If you are looking to use a Noise Suppressor to “tighten up” your high gain rhythms, then the Simple connection method may be best for you. Guitarists who play high-gain, staccato rhythms often relish the “choppy” effect that the Simple Method can deliver. This effect can actually be desirable for some players. As the note starts to die out, the Noise Suppressor in Simple mode may end up “clamping down” and cutting the end of the note off. This can manifest a problem when playing long sustained notes with high preamp gain. Once the total signal level (guitar signal + noise) reaches the pedal’s detection threshold, the NS-2 will cut ALL sound – both the unwanted noise AND the guitar signal. The limitation with the Simple method is that at high noise levels (common with high gain pedals and amps), the Noise Suppressor has difficulty in determining what is noise and what is your actual guitar signal. The SIMPLE method, as the name implies, is simple to implement (you just connect it in-line, as you would any other effects pedal) and very effective at killing noise. SIMPLE METHOD with a High-Gain Guitar Amp* (*must have an FX Loop): Simply insert the NS-2 into your signal chain as the last item AFTER your noisy pedals or amp. This is the simplest way to use the NS-2. These jacks allow the NS-2 to be configured in 2 different ways, depending on your rig and your desired outcome.įor the purposes of this article, we’ll refer to these two different configurations as the SIMPLE method and the ADVANCED method. You’d be mistaken for thinking it’s a stereo in/out pedal, when in fact they are INPUT/OUTPUT and SEND/RETURN jacks.
GETTING CONNECTEDĪt first glance, you’ll see the NS-2 has 4 jacks. Whether you are looking to minimise unwanted noise in your rig, or perhaps even use it as a tone-tool for sculpting aggressive rhythm guitar textures, depends on how you connect it to your rig, and understanding just how it works. Its innovative design is as effective today as it was at the time of its release. Used by everyone from bedroom players to international touring bands like Metallica, Slipknot, U2 and The Dillinger Escape Plan among many others, the BOSS NS-2 is an industry standard in noise suppression. In continuous production since 1987, the BOSS NS-2 is a best-selling staple of BOSS pedals. For many players, that solution is the BOSS NS-2 Noise Suppressor.Ĭontributed by Byron Struck and Matt Walsham for the Roland Australia Blog KILL THE NOISE The solution is to incorporate some sort of tool to defeat the interference. Many guitar players who play at high volume with high gain find themselves in an ongoing battle with noise, hum or unwelcome feedback. Simply put, you know when noise is present and you definitely want it gone. The best way to avoid noise is to use quality equipment, look after it and have it serviced.
Sometimes noise can even stem from maintenance issues such as cables, dirty pots and jacks on pedals and other gear, damaged amplifiers, poorly wound and installed pickups or other guitar electronics to name but a few common causes.Īs every player and their setup is different, noise can come from many different sources. This EMI interacts with many guitar cables, pickups, amplifiers and other electronic equipment and when fed into a guitar amplifier (particularly amps with high preamp gain), can produce a lot of unwanted noise. Noise in the guitar world is usually the result of electromagnetic interference (EMI) which is all around us in the modern world. Noise in this instance is the audio we can hear that we don’t want in our overall sound. We don’t mean the experimental musical style, also called “noise”. What we mean when we say “noise” is almost always in relation to something undesirable. It can be present as high-pitched, nasal and mid-ranged, low and humming or via a heap of other ways. That horrible, unwanted and mood-destroying hiss or screech that always seems to happen at the worst possible times. Every musician, audio engineer or live sound mixer is familiar with it.