Empress Tape Delay Pedal

I’ve been addicted to delay machines since the 80’s – now I’ve just become addicted to the new Empress Tape Delay Pedal.

I got my first delay fix from a Boss pedal in the late 70’s – the same time the Chorus CE-1 entered the market. Shortly after realizing I had a delay-addiction, I started looking for more serious alternatives to the noisy Boss and bought my first rack unit.

Since then I’ve been through a lot of different units. The TC 2290 has been a favorite and the brain/center in my rack-setup for years. A few years ago, when I decided to go for a pedalboard solution instead of the rack. I searched the market for a while and ended up buying the the Empress Vintage Modified Superdelay, which in my opinion, is the best delay pedal around. It sounds awesome, has tons of configurations, and even the ability to save up to eight presets.

empress tape delay pedal - Soren Reiff board 2014
Empress Tape Delay together with the Empress Compressor and the Radial Tonebone placed in my new board – 2014

Why should I ever consider buying anything else?

Continue reading “Empress Tape Delay Pedal”

New pedalboard

Some years ago, when I decided to go for a pedalboard solution instead of the rack setup that I’ve used for years, I searched the market for quite a while to find the right pedals for my new board. I ended up buying some really good, and unfortunately not cheap, pedals. The upside is that they are reliable and sound awesome, so now I don’t have to worry about purchasing ‘upgrades’ … or? 🙂

Why should I get a new pedalboard?

Well, last year I was invited to play in Canada this summer. When I got a little closer to my trip and started thinking about what to bring, I realized I had to cut down my current pedalboard, if I wanted to avoid spending a fortune on surcharges at the airports. What could I remove?? Actually, I loved my board as it was and didn’t want to lose anything, but I had to let something go. Some tough decisions had to be made, so I started browsing the internet again… and I inevitably ended up checking out what the brands I already used (on my main board) had to offer.

Continue reading “New pedalboard”

Empress Effects Compressor review

This review of the Empress Effects Compressor can actually be really short! Here it is: buy it!!

That’s it … these reviews are my personal unfiltered opinion and if you are considering to add a compressor to your pedal board the Empress Effects Compressor is the thing – over and out 🙂

But ok, let me add a little more to this.

Compressors and me

When I was teenager I could spent hours in music stores (I actually still can, but time doesn’t allow me any more), checking out new gear, new guitars and new pedals. Back then I was pretty turned of by compressors. I couldn’t hear that big a difference if I turned the pedal on or off … when I had squeezed the knobs for hours to extreme settings and could hear the difference, I didn’t like what the compressors did to the sound … very understandable, so I did never buy any compressor back then. Now, when I know a little more about adjusting compressors and what they are suppose to do things has changed.

Soren Reiff Empress Effects Compressor 3

Continue reading “Empress Effects Compressor review”

Pedalboards versus rack-setups part 3

This blogpost is the third in a series of three about pedalboards versus rack-setups

In the first post in this series I wrote about the equipment I started out with and in the second post I told you about all the advantages I had from my rack-setup – today I’ll write about what I’m using at the moment and why I chosen as I’ve done.

Actually there wasn’t that many reasons for considering other solutions than my small rack-setup … but there was a few.

One was that I started to play more abroad. Often it was impossible to get the same setup I had back home – meaning that even if I brought my presets with me on a memory-card, it wouldn’t work. And in addition to that, it was very expensive to rent something like my normal rig – and really a waste of money, when I wasn’t able to use the presets I brought with me. I also got tired of trying to duplicate something from my normal setup, within the short time we had for soundcheck. Therefore I started to have smaller programmable boards with me every time I played outside Scandinavia.

Soren Reiff's setup 2013 - a Mesa Boogie Mark IV combo, and a full packed board
My setup 2013 – a Mesa Boogie Mark IV combo, and a full packed board

Continue reading “Pedalboards versus rack-setups part 3”

My pedalboard

Yesterday I did a workshop/clinic on guitar effects in general and I talked about my pedalboard. I often get many questions about my setup, therefore I’ll post a couple of pictures of my current board below, and give a couple of tips concerning how to set up your pedalboard.

Since I don’t have any sponsor deals with any company/brand mentioned here – neither manufacturers or stores are allowed to use my name to promote any product, without prior written consent from me. But you are very welcome to link to this blog or to my site www.sorenreiff.com if you want other people to read about my setup.

Continue reading “My pedalboard”