Which Noise Gate / Suppressor for me?

[Kiichi]

Good day gentlemen!

The last few days I have been toying around extensivly with my pedal chain cause I got a Juansolo Boobtube and had to find the best way to use it. Now I run the Klone into it and it is great.

What I did notice during this trying is that with all the overdrive and boosting I got going on my signal ofc can become quite noisy. It is not insanely so, but more than I would like it to be. Thus I am looking into getting me a noise gate.

Looking around the forum the favorites seem to be:
Boss NS-2
MXR Smartgate
ISP Decimator

From what I gather the MXR is a real gate, no effect on tone and quite nice. The Boss is tried and tested, does  affect tone and has some filtering and looping going on. ISP is the metal favorite, but said to be somewhat harsh in execution.

The setup it will end up in is: Guitar - Comp - Klone - Boobtube - MXR 10 Band EQ - Orange Tiny Terror
So no effects loop on the amp, just wanne reduce pedal noise and some of the SC hum of my SCs and P90s.

So now I wonder if you could shed more light on the difference between these and guide me towards what is best for. If that is not one of the three, let me know.

Cheers!
Kiichi

[littleredguitars2]

i've used the boss ns2 for 5+ years and its worked great for me. granted i dont really use much else for pedals so i can't say it really effects much but i've never noticed it effect the amps tone at all

[JimmyMoorby]

If youve got the spare cash id say the ISP Decimator but you can pick up Boss NS2's off ebay for less than half price and theyre just about as good.

[Kiichi]

Since I live in Sweden now the ebay thing is not my favorite choice as it does not really exist here. I would have to get it from the UK then.

The ISP would not be largely more expensive than the MXR Smartgate...if I am not going for the G String that is, which probably, due to lack of effects loop, is not really the best way here. Two votes for the NS-2 so far though.

Would one of you too gentlemen be able to give more of a comparative insight?

[Dave Sloven]

The ISP Decimator G-String works well in my set-up, but you don't have an effects loop.  I'm guessing that the regular Decimator would work well in front of the amp.

There would be no advantage at all in paying the extra $90-100 for the G-String version if it weren't in the loop, although I guess you would still gain the sensitivity feature.If you were to run the G-String in front of the amp what you would basically do is put the guitar in/out at the front of the chain and then the various overdrives etc then into the dec in and out the dec out before the various modulation effects.

If you use the regular Decimator ignore what I said about guitar in/out and just place it where I said the dec in/out goes

Whichever one you get just remember 'batteries are for diagnostic purposes only'

[Kiichi]

Oh I should metion that I am also concerned about which one cuts my sustained notes least. Reading up on this this seems to be between the MXR and ISP, but I kinda trust you guys more than the rest of the interwebs.

[JJretroTONEGOD]

I would get the MXR over the others

[JimmyMoorby]

I used to have an isp decimator and stupidly sold it because i went through a little phase of using as few pedals as possible.  Its simply better than the boss ns2 but the ns2 does the job too and is often what you see on many professional guitarists pedal board so good enough for the pro's good enough for me and its good because its cheap, reliable and easily replaced.

Oh and the boss ns2 sucks tone at low volumes but at 'gig volume' theres no difference at all.

For me the ISP is ever so slightly better and its built like a tank but for the money you might as well just get the ns2.  Cant comment on the mxr im sure its good and it sounds good but its relatively new but ive seen pro's using the isp and ns2 on their pedal board and for a noise gate this is important as its less subjective than 'tone' as all my other pedals are boutique and a little less conventional.

[Dave Sloven]

Oh I should metion that I am also concerned about which one cuts my sustained notes least. Reading up on this this seems to be between the MXR and ISP, but I kinda trust you guys more than the rest of the interwebs.

From this point of view it will probably be the G-String, just because it senses when your guitar is generating a sound in order to control the suppression. But as you wind up the threshold past noon it starts to get intrusive no matter what.  I tend to run mine around 11.30, as below that the Peavey hiss still comes through.  When you get to 1 o'clock the damping effect starts to get quite noticeable, so the window is quite narrow but it works well within it.  This latter aspect of the threshold is the same for all ISP models.  It's just the sensing of the raw signal that is the advantage of the more expensive version.  As I said above you could make a little loop within your front end to run it.  The main advantage is that if you suddenly acquire an amp with a loop you won't feel like buying another pedal, although some people do run two regular decimators (one before the amp and one after) or a regular and a G-String.  The 'II' models have some kind of link that you can link pedals together, but I'm not sure how that works

[EffigyForgotten]

I have a MXR Noise Clamp and it cuts off notes, reduces sustain and doesn't cut off all the noise. Not recommended.

I would get the newer ISP Decimator II, I've heard the NS-2 alters the sound (for better or worse)

[Kiichi]

So some votes for everything...great xD Only the MXR Noiseclamp feels pretty much out, leaving MXR Smart Gate, NS-2 and ISP. Still the frontrunners are NS-2 and ISP. Right now I am leaning towards the ISP and now I am just wondering how well the version Agent Orange suggested for the G String works. Seems to makes sense, so I am tempted.
Anyone tried this perticular way of going about things? Is it worth it?

[EffigyForgotten]

The new ISP II can work as the the old g-string I believe, and a while back I played a 6505+ with an OD808 and ISP Decimator and it was the tightest tone I had ever heard, no noise.

[Dave Sloven]

Mine is the ISP Decimator G-String II, it is the same as the original G-String with the addition of a link capacity to another one the same, maybe a few tweaks to a diode or something.

Once I worked it out it's really good.

You need a power supply.

You place it after your wah or guitar and then again in the loop before modulation effects.

Mine goes into the wah then into the ISP's guitar in jack.  The out jack is connected to my tuner.  From the send on my loop it does into an MXR 10-band EQ then into the Dec In jack on the ISP. After the ISP I have Flanger, Chorus, Delay, Boost then back into the amp.

If you were using with out a loop you would use the same order, but obviously the pre-amp would not have its noise suppressed by the pedal.

With a Peavey the pre-amp is the noisiest part, hence why it is good to have it in the loop, but maybe most of your noise is coming from pedals, so having it out is good.

My phaser is before the ISP (between my overdrive and a compressor) and works fine.

[dave_mc]

I haven't tried the smartgate.

I like the decimator. If you want to use it both in the loop and out front, though, that gets expensive pretty quickly. If you need to do both, the boss more or less does the job (not quite as good as the decimator, but it works) if you use the x-pattern method for a lot less money.

[Kiichi]

I haven't tried the smartgate.

I like the decimator. If you want to use it both in the loop and out front, though, that gets expensive pretty quickly. If you need to do both, the boss more or less does the job (not quite as good as the decimator, but it works) if you use the x-pattern method for a lot less money.

Nah, no loop for me at all. My amps donīt have that. This is front of amp only.