Any tips for me in regard to using a Noise Suppressor Pedal? May get a Boss NS-2 or a Boss NS-1X

[ninjaraf]

I always had good experiences with the NS2, but it is old technology and doesn't do what the new gates do. But it's still a good gate, especially if you need 4CM and don't want to spend a lot. I imagine the NS1X is just an upgraded NS2, but I don't really know.

That said, for metal these days, there are just way too many options. The Zuul tech is the best, which I believe is based on the gate in the Kerry King Marshall. I didn't like that you need to split your signal to use the Key function. The Zuul+ was supposed to fix that, but they added controls, and I didn't like the way it responded as much. And a lot of other gates have copied that. I've landed on the GupTech for now. It has had the best balance between what I need a noise gate to do and not going too far off the other side to make things...weird, like gates can sometimes do.

I saw a gate just came out that let's you save presets...so you can have it on with your distortion and off with your cleans through midi switching. Maybe overkill if you don't already have midi built into your rig. Also, not sure if there is anything out there, but I vaguely remember there being a gate or 2 that would turn on and off with your channel switching. I could see that being useful if you don't want it turned on with your cleans.

For me, I also prefer gates with fewer controls. One knob, works perfect.

Basically, there are just way too many options out there that it can be impossible to make a decision. I've tried like 15-20 different gates over the years, and found the GupTech SUN to do what I need it to do better than the others.

[Abe]

I am happy with my Boss NS-1X because it does what I wanted from it, which is to clean up the non-musical sound of being plugged in to a heavily boosted overdrive. I can now make abrupt stops in my overdriven playing and it goes quiet quite nicely. I figure it does everything the NS2 does and more.