Working musicians need to travel light, and pack a tonne of tone. Working musicians need tools to help them beat the odds that are stacked against them by feckless & rapacious travel vendors.

At Nice Rack Canada we understand the battle, we are always working on new ways to build smaller & ever more powerful sonic palettes for our clients.

We recently built this compact pedalboard system for Toronto based working guitarist, Mike Danckert. Mike works a wide variety of pub, sideman & tribute gigs that keeps the demands on the player’s tools high, while offering a minimum of logistic possibilities.

We managed to pack 15 different effects into a system, that in it’s rolling case fits in a overhead baggage compartment on commercial aircraft.

The signal flow for this series wired, many splendoured temple of tones is;

Guitar —> Xotic SP Compressor —> MXR Mini Fuzz —> Mad Bean Rabbit Hole (Muff circuit) —> Xotic SL Drive —> Ibanez Tube Screamer Mini —> Wampler Tumnus —> Insert Point #1 —> Xotic EP Boost —> MXR Phase 95 —> TC Electronic Corona Chorus Mini —> TC Electronic Flashback Delay Mini #1 (Short Delay Time) —> TC Electronic Flashback Delay Mini #2 (Long Delay Time) —> TC Electronic Hall of Fame Mini —> Nice Rack Canada Output Buffer & Boost to Amplifier with Tuner Split to TC Electronic PolyTune 2 Mini.

Before the Compressor or at Insert Point #1 & #2, the player can insert the Boss FV30H Volume Pedal or Xotic Wah.

Mike doesn’t need the Wah & Volume on every gig, to keep the system footprint & case dimensions as small as possible the Volume & Wah sit beside the board, connected to the Insert Points.

The System I/O box provides Audio Connectivity to the pedals, and 9VDC to the Wah.

The system is powered by 3x Strymon Ojai PSU’s.

Given the wide variety of repertoire that the system must cover, we found The TC Electronic Mini Pedals to be a great fit for the job. The pedals can be tone printed from the client’s iPhone giving the user an entirely different sonic angle for Chorus, Delays & Reverbs as gigs dictate. What used to require swapping pedal can now be done in seconds between takes.

Nice Rack Canada is about creating value beyond the invoice total for the client on a gig by gig basis.

The system sets up & tears down in under 2 minutes. Allowing the client more preparation or travel time between multiple gigs on the same day. Arriving earlier with better preparation & confidence always leads to more gigs.

Quality & consistency of tone helps the player have an enjoyable playing experience while bringing higher standards to the client's gigs.

Having a pro quality array of tools paired with musical skill says more about the player than words ever could.

Every working musician deserves tools that create time & money for them. Let Nice Rack Canada show you one of the ways you can enjoy more time & better net out per gig.