Nico’s Staff Picks

Pedals: 

• I picked this reverb over all others in the shop due to its 3 “Dark” modes. The Mod reverb was the sound that I’ve had in my head for years and struggled to find. It’s a VSH style warble with ambient lofi high harmonics whirling about, absolutely ideal for post-rock/metal atmospheres. This pedal is versatile enough to find its way into any genre, and can pull out tricks like tremo-verb or infinite sustains. 

• This thing is an absolute beast. It is perfect for anyone looking to capture a high gain sound in a pedal that responds to dynamics in an almost amp like fashion. This pedal doesn’t quit. This is the perfect distortion pedal to run if you're looking to add a high gain channel to your single channel amp or to have on your board for a fly gig where bringing a tube head isn’t an option.

• With a $199.99 price tag, this delay is killer. It's flexible and will do just about everything you could want, switching from Digital, Analog, Lo-Fi and Slap-Back styles. Offering adjustable rhythm and the “X” knob that changes modulation parameters in each of the ARP-87’s 4 voicings, opening the door to tons of tonal possibilities. All of that and a tap tempo makes this pedal incredibly hard to beat. 

Amps:

• These are powerful all tube 100 watt hand made in Canada and I have gotten a bit of a name for myself around the shop as a fanboy. These things offer all of the conveniences of modern programming/switchability while retaining the character of an all tube amp. Your cleans make for a perfect pedal platform with no preamp gain in Blue (Clean) channels circuit while the Green (Crunch) channel offers tonal flexibility going from a solid crunch all the way to a pretty fuzz distortion when the gain is maxed out. The second channel on both the 100 and 100p is the High gain Channel. The Purple channel (featured on the 100p) and the Red channel (featured on the G100) have slightly different voicings, Purple being very tight, punchy and modern with a low end response that I haven't been able to beat. The Red channel is pure brutality. The gain is hairy, thick and a little more what you think when someone says “high gain”. The Purple/Red heavy tones are gnarly but maintain note definition and string separation. I find these are amazing amps for live and recording applications, needing almost no additional pedals or tweaking to get an incredible tone.

Guitars:

• Just... Wow. This is so much guitar for the price. Ash Body with a satin grain finish, caramelized maple neck, satin finish with rolled edges on said neck, floating Gotoh trem, Charvel locking tuners, Fishman Fluence Modern Pickups, push-pull coil tap on the tone pot, and a fast volume pot… This guitar does so much. 2 voicings for the pick ups (Alnico and Ceramic) with a coil split brought us to 12 different pick up configurations! This thing is an absolute workhorse can go from delicate glassy cleans to ripping high gain and everything in between.