The Empress Effects Blog
ZOIA 10k & 5.0 - The Complete Thread
December 10 2024
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).
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.
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!
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.
The ZOIA 4.0 Firmware is HERE
October 08 2024
ZOIA 5* is HERE
*we have recently released ZOIA Firmware 5. We're keeping this page of ZOIA 4.0 information up for posterity, but please check out this page for the latest ZOIA news
2024 Major Events:
- Dune: Part Two;
- total solar eclipse;
- Australian breakdancing;
- ZOIA 4.0.
We could have just made the Sampler more stable (we did) and called it a day, but why end there? Why not drastically improve the Sequencer while we were at it? Why not rewrite the code so we can up the screen refresh rate?
We couldn’t come up with good answers to those, so we went ahead and did it all.
Your Personal Guide to 4.0
Presenting the ZOIA 4.0 Sampler/Sequencer Guide, the complete overview to the new tools we’ve added to ZOIA. From Sequencer Pages (did someone say 256 steps??) to an internal sample rate converter, this guide will have you skipping through a dream field of sampled and/or sequenced patches in no time.
Sequencer Updates
We’ve not only made the Sequencer easier to use, we’ve also expanded what it can do. Program sequences with a MIDI Keyboard, step through your sequence with CV Step, output glissando notes with CV Ramp, and more!
Sampler Updates
We can’t be the only ones who find technical improvements exciting, right? Like, if we told you that you can now have thousands of samples stored in nested folders, or that ZOIA will convert non-48kHz samples for you, how would you feel about that?
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!
Five ZOIA Patches We Love
September 18 2024
Five ZOIA Patches We Love
You might think of ZOIA or Euroburo as more of a platform than a processor, and we love seeing how the community develops effects and instruments from the 80+ modules in its toolbox. At the time of writing this post, the user community has uploaded over 1300 presets to Patchstorage that you can download for free to explore ZOIA’s creative possibilities.
Here, in no particular order, are 5 of our favourites.
WEATHERED
Creator ambienttrash built this patch to emulate a failing tape deck using a compressor, vibrato, filter, and overdrive. It’s simple but expressive, adding texture and motion with its lo-fi warble.
TINY ORCHESTRA
This patch from Christopher H.M. Jacques uses multiple granular modules for “creating micro-loops within a loop”. The patch will conjure surprising soundscapes from any source.