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Where are they. Is it too dead of a medium for boutique builders, or is there just no demand? Are the enclosures just too much of a pain in the ass to work with?
Tech 21 and AMT have a few things, and there's that EHX one, but beyond that it seems like the rack world is dominated by big factory mass production.
Now that I'm doing mostly rack, I would love to have some fucked up fuzzes, MASF/Montreal/Red Panda glitchy type things and such, as single space rack units, but there's just none out there, not like the vast sea of pedals.
Seems like all it should take is a tiny little contact with the fuzz world, spreading to 19" rackland, to get the market started. Just a manufacturer or two, or three, testing the waters with some small runs of sweet fuzz and dirt in 19" rack units. Dope shit worthy of hanging with badass rack delays, and reverbs, and amps. Bringing that sweet boutique pedalboard flavor to the racksters at last.
Who will step up and start this shit? My Eventide Eclipse wants a very special rack twosome to party with, and a fuck. And a cosmichorus, and a two-space joystick mangler-grinder something or other...

I know Evan (dirge) did one. I think a dual rat.

So funny, I was thinking of starting this very thread. I'd rather have unpowered, anonymous footswitches on the floor and keep the brains up in a box.

There's really no reason that Dr. Sci and everyone else can't put their junk in a long flat box. Come onnnn dudes!

There just doesnt seem to be much demand

Demand can be manufactured by supply. If you build it, they will most certainly kummm.

Maybe not many effects but there are a fuck ton of boutique mic pres and compressors... Rack is generally seen as a studio thing now so you see a lot of recording type units...

The question I would ask is where are all the ILF 500 series units???

I've thought a little about this. It could be kind of cool, but the added expense and complication of the switching systems seems not worth it. And racks can be a lot bulkier and more awkward than a pedalboard. Although most stomp boxes could easily fit in little 1/2-1/3 space rack modules.

But ultimately I think there's very little demand. For me, I like pedals just fine. If you really wanted it though, I've seen a bunch of rig run downs where people have a rack drawer filled with pedals routed through their rack switching system. Seems like a good solution for rack needs. People can't see all your cool effects, but whatever.

misterstomach wrote:I've thought a little about this. It could be kind of cool, but the added expense and complication of the switching systems seems not worth it.

All you'd need is a 1/4" TS jack to run the bypass footswitch to.

misterstomach wrote:But ultimately I think there's very little demand.

Seeing as how there are still plenty of dudes who use rack gear, and how they're willing to plunk down 2 grand for Axe-FX, I disagree.

misterstomach wrote:People can't see all your cool effects, but whatever.

This is a selling point. Keep the tone peepers guessing.

Here's a suggestion, based on sonidero's comment about 500 series modularz...

One company makes a rack bay. Pedal builders make versions of their pedge that can be swapped in and out of the motherbox, like those Randall heads with the swappable preamps.

Console???

I would like this if the effects were unique and weird. I don't think anyone needs another rack mount delay algorithm bank, for instance, even if it is some small batch artisanal shit

I begged for a few with more controls from a couple custom builders, none seemed interested.

If I ever do a rehouse, it'll be a few pedals into a rack unit.

Realistically, the limitation is front panel space, not internal or rear FS options.

I wrote but didn't post some real long form asshattery on this (yes, longer than this, even) but short version:
1) Our usual parallel market, recording, has mostly gone to effects in the computer, so musicians become more of a standalone market. Note that many keyboard players went with this trend of doing more inside the computer.
2) Live sound may still be hardware centric, but their needs aren't usually as adventurous as ours.
3) Guitarists generally went anti-rack for various aesthetic reasons after Nirvana broke. Rack gear has largely been the domain of unreconstructed 80s flavored metal heads, with a handful of sonic explorers digging through the old eras castoffs kind of like indie/alternative guys had previously discovered castoff fuzz boxes of an earlier era.
4) The overhang of good or useful old rack stuff, often cheap, cuts into demand for new stuff for the few guys into the rack format. Some stuff persists, but you'll notice a lot of it has had a long product life by historic standards (e.g. t.c. G Force, Eventide Eclipse).
5) Techs previously only available in rack are now available abundantly and cheaply in pedals. Heavy DSP, presets, complex control and sync schemes. Also, rack units of yore and their sounds have been meticulously recreated and expanded on in pedals. Notice, though, that in large part we've done little more than catch back up to a couple decades ago.
6) If you start with a pedal or two, it feels like less of a jump to add more pedals than to add a rack unit, so human nature is a factor in buying trends. Never mind that pedalboard size, cost, and complexity is recreating an alternate universe version of the "rack of doom" era.

Today small shop boutique thing for adventurous sounds is probably atomized now in pedals, computer DSP, and the modular synth revival. No reason not to cross-pollinate these form factors, though.

The modular/euro revival is what makes this seem to me like a thing that should be happening. All those little companies making all those awesome little toys, and still no regular rackage. WTF.

i would guess modular spells the opposite for rack. more cost effective to build, more popular. cats seem to be selling off their rack gear in droves.

It's about status for the Euro format guys too sometimes I suspect. Old boring 1U+ units are so...last gen.

The thing that a rack fuzz unit wouldn't get (without some significant outlay of R&D time) is a level of controllability/automation digitally that makes it make sense and be something "more" than a pedal.

Other factor pointing against it is that cabling gets wonky if you want to switch around gain stages or integrate that thing with current pedalboard.

To make rack and board of doom work takes some thought that a lot of dudes aren't willing to undertake.

It's sad though, the sounds are definitely there in terms of fidelity and the like on newer pedals but..damn...the lack of control or truly deep editing, and the lack of presets.

Curse you, TC and Line6 for conning people into accepting single and 4 preset units respectively!

Happy though in general with the continued cheapness of rack stuff - stuff like the venerable Lexicon Vortex still hasn't been replicated in a pedal, and thankfully is still selling at the $100-150 range that the things went on closeout for in the mid-90s.

I would *kill* for a Vortex with modern delay length (as useful as the thing is, I can just hear in my head what it would do with 3 or 5 or 20 seconds of stuff).