Music Festiversary

Celebrate our 20th anniversary with two parties in one!

August 9th, 11am - 7:30pm | Saint Brigid's Centre for the Arts, Ottawa

PEDAL & GUITAR EXPO

Play pedals and guitars all day. Meet the creators behind Earthquaker Devices, Chase Bliss, Hologram Electronics, and more! 

Full list of exhibitors below

LIVE PERFORMANCES

With performances and clinics running all day long, you can learn about guitar pedals and hear them in action!

Lineup:

• Menno Versteeg* (with members of Hollerado) – Clinic & Performance
• Boyhood* – Performance
• Tyler Larson (Music is Win) – Clinic: “Plug In & Stand Out: Using Social Media To Fuel a Guitar Career”
• True Cuckoo – Clinic & Performance
• Andy Pitcher – Clinic & Performance
• F8-bit – Performance (with Tyler Larson)

*Requires purchase of “Menno Performance” ticket to attend

Venue Details & Accessibility

Accessibility

Please note that this is a heritage building and it is not wheelchair accessible. The restrooms are located on the lower level, and there is no elevator or ramp connecting the upper and lower floors. Using stairs is needed to access any part of the building.

Food & Beverage

There will be food and beverages available for purchase at the Brigid’s Well Pub (located on the lower level of Saint Brigid’s). 

Parking

The venue does not have any public parking.

Street Parking

The City of Ottawa allows up to 3 consecutive hours of street parking anywhere within the city limits unless otherwise indicated. You can therefore park on any street near the venue, provided that parking is permitted - please refer to the posted signage for exact parking regulations and payment requirements. (Review the City of Ottawa Parking Restrictions in advance). Street parking directly adjacent to the venue includes:

• 1 hour street parking on St. Patrick Street

• 2 hour street parking on Cumberland Street

• 2 hour street parking on Murray Street

Parking Garage

The City of Ottawa has a parking garage available nearby that is only a 4 minute walk to Saint Brigid’s:

DALHOUSIE GARAGE (LOT 5)

Entrance 1: 141 Clarence Street

Entrance 2: 162 Murray Street

• Maximum vehicle height: 2 metres

• 459 total spaces, six accessible spaces

• Two Electric Vehicle charging stations, two Communauto car-sharing spaces

RATES:

Monday to Friday

• 6 am to 6 pm: $1.50 per 30 min, $14 max

• 6 pm to 6 am: $1.25 per 30 min, $5 max

Saturday, Sunday and holidays:

• 6 am to 6 pm: $1.25 per 30 min, $6 max

• 6 pm to 6 am: $1.25 per 30 min, $5 max

Parking Lots

There are two, independently operated parking lots within a 4 minute walking distance to Saint Brigid’s (both offer a flat rate / day rate):

• Corner of St. Patrick Street and Dalhousie Street; and

• 227 Dalhousie Street.

There is also an ImPark parking lot located within a 7 minute walking distance to Saint Brigid’s:

• 90 Parent Avenue (Notre Dame Cathedral Lot # 180)

ZOIA 10k & 5.0 - The Complete Thread

ZOIA 10k & 5.0 - The Complete Thread

ZOIA 10k is Here

We're celebrating having made and sold over 10,000 ZOIAs with this stunning beige ZOIA. Limited to 500 units worldwide, if you’ve been waiting to grab a ZOIA, consider this an omen (a very, very good one).

Let me buy it!

Firmware 5

We know, we know, we just released ZOIA 4.0.

But, when you hit a milestone like 10,000 ZOIAs sold, you've got to celebrate with all the people who made it happen.

ZOIA 5.0 includes bug fixes (say goodbye to endlessly scrolling patches and resource-hungry modules), but it is also a reimagining of what ZOIA can be straight out of the box.

We've restructured the factory patches to push creativity--a mix of basic guitar effects, PatchStorage favourites, and brand-new effect modules will greet you when you boot the pedal, allowing you to get to playing instead of patching.

Of course, ZOIA is still the same at its core, with self-playing synths and the power to build almost any effect you can imagine. To support this total sonic exploration, we've managed to get 14% more processing power out of our code. That's right--every ZOIA out there can install 5.0 and become even more powerful than ever before.

Download and rejoice

Don’t want to reset your patches to try the new ones? We've Zipped and uploaded them here, for your convenience! Just load the patches you want onto your SD card and transfer them to open slots on your ZOIA.

Limited Edition T-Shirts

Celebrate the milestone in STYLE with this gorgeous shirt, designed by our good friend Cuckoo. 

We'll only be taking orders for these shirts from Dec 10 until Dec 17, 2024, so order while you can!

Dress me up

Art Contest

We have THE 10,000th ZOIA (in its original black enclosure) and we want to make sure that it goes to a very talented artist! 🖼️

If you want to be the one to win, you just have to:

• Go to empresseffects.com on a desktop computer
• Paint us a pretty pixel picture on our Light Bright (no relation)
• Export your art using the "Export Art" button
• Post said art to Instagram
• Tag us in the post & use #zoia10k

That's it!

The contest is open from Dec 10 til Dec 17 2024 EST. We will be reviewing all the submissions on Dec 18 and picking our favourite from there!

Good luck 🎨

Return of the Blog

Stephen Koster has written an amazing article diving into all the latest ZOIA news. He covers everything that's been going on in the ZOIAverse, from why you should feel comfortable leaving firmware 2.80 for 5.0 to delicious new patches. 

Read it now

The ZOIA 4.0 Firmware is HERE

ZOIA 5* is HERE

The Bug Hunt Continues

While we've worked as hard as we could to make sure that everything on ZOIA is stable, there may be some scenarios that spawn bugs that we couldn't plan for. If you happen to catch one with the new ZOIA 4.0 firmware, we would love it if you could fill out this form to help us squash them all!

I've caught a bug

Five ZOIA Patches We Love

Five ZOIA Patches We Love