There is a particular kind of pedal that shows up on a professional pedalboard and tells you something about the player. Not that they have money — plenty of expensive pedals mean nothing — but that they have opinions. The Empress Effects Echosystem is one of those pedals. It is a 5.7-inch aluminium box built in Ottawa, Canada, containing twelve delay algorithm families, forty-two-plus individual algorithms, two independent stereo delay engines that can be stacked in series or parallel, thirty-five presets, a cab simulator, a multi-track looper, MIDI, CV and expression control through a single quarter-inch jack — and no screen whatsoever.
That last detail is the whole personality of the thing. In a category where the default assumption since roughly 2011 has been “put a display on it and bury the depth in menus,” Empress went the other way and put every parameter on a physical control, then accepted the consequence: you will occasionally need the manual to remember what “Thing 1” does in Whisky mode. It is a deliberate trade, and it is the reason the Echosystem has a cult rather than a customer base.
This is a feature article, not a review. What follows is where the pedal came from, what is actually inside it, who has genuinely been photographed or filmed using one, how to get specific sounds out of it, and where it sits against the delays it is usually cross-shopped with.
Origins: A Reverb-Shaped Box, Filled With Echo
Empress Effects, Briefly
Empress Effects was founded in 2005 by electrical engineer Steve Bragg, working out of Ottawa. The first product was a tremolo; the second was the Superdelay, a pedal that arrived with a reputation for absurd feature density and a control set that looked like laboratory equipment. Assembler Mike Stack and designer Jay Fee joined early, and by the early 2020s the company was a team of roughly nineteen people, still building in Canada, still selling in USD with a slightly apologetic note on the website: “We’re still 100% Canadian, we promise!”
That Superdelay lineage matters, because the Echosystem is explicitly its successor. When Empress describes the pedal’s own “New Tape” mode, the copy reads: “We’ve taken the parts you loved about our Vintage Modified Superdelay and made them more awesome.” The Echosystem is not a company’s first attempt at a big delay. It is the company’s third or fourth attempt, informed by a decade of customer feedback about what people actually reached for.
The 2016 Reverb, Then the 2017 Echosystem
The immediate ancestor is the Empress Reverb, released in 2016 in the same enclosure with the same three-footswitch, five-LED, no-display layout. The Echosystem took that chassis and refilled it with delay. Trevor Curwen opened his Guitarist review with exactly that observation: “With the same form as the Empress reverb that debuted in 2016, the Echosystem aims to provide all the delay and echo sounds you could possibly need without eating up too much of your valuable pedalboard space.”
The Echosystem was shown at NAMM in January 2017, where it was received extremely well, and Empress COO Dan Junkins subsequently confirmed a ship date of 4 May 2017. Demos followed through the summer and autumn — Knobs, ProGuitarShop, Pedal of the Day in November 2017 — and the magazine reviews landed in early 2018. Curwen’s Guitarist/MusicRadar review is dated 1 February 2018, at £459.
The shared chassis has a consequence nobody planned for, and we will come back to it in the ownership section, because it is the single most interesting thing about owning this pedal.
What Is Actually In The Box
The Twelve Families
The rotary mode switch selects one of twelve algorithm families. Within each family sit multiple variations, which is how twelve becomes “42+ studio quality algorithms and counting.” The families:
- Digital — Pristine, Short Stuff 1980, Ping Pong, Dynamic Duck, Dynamic Feedback
- Tape — New Tape, Old Tape, Echoplex, Space Echo
- Analog — BBD, Tube BBD, Deluxe Memory Boy, Echorec
- Multi — Digital Multi-Tap, Tone Taps, Preset Patterns
- Mod — Panning Delay, Waveform
- Filter — Pulse Filter, Warp Filter, Swoosh Echo
- Ambient — Drunk Ewok (Lost in Space), Triggered Swell, Triggered Multi-Swell, Long Delay, Input Rider, Freezification
- Delay + Reverb — Hall, Plate, Spring + Trem
- Reverse — Reverse Delay, Reverse Dual Pitch, Triggered Reverse
- Stutter — Chop Mode, Auto-Stutter, Granular
- Lo-fi — Old Timer, Digital Death, Distorted Swells
- Whisky — Knobs’ Seesaw, Christopher Glitchens, Shimmery Fixed Pitch Shift
The naming tells you a great deal about the company. “Drunk Ewok.” “Christopher Glitchens.” A whole family called Whisky, introduced in Empress’s own copy with: “We don’t really know how you should use these modes, or if you should use these modes. They’re the outliers, the odd-balls and the ner-do-wells of the pedal. We like them a lot.” The in-use note for that family reads, in full: “These modes are best accompanied by a dram of whatever you’ve got nearby.”
The Emulations Are Named, Not Hinted At
Most boutique manufacturers describe a tape mode as “inspired by classic units.” Empress names them. Echoplex mode targets the EP-3. Space Echo mode targets the Roland RE-201, and Empress explains the mechanism rather than the vibe: the RE-201 changes delay time by varying the playback motor speed, so repeats get darker at longer times and brighter at shorter ones, and it overloads into distorted trails at high feedback. Echorec mode models the Binson’s four playback heads and one record head, with Thing 1 selecting which heads reach the output and Thing 2 selecting which heads feed back into the record head — that is a real reconstruction of the Binson’s swell/multi-head logic, not a preset name. BBD mode targets the Maxon AD9 specifically, with a note that the original circuit is relatively clean with little modulation, “so dial back those settings if you’re looking to accurately reproduce the classic Maxon sound.” Deluxe Memory Boy models the Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man, and improves on it: the original offered chorus or vibrato, the emulation lets you blend both at once for modulation-on-modulation.
If you want the physical originals rather than emulations, the relevant articles are the Maxon AD999 for the BBD lineage and the Boss RE-202 Space Echo or RE-2 Space Echo for Roland’s own modern take on its own machine.
Controls
Five main knobs — Output, Mix, Tone, Feedback, Delay Time/Ratio — plus Thing 1 and Thing 2, which remap to two mode-specific parameters in every single algorithm. Three footswitches: bypass, scroll, and tap. Holding the tap switch gives infinite repeats. Delay time is set by knob or by tapped tempo with a choice of subdivisions, and both global and local tap tempo are available in every mode.
Presets work through colour. Five LEDs represent five presets; seven banks each assign the LEDs a different colour; that is thirty-five slots. Scroll steps through them, tap confirms. There is also a Bank mode giving instant footswitch access to two presets, or three with an external tap switch plugged into the control port.
The Dual Engine
This is the headline. The Echosystem contains two complete delay engines, each with a full independent set of controls and its own algorithm choice. They can run singly, in series (delay one feeds delay two), in parallel (both fed from the input, summed at the output), or in left/right (one engine per output). One community description captures the series option best: it lets you build a “Guitar > Carbon Copy > DD-3” chain inside one enclosure — the MXR Carbon Copy smearing first, the Boss DD-3 repeating that smear cleanly.
Parallel is where the pedal gets genuinely unusual. Empress’s own advice on the Mod family is that those modes “work a lot in parallel modes with other modes” — a slow panning delay underneath a pristine digital delay, for movement without mush. The Lo-fi family carries the same note: “They also work well as a texture in parallel behind a more pristine delay setting.” Ambient likewise. The design intent is layering, not just choosing.
Connectivity: One Jack, Five Jobs
Empress calls it the Universal Control Port, and it is a standard quarter-inch jack that accepts an expression pedal, an external tap switch, control voltage, external audio, or MIDI (via the separately sold Empress Midibox). That is a genuinely clever piece of engineering economy on a small enclosure. The documented limitation, which owners raise regularly: you cannot run MIDI and an expression pedal simultaneously, because there is one port.
Expression control is not limited to one parameter. You can assign as many parameters as you like to the pedal at once, in whatever direction you like.
The Quiet Extras
Three cab simulator variations — dark, bright and modern — sit in the advanced configuration menu. Almost nobody buys the Echosystem for this, and almost every owner who finds it calls it a pleasant surprise for silent practice, ampless gigs and direct recording.
Output 2 is isolated with a transformer, specifically to kill ground-loop hum when running stereo into two amps. Anybody who has run a stereo rig into two amps on two circuits knows exactly how much that is worth.
The dry path is analog throughout, blended with the wet signal by VCA rather than digitally, which is why there is no zipper noise when you sweep the Mix knob.
Specifications
Two numbers deserve emphasis. The 300 mA requirement is not negotiable and will not be met by the 100 mA outputs on a budget daisy-chain supply — this is the same trap the Empress ParaEq MKII Deluxe sets, and it is an Empress house pattern. And the wet input headroom of +0.5 dBu with no pad is why the input pad exists in the config menu: hit the converters with a hot boosted humbucker signal and you will find the ceiling. Empress gives you 6 dB and 12 dB pads for exactly that reason.
Famous Players: What Actually Checks Out
A word on method, because it matters here. The Echosystem is a pedal whose artist associations are frequently repeated without evidence, and at least two of the most-cited ones do not survive a look at a calendar. What follows separates photographed, filmed and quoted usage from claims that need a caveat.
Verified: Joey Landreth
The cleanest confirmation is a Premier Guitar Rig Rundown filmed by John Bohlinger with Joey Landreth of the Bros. Landreth, published 13 June 2023 before a show at Nashville’s Riverside Revival. The Echosystem is on the board, and the routing around it is worth describing because it is a genuinely sophisticated use of the pedal: all of Landreth’s wet effects, the Echosystem included, run into a Morningstar ML10X mounted under the board, then into a GFI Duophony acting as a parallel mixer and master wet volume, riding on an expression roller in a control box Landreth built himself. From there the wet signal goes to two Two-Rock Studio Signatures while a third Two-Rock — his signature model — carries dry only. The Echosystem sits alongside a stack of Chase Bliss units including the MOOD MkII and the Automatone Preamp MKII.
A naming caution: Joey Landreth is not Sonny Landreth. They are unrelated players, and the Echosystem connection belongs to Joey.
Verified: Noel Gallagher
Noel Gallagher‘s pedalboard for the Who Built the Moon? touring cycle features an Echosystem, visible at the bottom left in the That Pedal Show episode covering the board. This is a board photographed and walked through on camera, which is about as good as this evidence gets.
The caveat that usually gets dropped: Equipboard files the Echosystem under the Who Built the Moon? album (2017), and that is a stretch. The record was made with David Holmes across sessions running from 2015 to early 2017 and released 24 November 2017 — the Echosystem only started shipping on 4 May 2017. A tour board is not a session credit. The board is real; the album credit should be treated as unproven.
Verified rig, disputed album: Taylor York
Taylor York of Paramore discusses using the Echosystem on camera in EarthQuaker Devices’ Board to Death series, episode 12. That is a direct, filmed statement from the player.
The same chronology problem applies harder here. Paramore’s After Laughter was released 12 May 2017 — eight days after the Echosystem began shipping — after being tracked in 2016. The album is widely listed as Echosystem usage and it essentially cannot be. York uses the pedal; he did not use it to make After Laughter.
Verified: Julien Baker
Julien Baker (solo, and boygenius) posted a time-lapse of a full pedalboard rebuild on 17 May 2021 ahead of the Little Oblivions tour, with a photo of the finished board — the Echosystem sits at the bottom left. Baker turns up repeatedly in Empress’s orbit; she is also a documented convert to the ParaEq MKII Deluxe, a pedal she has said she expected to be too fussy for her and which “has done wonders for my tone.”
Verified: Kevin Parker
An Echosystem is clearly visible on a table in an Instagram video posted by Kevin Parker of Tame Impala. This is studio-adjacent evidence rather than a touring-board confirmation — it establishes that the pedal is in the room, not that any particular record ran through it. Given how much of Tame Impala’s identity is built on delay and modulation, the association is plausible; it should still be stated at the level the evidence supports.
Verified: Aaron Marshall
Aaron Marshall of Intervals gave the most useful quote of the lot, to Andertons: “I’m a big fan of the Empress stuff. I have an Empress Super Delay and their Echo System and their new reverb are definitely desirable as well.” Note that this is a player naming the family, including the Superdelay ancestor — an unusually specific endorsement.
Verified: Donna Grantis
Donna Grantis — the Canadian guitarist who spent three years in Prince‘s 3RDEYEGIRL — is on Empress’s own artist roster and the Echosystem is credited on both of her 2019 releases, Diamonds & Dynamite and the MR MAJESTIC material. There is a pleasing symmetry to a Canadian player on a Canadian pedal, and she is joined on that roster by Kim Mitchell, whose entire back catalogue predates the pedal but whose presence tells you Empress is a genuine part of the Canadian rock ecosystem rather than a boutique curiosity.
Verified: the producers and the internet
Justin Meldal-Johnsen — bassist and producer, Nine Inch Nails and a long list of major records — is listed by Empress directly. Andrew Huang‘s Echosystem is visible at 8:37 in his 12 November 2019 home-studio tour, and the pedal is credited on his albums Lo-Fi (2017) and Alabaster (2019). Bad Snacks named it in her 14 August 2020 rig video, sitting alongside an Empress ParaEq, a Meris Enzo and a Strymon Zuma, and it is credited on Neat Tape 2 (2020). Tamino‘s board shows one in a photo posted by his brother. Daniel Kim of wave to earth has run one from 2023 to the present as the only delay on his board. Also on Empress’s roster: Joff Oddie (Wolf Alice), Mark Webber (Pulp), Sammy Boller, Matt Kelly, Bryce Jacobs, Dave Nugent, Jean Castel, Douglas D’Lima, Louis Wu, MILKBLOOD and Kid Koala.
Reported but soft: Omar Rodriguez-Lopez
Omar Rodriguez-Lopez is named repeatedly in owner discussion as an Echosystem user for ambient soundscapes and live delay manipulation. That is community report rather than a photograph or an interview, and it is flagged as such here. It is entirely consistent with how he works; it is not confirmed.
A note on the artist count
Equipboard’s Echosystem page claims 22 pro artists and renders 12 before a “Load More” button that does not load more. This is the same twelve-artist cutoff pattern documented on other pages in this category — the claimed number should be treated as a database count, not a verified roster.
Tone Recipes: Ten Places to Start
1. The Everyday Slapback
Digital > Pristine. Delay time 90–120 ms by knob, Feedback at zero to one repeat, Mix around 25%, Tone at noon, Thing 1 (mod depth) at zero, Thing 2 (mod speed) irrelevant. This is the reference sound — clean, dead accurate, no character at all. Use it to calibrate your ears before you go anywhere else in the pedal.
2. Dotted-Eighth Without the Mud
Digital > Dynamic Duck. Tap the tempo, select the dotted-eighth ratio, Feedback at about 35%, Mix at 30%, Thing 1 (duck amount) at two o’clock, Thing 2 (release speed) at noon. The repeats duck out of the way while you are playing and swell back in the gaps. Empress’s own description is the best pitch for it: “your sound gal or guy will love you for not muddying up the sound.” This is the mode that makes a big rhythmic delay usable in a dense band mix.
3. EP-3 Warmth
Tape > Echoplex. Time 320–400 ms, Feedback 30%, Tone rolled back to ten o’clock, Thing 1 (saturation) at one o’clock, Thing 2 (modulation) at nine o’clock. Then add a touch of Mix — 20% — and play chords. The Echoplex association runs from Andy Summers to Brian May, and Empress cites both by name in the mode description; this is a reference point, not a claim that either has used the Echosystem.
4. RE-201 Overload
Tape > Space Echo. Time around 400 ms, Feedback pushed to 65–70%, Thing 1 (input drive) at three o’clock. The whole point of this mode is what happens as the repeats build: they distort, exactly as the original machine does when its tape path is overloaded. Back the Mix off to 20% and it becomes a haze; push to 40% and it becomes an instrument. If you want the modern Roland original instead, see the Boss RE-202.
5. Binson Multi-Head
Analog > Echorec. Time around 300 ms, Feedback 40%, then spend your time on Thing 1 and Thing 2 — head selection to output, and head selection back to the record head. These two knobs are the mode. Different head combinations give completely different rhythmic densities from an identical delay time. This is the closest the pedal gets to the swirl associated with David Gilmour‘s Binson-era sounds, again as a reference point rather than a usage claim.
6. Two-Delay Series Chain
Engine 1: Analog > BBD. Engine 2: Digital > Pristine. Routing: series. Engine 1 short and dark (180 ms, low feedback, heavy filtering), Engine 2 long and clean (dotted eighth, 30% feedback). The first engine dirties and darkens the source, the second repeats that darkened signal cleanly. This is the “Carbon Copy into DD-3” trick, and it is the single best argument for the dual engine existing.
7. Parallel Ambient Bed
Engine 1: Digital > Pristine, quarter note, low mix. Engine 2: Ambient > Drunk Ewok, Diffusion high. Routing: parallel. Empress describes Drunk Ewok as “sort of a mix between a multi-tap delay and a reverb,” and the diffusion control smooths the individual taps into something reverberant. Underneath a clean quarter-note delay it gives you a bed that moves through the stereo field without ever sounding like a reverb pedal. Run at high Mix — the ambient family is explicitly designed to work at 100% wet.
8. Automatic Volume Swells
Ambient > Triggered Swell. Thing 1 (swell time) at one o’clock, Thing 2 (modulation) at ten o’clock, Mix at 60–70%, Feedback moderate. The mode detects note onsets and fades the tail in, which means you get the volume-pedal swell sound without a volume pedal and without the wrist gymnastics. For thicker results, Triggered Multi-Swell lets you tap in a multi-tap pattern first and adds a flanger that doubles as the stereo widener.
9. Broken Radio
Lo-fi > Old Timer, run in parallel behind Digital > Pristine. Thing 1 (oldness) at two o’clock, Thing 2 (break-up) at eleven. Note the warning in the manual text: oldness “will affect the dry signal as well,” so this is not a purely wet-side effect. That is exactly what makes it convincing — the whole signal degrades, not just the repeats.
10. The Whisky Pour
Whisky > Christopher Glitchens. Two delay lines, each continuously pitchable across a full two-octave span — not snapped to scale degrees. Set one line a few cents off unity and the other a fifth down, feedback high, mix at 50%. Owners describe combining Whisky with the Ambient family for arpeggiated soundscapes built out of intervals. It is the least useful mode on the pedal and the one most likely to write you a song.
All of these assume a mono or stereo instrument-level chain. Where a mode is named, that is the sub-algorithm within its family.
How It Compares
Against the Strymon TimeLine
This is the comparison, and Curwen named it explicitly: if you have “coveted a Strymon TimeLine or similar and could integrate a range of complex delays into your playing for ambience and texture then this hits the mark.”
The philosophical split is clean. The TimeLine has a display, a huge preset library, deep MIDI, and a well-organised menu system; the Echosystem has two simultaneous engines, every parameter on a knob, and no display at all. TimeLine’s twelve machines are single-engine with a very good interface; the Echosystem’s twelve families are dual-engine with a very direct one. If your workflow is preset-driven and set-list-based, the display is worth real money. If your workflow is knob-driven and improvisational, the Echosystem removes a layer between you and the sound.
Against the Eventide TimeFactor
The Eventide TimeFactor is the other twin-engine delay in this bracket, and it is the closest structural comparison — two independent delay lines, deep parameter control, a long algorithm list. TimeFactor’s routing and its ten-second-plus looper come from a rack heritage, and the interface reflects it: encoder-and-display, with real depth beneath. The Echosystem trades that display for immediacy and adds the cab sim and the transformer-isolated second output. If you already live in the Eventide ecosystem — H9, H90, Space — the argument for switching is weaker.
Against the tape specialists
The Echosystem has four tape algorithms; the Strymon El Capistan V2 and Volante have nothing else. That is the trade in one sentence. The dedicated units go deeper on tape behaviour — wear, wow and flutter, mechanical detail, head configuration as a primary control rather than a Thing knob. The Echosystem’s Echoplex and Space Echo modes are good; they are not the point of the pedal, and a player who only wants tape is better served by a pedal that only does tape.
Against the mid-priced digital delays
The Boss DD-500 and DD-200 deliver enormous capability with a screen and a lower price. The Line 6 DL4 defined the category. The TC Electronic Flashback 2 is the value option and one owner’s direct A/B against the Echosystem concluded that the Echosystem “feels more analogue,” while conceding the Flashback sounded consistent and great and that “in a massive gig the crowd will not even notice which pedal are you running” — unless you are in stereo, where the gap opened up. That is a fair and unusually honest owner assessment, and it identifies the condition under which the Echosystem’s price makes sense: stereo.
Against its own family
The Walrus ARP-87 and Keeley Caverns occupy the compact end; the Keeley Halo is the dual-delay boutique alternative with a completely different design brief. Within Empress itself, the ZOIA is the “build anything” option and the Echosystem is the “we already built it” option. And of course the Empress Reverb is the sibling — same enclosure, same interface logic, different DSP. More on that below, because it is not just a family resemblance.
Buying Guide
Who this pedal is for
Curwen put the qualifying question plainly: “Is the EchoSystem for you? Well, that depends how deep you want to get into delay. If you just want a simple bit of echo now and again to spice things up then probably not.”
Buy it if you run stereo — that is where the second engine, the ping-pong and panning modes, the transformer-isolated output and the price all start to justify each other. Buy it if you want two delays going at once and have run out of pedalboard. Buy it if your instinct when you sit down with a pedal is to turn knobs rather than press buttons. Buy it if you work with synths as well as guitar; the pedal turns up on producer boards for good reason.
Do not buy it if you want one good delay sound and a footswitch. Do not buy it if you need to read your delay time in milliseconds off a display. Do not buy it if you cannot supply 300 mA.
What it costs
As of September 2026 the Echosystem is $494 direct from Empress, and $479.86 to $499 across seven merchants, with a market average around $468. In the UK it has run in the £439–£459 region. Used examples sit near $295, and that ratio is the interesting number: roughly 60% retention on a pedal that has been on sale for nine years. That is a solid figure for a nine-year-old digital pedal in a category where DSP ages visibly, though it is well short of the near-total price rigidity of Empress’s own ParaEq MKII Deluxe. Equipboard places it in the High-end/Boutique tier and it is still in production and widely stocked new.
What to check when buying used
Confirm the SD card is present and that the seller knows what firmware it is running — the looper only exists on firmware 2.03 and above, and the current published English manual is revision 2.42. Check that the pedal is set to your preferred bypass mode or that you know how to change it; true bypass is available but is not the shipping default, which surprises owners regularly. Check both outputs, including the transformer-isolated one. And ask whether the previous owner ever flashed alternative firmware, for the reason in the next section.
Living With It
The firmware trick
Here is the thing that makes the Echosystem genuinely unusual among delay pedals. Because it shares hardware with the Empress Reverb, and because Empress publishes firmware for both products as plain .bin files loaded from an SD card, owners have discovered that you can flash Reverb firmware onto an Echosystem and have it operate as an Empress Reverb. Some owners keep two SD cards and swap between them.
Be clear about the caveats, because this is community practice, not an advertised feature. With Reverb firmware installed the pedal operates as a single reverb and the dual-engine capability is not used. Owners report that MIDI control may not be fully supported in that configuration. The file has to be renamed to match the target product’s naming convention — Echosystem firmware files are eeesXXXX.bin, Reverb files are eervXXXX.bin — and both need an SDHC card formatted FAT32 with the largest available allocation size. The update itself takes about fifteen seconds: preset LEDs flash yellow, then turn green.
Treated as what it is — an undocumented consequence of shared hardware — it is a remarkable amount of value hiding in one enclosure.
The looper
The multi-track looper arrived by firmware update (Echosystem 2.03, Reverb 5.03 and above) after Curwen had noted its absence in 2018 — “The only thing missing is a looper but apparently there’s one on the way with a firmware upgrade.” It records to the SD card, which must be rated V30 or higher, and gives up to ten minutes on the first loop plus four additional slots for layering, each of which can be muted, overdubbed or deleted. It syncs to MIDI clock. This is not a token looper.
The learning curve is real
Every honest account of this pedal agrees on the same friction. Curwen’s single listed con was: “No display so keep the manual handy!” Owners echo it — the lack of a screen complicates parameter identification, and nobody remembers what Thing 1 does in all forty-two algorithms. The counter-argument, made by owners who have passed through it, is that two hours of playing gets you most of the way, and that the colour-coded LED preset system has “a certain logic to it” once internalised. One long-form owner review put it well: after the initial tour, discovering the pedal in stereo across two amps was the moment it made sense.
Firmware updating via SD card is also cited as a con for people who do not want to think about file systems. It is not difficult, but it is not a phone app either.
Placement in the chain
Owners consistently report that the Echosystem “accommodates dirt pedals in front exceptionally well.” The natural home is late in the chain, after drive and modulation, before or alongside reverb — Equipboard’s used-with data has it pairing most often with reverb pedals, specifically the Strymon BigSky, the Empress Reverb and the TC Electronic Hall of Fame 2, plus the Empress Compressor MKII, the MXR M133 Micro Amp and the Empress Superdelay. Genre data skews Rock (38), Electronic (21), Pop (20), Alternative Rock (17) and Indie Rock (15) — a spread that reflects the producer and studio usage as much as the guitar usage.
The reputation, honestly
Equipboard shows 5.0 from 23 ratings with one written review, which is a small enough sample that it should be read as “nobody who bought one hated it” rather than as a score. The MusicRadar verdict remains the best short summary of the pedal nine years on: “An excellent pedal for delay aficionados, and it can only get better with subsequent firmware updates.” Given that the looper, the V30 support and years of algorithm work all arrived after that sentence was written, it turned out to be an accurate prediction.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many delay sounds does the Empress Echosystem actually have?
Twelve algorithm families are selectable on the front panel, each containing multiple variations, for 42+ individual algorithms. Because two engines run simultaneously in series, parallel or split stereo, the number of distinct combinations is much larger than the algorithm count suggests.
Does the Echosystem have a screen?
No, and that is deliberate. Every parameter sits on a physical control instead of in a menu. The cost is that you will refer to the manual while learning which mode-specific functions Thing 1 and Thing 2 control in each algorithm. Presets are identified by five LEDs across seven colour-coded banks rather than by number.
What power supply does the Empress Echosystem need?
9V DC, centre negative, 2.1 mm barrel, with a minimum of 300 mA. There is no battery option. A standard 100 mA daisy-chain output will not run it; use a dedicated high-current isolated output.
Can you really turn an Echosystem into an Empress Reverb?
Owners do. The two pedals share hardware, and Empress publishes firmware for both as SD-card .bin files, so flashing Reverb firmware onto an Echosystem makes it behave as a Reverb. It runs as a single reverb engine with no dual-engine functionality and reportedly limited MIDI support, and it is community practice rather than an advertised feature — but it works, and some owners keep two cards.
Does the Echosystem have a looper?
Yes, added by firmware update (2.03 and above). It records to an SD card rated V30 or higher, offers up to ten minutes on the first loop plus four further layerable slots, and syncs to MIDI clock. The pedal shipped without it in 2017.
Is the Echosystem true bypass or buffered?
Both, switchable in the advanced configuration menu. Buffered mode gives you delay trails when you disengage. Note that true bypass is not the factory default, which catches people out.
Is the Echosystem better than a Strymon TimeLine?
They are built on opposite philosophies rather than being better or worse. The TimeLine gives you a display, deep preset management and strong MIDI on a single engine; the Echosystem gives you two simultaneous engines and every parameter on a knob with no display. Preset-driven, set-list-based players usually prefer the TimeLine. Knob-driven, improvising and stereo-rig players usually prefer the Echosystem.
Is the Empress Echosystem still made?
Yes. As of September 2026 it remains in production and in stock at Empress and at seven or more retailers, at $494 direct, with used examples around $295.
Does it work with synths and non-guitar sources?
Well enough that it turns up on producer setups regularly — the analog dry path, the 1 MΩ input, the input pad options for hotter line-level sources, the stereo I/O and the isolated second output all help. Demo coverage aimed specifically at synth use exists, and the pedal’s owner base includes producers and electronic artists as well as guitarists.