You found plenty of sweet spots. More adventurous sounds from Moog beyond the classic sounds. I think they’ve got the balance just right with this one. Even for someone with loads of Moog gear there’s something new. Gonna see what sounds I can come up with.
Hm. Whereas the Mavis isn't bad, I'd honestly prefer a 0-Coast or a Microvolt 3900 for an integrated approach of "west coast synthesis". Way better build quality and more options to shape the sound. If you like the Moog sound but are curious about some Wavefolding, the Mavis can be a great device, though.
Beautiful demo. Often like your demo's so maybe you could help me a step further with this... would you consider the Empress a pedal with some kind of "natural feeling" in it's audio processing? In some demos it sounds a bit like that.. I would love other recommendations, if you have... Context: Now I'm diving into different somewhat more expensive pedals I find that most of them (even the ultimately popular Big Sky) have a sound that I'm not sure if I will enjoy it for a long time - still sounds so "digital" / unnatural and somewhat harsh to me. Not refined enough maybe, for what I want.. Asking myself if convolution reverbs are the way to go, but seems like most pedals have IR's of just some seconds at most..
If you want natural sounding reverbs, convolution is often the better approach. But the Empress Reverb is capable of natural reverbs, too. Here, especially the algorithms Room and Hall convinced me. Lots of reverbs sound great at bigger halls but fail at delivering smaller or medium sized rooms which provide a still natural feeling. This is where the Empress delivers. PLUS, it has some great artificial reverbs on board. I've to say that I'm not a big fan of the Big Sky anymore. It sounds lush and is great for ambient pads but its dominant character quickly became annoying to me. You maybe want to also check out the Source Audio Ventris which also has some great algorithms on boards without being too dominant.
Absolutely. But as the filters should be quite similar I'd suggest a more drastic contrast, such as the Make Noise 0-Coast if you'd like to go that kind of west-coast-semimodular route.
