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I need a noise gate that won't kill my tone

SouthTownFlyer

By SouthTownFlyer
in Effects and Processors

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jbylake Newbie

jbylake

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http://www.isptechnologies.com/decimatorpedal.htm


best.

 

I currently own an ISP Decimator Pedal that sits in the effects loop of my amp. Pedal board runs straight into input of amp. I used to have a Rocktron Hush C., rack unit that worked well, but was hard as hell to tweak, from room to room (bars). I had a MXR Noise gate, but the thing would clip notes before stopping hum and hiss. Boss unit sucked so bad that I hated to sell it to someone else, but they were happy so what the heck. The ISP isn't perfect, but it's the best of the lot, that I have experience with. One knob, very simple to use. Eliminates most noise before clipping notes. Should also say this, have two strats and a tele, quiets down the "hum" very well, as well as hiss from pedal board. The one HBuckr that I use obviously doesn't Hum, but sounds much clearer through pedal board. And I use a Buffer in front of the board. I haven't heard anything..good or bad...about the BBE. They are very quiet (no pun intended) on how it works. ISP, go to website and it has a pretty detailed explanation on what technical aspects that the unit is based on, to function. Hope this helps.

If there are anymore out there that I don't know about...please post w/ pro's and con's of unit.:thu:

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danut Newbie

danut

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I currently own an ISP Decimator Pedal that sits in the effects loop of my amp. Pedal board runs straight into input of amp. I used to have a Rocktron Hush C., rack unit that worked well, but was hard as hell to tweak, from room to room (bars). I had a MXR Noise gate, but the thing would clip notes before stopping hum and hiss. Boss unit sucked so bad that I hated to sell it to someone else, but they were happy so what the heck. The ISP isn't perfect, but it's the best of the lot, that I have experience with. One knob, very simple to use. Eliminates most noise before clipping notes. Should also say this, have two strats and a tele, quiets down the "hum" very well, as well as hiss from pedal board. The one HBuckr that I use obviously doesn't Hum, but sounds much clearer through pedal board. And I use a Buffer in front of the board. I haven't heard anything..good or bad...about the BBE. They are very quiet (no pun intended) on how it works. ISP, go to website and it has a pretty detailed explanation on what technical aspects that the unit is based on, to function. Hope this helps.

If there are anymore out there that I don't know about...please post w/ pro's and con's of unit.
:thu:

 

I have the iSP Decimator pedal and it is definitely a beast when it comes to totally killing all sorts of hum and hiss coming from your single coil pick-ups, drive pedals and/or amp, while remaining utterly transparent!

 

HOWEVER, an important thing to be taken into consideration is that the threshold level required for killing noise on high gain stuff MIGHT be too high to conserve sustain on the clean stuff! That, of course, if you intend to keep the iSP on all the time. Otherwise, if your music requires a lot of switching from clean to high gain and back, you either do the tap dance and turn the pedal off each time you go clean, or go back to your amp/drive pedals settings and back-off the gain/distortion, until you find a sweet spot on the iSP, where you have the high gain noise killed and the clean stuff is still dynamic and sustaining.

 

The iSP works wonders, but the point is IF CLEAN PARTS ARE AS IMPORTANT TO YOU AS THE HIGHER GAIN ONES AND YOU WANT TO HAVE THE iSP ON ALL THE TIME, you still NEED to take care of the noise/hum/hiss generating elements in your chain prior to the iSP pedal. Be sure to have good noiseless pick-ups, good patch cables between your effects and try to power your pedals from an isolated outputs power supply, so that the threshold level on the iSP needed to kill high gain noise remain as low as possible. From my very personal experience, this level would be between -40 and -37dB. If, no matter what you do to improve the noise condition of your chain, you still need to set the iSP past 11:30 o'clock (that means below -35 dB), your clean stuff will be jeopardized and you would be better off re-thinking gain adjustments or cabling in your set-up rather that inserting an iSP in the chain.

 

Conversely, if your thing is only high gain, then all this hassle goes by you and the iSP is the perfect solution for your noise issues.

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dZjupp Newbie

dZjupp

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mxr has updated their smart gate this past year, my friend got one. he was running like 12 pedals in a row (no tb box or efx loop!). but the smart gate worked very well for him and you can pick the gate settings which i found very appealing. haven't used the isp, the boss sucks, and i actually used to have the boss half rack comp/limiter which basically worked liked a noise gate. i personally don't use them and now that i have this new mxr CAE boost overdrive, it has like a built in noise gate of some kind that kicks in when both the boost and ovd are engaged. its cool. my vote is the newer mxr smart gate.

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jbylake Newbie

jbylake

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I have the iSP Decimator pedal and it is definitely a beast when it comes to totally killing all sorts of hum and hiss coming from your single coil pick-ups, drive pedals and/or amp, while remaining utterly transparent!


HOWEVER, an important thing to be taken into consideration is that the threshold level required for killing noise on high gain stuff MIGHT be too high to conserve sustain on the clean stuff! That, of course, if you intend to keep the iSP on all the time. Otherwise, if your music requires a lot of switching from clean to high gain and back, you either do the tap dance and turn the pedal off each time you go clean, or go back to your amp/drive pedals settings and back-off the gain/distortion, until you find a sweet spot on the iSP, where you have the high gain noise killed and the clean stuff is still dynamic and sustaining.


The iSP works wonders, but the point is IF CLEAN PARTS ARE AS IMPORTANT TO YOU AS THE HIGHER GAIN ONES AND YOU WANT TO HAVE THE iSP ON ALL THE TIME, you still NEED to take care of the noise/hum/hiss generating elements in your chain prior to the iSP pedal. Be sure to have good noiseless pick-ups, good patch cables between your effects and try to power your pedals from an isolated outputs power supply, so that the threshold level on the iSP needed to kill high gain noise remain as low as possible. From my very personal experience, this level would be between -40 and -37dB. If, no matter what you do to improve the noise condition of your chain, you still need to set the iSP past 11:30 o'clock (that means below -35 dB), your clean stuff will be jeopardized and you would be better off re-thinking gain adjustments or cabling in your set-up rather that inserting an iSP in the chain.


Conversely, if your thing is only high gain, then all this hassle goes by you and the iSP is the perfect solution for your noise issues.

 

Good response. You made some very important points, that I didn't think to include in my response. I didn't think about using it in VERY high gain, as in Hard Core Metal, etc..etc... I use a lot of overdrive when playing blues, but not a heavy gain amp.

After I read your response, I called (blank), who plays Krank, and Mesa Heads, in a Hard Core Metal Band. I asked him what, if any, noise reduction unit's he use's. He uses the ISP rack mount unit! Quite a bit more expensive than the pedal, but he say's it does a pretty decent job, but he's so picky, I don't think anyone makes anything that he'd be totally happy with. Also, when playing LOUD, noise is usually not a big problem for him, feedback is a bigger problem, so he uses a Feedback Ferret also. I think Peavy makes them, but I'm not really sure. Anyway, back to the ISP pedal, one point you made, and that I left out, is to make sure your gear is as quiet as possible. In my Fender guitars, I have them shielded, body cavity, pickguard, and even jack cavity, with copper shielding tape. (you can buy enough for a couple of guitars from Carvin for about $10.00, and it's so easy "even a cave man can do it". No way would I switch to 'noiseless' pick-ups, so at least some of the single coil hum will be there. Also, in my rack, I use a Furhman Power Supply/Conditioner, will help very much with noise introduced by old wiring, neon lights, etc..Patch cables, I build my own now, using Mogami studio grade cable, and G&H Show Stopper plugs (with the solid copper core in the jack). They are reasonably cheap to make, easy, if you have some very basic soldering skills, if not, you probably have a bud that does, and I'll put them up with the "best" commercial cables out there. Some pedals are inherently noisy by design, so not alot you can do about that. But if you have a "generic" as in Boss, Digitech, EH Big Muff, and want to spend a little extra cash, a good pedal modder can usually mod them sufficiently to quiet them down. In the end, if you still have noise problems, then I feel the Noise reduction (ISP) pedal, is the best solution, at least as compared with others I have tried. Might want to check out the rack-mount unit too, if you still need it and have the $$ to spend..but I have no experience with that, except word of mouth.:D

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gimme411 Newbie

gimme411

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I used the ISP pedal in the loop of my JCM800 and it worked perfect. I could stand next to my head with the master at 6+ with no feedback or noise and no note fallout. (You have to fiddle with the threshold for a minute or two to get it perfect. But it's easy.)

 

But because I play a lot of high gain stuff, I still had noise after my preamps so I sold the pedal and bought the ProRackG unit (rack version of the ISP). It comes with 2 channels so I can gate the JCM800 in channel 1 and then gate the ADA 3TM and MP-1 in channel 2. Expensive at $400+ but it is the perfect solution if you play high gain stuff.

 

Either way, pedal or rack, they are well worth the investment and you will not be disappointed.

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