “notably less than the amount of hiss generated by the other shelving EQ’s I compared it to.” That is about as good as an analog EQ result gets.

Where to put it

There is no single right answer, which is why so many owners end up with two. Before the dirt, it shapes what the drive reacts to. After the dirt, it revoices the drive. In the amp’s effects loop, it shapes the amp’s full voice — and owners note that graphic EQs tend to be preferred at the front for boosting while parametrics like this one earn their keep in the loop. Householder’s solution — one on the DI and one in the loop — is extreme but logically sound. Start with it last in your dirt chain and experiment from there.

A design detail worth knowing

The typeface and layout of the MKII pedals are modelled on Midas analog mixing desks. It is a small thing, but it signals what the pedal is trying to be. The Deluxe does not look like a stompbox that happens to do EQ; it looks like a channel strip that happens to have footswitches.

Frequently Asked Questions