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ISP Decimator Pro Rack G question... help me out


JoshuaLogan

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I've been thinking about getting a Pro Rack G, and I've heard some conflicting opinions on how well the signal tracking works. I'm mainly interested in it, because it's supposed to constantly monitor your signal before the amp and after the amp and adjust accordingly, in order to avoid choking out sustain when switching to clean channel, rolling back on guitar volume knob, etc.

 

Does this really work well? Can you have the gate setup to close quickly for tight staccato rhythm playing on a high gain channel, and then footswitch to your clean channel without your clean tone being cut off from a too high threshold? It says it does this, but I've heard a few people say it doesn't really work as well as ISP claims....

 

Anybody here have any info?

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Long story short: Yes it's the best noise reduction available, No it is not just a set and forget type o' thing as they claim.


 

 

Yeah, I saw your post there already. found it through searching on google.

 

but really, this feature is the main reason I'm interested in the pro rack g. if it doesn't work as it says it does, then it has no real advantage over running two regulator decimators (or decimator g-string)... which are much cheaper options.

 

Have you other guys come to the same conclusion? Or is it just a matter of setting the controls properly?

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I think that it works just the way they say it does. It has to be routed correctly, though. The guitar or wireless receiver HAS to plug directly

into the first channel for it to track the guitar.

 

 

What if you use an OD pedal like a tubescreamer in front of your amp? should it go between channel 1 and the input of the amp? what's the difference between running it that way and having channel 1 after the tubescreamer?

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:idk: I had the ISP G-String Pedal, and it worked as advertised!! I could turn up my amp LOUD and set my guitar down, it would be quiet as a mouse! It eliminated noise and feedback while playing too!

 

It's what Noise Reduction SHOULD be!

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:idk:
I had the ISP G-String Pedal, and it worked as advertised!! I could turn up my amp LOUD and set my guitar down, it would be quiet as a mouse! It eliminated noise and feedback while playing too!


It's what Noise Reduction SHOULD be!

 

That doesn't really answer the question I asked though. I've had a regular decimator before and know how well it works both in the loop (to kill hum) and in front of the amp (to kill feedback and excess noise). The signal tracking is really what I'm curious about here.... being able to switch to your clean channel and having it automatically adjust the threshold for you so that it doesn't cut off any sustain. With the normal pedal, if you switch channels you'd have to either turn off the noise gate or reach down and roll the threshold knob back.

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That doesn't really answer the question I asked though. I've had a regular decimator before and know how well it works both in the loop (to kill hum) and in front of the amp (to kill feedback and excess noise). The signal tracking is really what I'm curious about here.... being able to switch to your clean channel and having it automatically adjust the threshold for you so that it doesn't cut off any sustain. With the normal pedal, if you switch channels you'd have to either turn off the noise gate or reach down and roll the threshold knob back.

 

 

I never had a problem with that. You must be setting your threshold way too high, or not setting your clean channels high enough...if you're getting your notes cut-off.

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What if you use an OD pedal like a tubescreamer in front of your amp? should it go between channel 1 and the input of the amp? what's the difference between running it that way and having channel 1 after the tubescreamer?

 

 

It all goes after channel 1 then into the amp input. Channel 2 should be the first in a serial effects loop or at least before any time based effects.

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I honestly have not had the same luck as a lot of the folks on here with the Decimator ProRackG.

 

It will track correctly from high gain to super clean - no problem. But that correct tracking really depends on how you play.

 

Bear with me on this I'll try to be brief.

The Decimator is the first thing you plug your guitar into, and then again the first thing in your effects loop. How successfully it tracks is determined by how consistent your picking technique is when going between your clean and gain channels. Do you really pick as aggressively on the clean stuff as you do on the dirty stuff?? I know I don't, so on my clean stuff it'll cut notes off. Do you roll your volume knob back for clean stuff? It won't track correctly in that situation either.

 

One other issue I have is ground loops. You put all those connections together and you get multiple paths to ground - good chance you'll have a big 60 cycle hum going. You can get rid of it by turning up the noise reduction but that tends to squash the sound a bit too (and you don't really get rid of it as much as you cover it up). They've built ground lifts into the new Decimators and they do help some, but it's not prefect.

 

I've settled on a Decimator pedal out front and seeing as the loop on the Cobra kinda sucks when you mod it to serial (it comes standard as a parallel loop) I can't use it in the loop anyway. I guess I can live with the hiss for now.

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It tracks from high gain to clean very well, because (as I recall) it monitors your guitar signal volume as opposed to the amp signal volume. Of course, the other edge of that blade is that if you use your guitar volume knob to clean up the sound, you'll get tons of noisegate problems as the guitar signal is much lower.

 

So, IMO if you're doing that, it's better to get one of the pedal versions where you can deactivate it easily if you want to use your guitar volume knob. This is, again IMO, a big flaw with the ProRack G; that it can't be switched on/off by footswitch or MIDI.

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It tracks from high gain to clean very well, because (as I recall) it monitors your guitar signal volume as opposed to the amp signal volume. Of course, the other edge of that blade is that if you use your guitar volume knob to clean up the sound, you'll get tons of noisegate problems as the guitar signal is much lower.


So, IMO if you're doing that, it's better to get one of the pedal versions where you can deactivate it easily if you want to use your guitar volume knob. This is, again IMO,
a big flaw with the ProRack G; that it can't be switched on/off by footswitch or MIDI.

 

 

 

Definitely. Huge engorged vein covered throbbing +1 :thu:

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IMO, you're not going to get anything better than the Decimator Pro Rack G. As mentioned before, the only issues is that it can create ground loops (in the older versions) but that has been corrected with the newer versions that have 3 Ground Lift switches on the back. I personally have never had any issues of notes being cutoff like I did with the Boss NS-2. It takes some time to tweak it just right and of course, depending on where/how you play you may need to adjust (like if you're playing a big stage one night and then a small one the next night: you may need to adjust your Threshold on CH 1.....) but that is just like your amp.

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That doesn't really answer the question I asked though.
I've had a regular decimator before and know how well it works both in the loop (to kill hum) and in front of the amp (to kill feedback and excess noise).The signal tracking is really what I'm curious about here....
being able to switch to your clean channel and having it automatically adjust the threshold for you so that it doesn't cut off any sustain.
With the normal pedal, if you switch channels you'd have to either turn off the noise gate or reach down and roll the threshold knob back.

 

Its really awesome post.

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