BOSS NS-2 NOISE SUPPRESSOR
It would be foolish to speak of noise
reduction pedals without giving some love
to the good ol’ Boss NS-2. While it’s not
quite as transparent and smooth as many
modern units (the NS-2 was released in
1987), it’s quite usable for most players
who need a little help getting control of
the hum and hash in their signal chain,
and in typical Boss fashion, it’s nearly
indestructible. Also, as far as I know, the
NS-2 is the first compact noise reduction
pedal with send and return jacks, a feature
that allows the user to isolate noisier
pedals (like distortions and fuzzes) in a
loop, while placing modulation, delay,
reverb, and any other effects that need not
be tamed, after the loop. This is a clever
arrangement, which many modern gates
and suppressors that followed the NS-2
have subsequently employed. The Boss
NS-2 also functions as a power supply
for the rest of the pedalboard, which is a
sweet bonus.
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TONE TALK //
ISP DECIMATOR II G-STRING
ISP’s Decimator line of noise reduction
units are very highly regarded for their
transparency and natural decay, as well as
their ability to quell noise. The company
states that they use a powerful, proprietary
technology called Linear Time Vector
Processing (LTVP) to track the guitar
signal, resulting in noise reduction that
responds as musically to long sustained
notes as it does to staccato passages.
I’ve found this to be a very accurate
claim, and the Decimator is definitely a
noticeable improvement over many earlier,
more primitive, gates and suppressors.
The G-String version of the pedal is the
ultimate incarnation, as it is designed
to work in the series effects loop of an
amplifier, and allows the user to keep dirty
pedals in need of decimation isolated from
their collection of pristine, genteel delays
and reverbs. Setting it up is a piece of
cake, as its only controls are a footswitch
and a Threshold knob. Simply turn the
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