I'm officially letting the cat out of the bag: In early September I'll be taking the www.noisesupply.ca store offline.

Between now and then, we're clearing out stock - various discount codes will be laid out at the very bottom of this article. But for the folks that want to fully understand the Noise Supply backstory (or are bored and want something to read), here comes a very massive and epic TL;DR...

I started Noise Supply in late May of 2013 outside of Edmonton, more or less on a whim, and out of curiosity. I loved working at it and growing it in my spare time. I felt rewarded by the slow and steady growth and happy customers and manufacturers. Fun Fact: Noise Supply getting off the ground in the first place owes a lot of thanks to Ryan and Tanya Clarke from Dr. Scientist. Ryan was very patient and educated me on much of the industry and got me in touch with the right folks; and at the time they lived about 8 minutes away from me and tolerated me dropping by to pick up orders to save on time and postage fees. I also got some privileged sneak peaks on what Ryan was working on at the time; and Tanya made me some great promotional materials.

During this time, Noise Supply was extremely special to me, because later in September of that year, I had actually once again put my sound design career on hold, due to a weakening entertainment industry in Edmonton (and in Canada, really), and re-entered working in the trades - something I had done previously after moving from Sudbury to Edmonton, before getting back into a studio. I actually like working in the trades, and I like the guys, but for the most part I feel guilty when I'm not applying the education I paid so dearly for, and it's also hard to forget the flavour of a certain career, once you've had a taste.

Almost exactly a year after starting Noise Supply, my wife received an amazing career opportunity, but it would take us to the Northern Virginia/Washington DC area for a couple years. I didn't want to give up on the ball that I started rolling with Noise Supply; but due to logistics (difficult to move everything with us), legalities (I wouldn't be able to legally work or conduct business in the US for the first few months), and most importantly, the fact that Noise Supply was established as a very Canadian brand; I didn't want to move it down south with us. Instead, my wife and I decided to temporarily move all the stock to Fredericton where my wife’s parents could do the shipping and receiving for us, while I ran everything else from the computer abroad. We'd let the business grow slowly and organically, and when I returned in 2 years, we could really step it into high gear, push hard, and really grow Noise Supply. Fun Fact: After doing my official border crossing to become a US resident, I actually flew back to Edmonton and overstuffed our 2010 Subaru Forester with all of Noise Supply's merchandise, and with my dog, embarked on a memorable journey from Sherwood Park, AB to Fredericton, NB, and then eventually to Northern Virginia (despite being completely stuffed, a few boxes had to be shipped to Fredericton).

As it turns out, following my wife's career to the US was about the best thing I could have done for my own career. I was able to hit the ground running in a well known audio facility in the southern Maryland/DC area, and started enjoying that flavour I had missed. Fast forward just over 2 years later; my wife and I are now in Texas with a son who is now just over a month old, and I now have all my own studio gear and am running my own independent sound design business (www.brettardiel.com) instead of working at someone else's.

Fun Fact : the turn table is actually originally from CBC Radio.

But all this good fortune has presented us with a problem: it's been over 2 years, and we're definitely here for the 3rd and final year on our visas, and possibly longer - and then, who knows what. My in-laws, Joe and Carol, have done a fantastic job of shipping and receiving orders for over 2 years, but they've fulfilled their time commitment and beyond, they are getting older, and are now tired of having Noise Supply on their plate; and I can't blame them. Additionally, I'm a control freak, and I don't like not having my hands involved in all aspects of the business. That being said, the current arrangement actually makes more steps and more work for me than it would if I was in Canada with the stock and doing everything myself. Add on top of that the extra fun with book keeping and taxes (if you thought tax preparations for the CRA was fun, try doing it for the CRA and the IRS). So this has been coming to a head for a while now, but when my son was born I realized I had to do a few things to simplify and streamline my life, sooner rather than later, so I decided to sell Noise Supply and free my in-laws of their servitude.

I started reaching out to a few friends, people I used to jam with, and my Canadian pedal manufacturers (who I have a great relationship with, thankfully) to see if they had anyone in mind who lives in Canada and might like to buy all the Noise Supply stock and it's digital/physical assets, have me train them, and take it over. I didn't want to make it public knowledge that the business was for sale, but I still managed to cast a pretty large net. In the end, I ended up with a lot of interested people (I think there are still a couple people who still want to discuss it further). But again, good fortune has provided me with another problem. Noise Supply has always been a micro-business, something I did on the side of full-time work. It has simply never been big enough to pay the bills, so I've treated it as more of a hobby that makes money rather than a business of which I am entitled to a certain share of profits. Aside from paying for its own existence, Noise Supply has only really paid me in several pieces of (awesome) gear here and there, and so most of Noise Supply's profits went back into Noise Supply and expanded its inventory, to be more appealing to customers. So now I'm sitting on too large of an amount of inventory for someone interested in buying a part-time micro business. I quietly started the discount codes "STOCKINGUP" and "GEARHOARDER" for our newsletter regulars to clear out a bit of stock and make the purchase price more palatable for a prospective buyer but I still have too much to reduce the selling price into regular part-time micro-business price range.

I wanted to avoid having a public "clear out" sale, because in addition to respecting the value of the brands I represent, I thought it would be best for the traffic/cashflow for the future buyer, as well, it would avoid overworking my in-laws with too many small shipments all at once. However, I’ve been in talks with a few folks for a while, with little progress at finding a good fit for a new Noise Supply proprietor, and I’m now of the mindset of “let’s just rip this band-aid off.” So I'm making it public knowledge that I am getting out of the boutique guitar product dealer racket and will be reducing my stock over the next few weeks and closing up rather than selling. I've added several new attractive discount codes that I’ll be placing all over to get all types of buyers interested.

There is a deadline on these discounts though - I have a hard end date (end of August). I don't need to sell off everything (but if I do, great). This clear out is just to make shipping the remaining stock to me in the US a lot cheaper/easier. Anything that doesn't get sold by the end of August, I will have shipped down to me in Texas, and it will enter my personal collection. Anything I can't make use of, I will sell on Reverb (targeting the US audience), that way, I will have at least taken the burden of shipping/receiving off of my in-laws. So Noise Supply will exist in some small form for a little while past September, for at least a while.

Will there be a future for Noise Supply beyond this; some type of revival, perhaps? Honestly it's tough to say. I don’t know if I’ll want to jump into running an official Noise Supply business from the US (only to have to move again at some point), so at this point I’m not planning on it. However, I really do enjoy what Noise Supply brings to the table for me personally, and we don't expect we will be localized in the US, and therefor we do expect to be back in Canada at some point (although it's hard to say what province we'll end up in). Reviving Noise Supply a few years down the road when we are back in Canada is an idea I could entertain (especially if I could involve my son), as long as my favourite manufacturers and customers would have us back. On the other hand, I could turn the brand into something else and start a new endeavour. Only time will tell, as I typically play things by ear.

However, for the foreseeable future, you can consider Noise Supply as signing out of Canada by the end of August, and so time is running out for you to be a patron of ours, and take advantage of some of the serious discount codes. These are the type of discounts you don't ever really see in this industry (the boutique guitar product industry runs on much tighter margins than pretty much all other retail industries). Don't wait too long and let someone buy out all the best gear either, act now!

Please keep in mind we will not be accepting any returns due to buyer's remorse from purchases after today (but will of course take care of damaged, defective, or incorrect orders), and we have updated our return policy on the store to reflect this. I will also still honour any custom Noise Supply cable warranty issues if anyone ever has any, by contacting me.

Thank you so much to the customers who supported us during our short stint, as well as a big thanks to all of our great effect pedal manufacturers - they're a great community, especially the three that signed on and took a chance on Noise Supply in the very first days (Dr. Scientist, Fairfield Circuitry, and SolidGoldFX).

And now the moment that some of you have waited (or perhaps skipped) for:

NOISESUPPLY.CA DISCOUNT CODES, VALID TILL END OF AUGUST

GEARBABY = Save 10% off any size order.

GEARPEON = Save 14% off orders $200 and up.

STOCKINGUP = Save $100 off orders $600 and up.

GEARLEADER = Save 16.5% off orders $650 and up.

GEARHOARDER = Save $200 off orders $1100 and up.

GEARMASTER = Save 18% off orders $1200 and up.

GEARGOD = Save 22% off orders $2000 and up.

So find the discount code that is best for you and go nuts!

Product pages now show inventory levels, so you know how much you can buy of the same product (especially helpful for strings, accessories, and parts). Please note that products where you can select a certain size, colour or type (eg Grommets or Pedalboard handles) are only displaying the quantity for one size/colour/type, so on some of those you may have to take a guess with your bulk orders when you select the type you want.

Also keep in mind Noise Supply has more than just effects pedals. We’ve slashed prices on strings and pedalboard parts, plus you will get an additional discount beyond those savings, from the discount codes above - so be sure to stock up.

I will try to keep on top of removing all sold out product from the site, so it is easier to find what is left.

Thanks again folks for your patronage and support of a small Canadian business!