Boss NS-2 Noise Suppressor

Not easy as a Wah pedal... but if you have bought a Noise Suppresor, it means you are smart, so you can learn how to use it prety easy.

It does the job.
I can use for what I needed it.
It removes the noise from your guitar sound w/o taking away the guitar tone....something rocktron should learn how to do.

It??s a Boss!!!
It is my only new Boss.
All the others are vintage japanese and are still working as they did on day 1, so I??m pretty sure it will be use 3 generations after me.

Go get one... It will help you improve your overall tone.

The settings are very straight foward. Threshold = how much noise do you want to get rid of. Decay = how quickly do you want the reduction to take effect. mute = pretty self explanatory

When I first got this I loved it. I play an epiphone les paul custom through a Marshall TSL602.It cuts all the hiss and muck right out of my Marshall (with tubescreamer which is the main noise culprit). However after closer inspection I realised that it was suck the highs out of my tone. I just can't get the same "bite" out of my marshall with this on. If you like mellow tones this may not be much of a problem. Secondly it does add some compression which doesn't concern me but may bother blues players etc.

It's Quite sturdy, have not had any troubles with it so far. The only critiscism is the poor battery access on this thing. Instead of being on the back the battery sits underneath the switch. Not a major problem but if you were in a hurry.....

N/A

Lives up to its name, it does cut out all unwanted noise. But if you want that searing presence in your solos and/or rhythm playing you would have to turn this off which could mean alot of tap dancing on your pedal board. If it were lost or stolen I probably would try another brand.

Easy! Put it on and it will be readdy to clean the mess. there are diferent configurations explain all of them. I didn't experiment all, becouse i really liked the first one i tryied! I put it in the end off the effects chain, before the amp input.

The sound, what sound? This not produce sound, this protect your sound. It don't change my tone, and that is perfect! I put all my pedals on and you can??t ear any noise.

My Setup: Gibson SG 61 Reissue (EMG 81b)-> Whammy XP-100 -> American Big Muff -> Ibanez PH7 -> BOSS NS-2 -> Amp Laney VH100R (with Marshal 8412 & VS412 Cabinets)

Some artists that use or used NS-2
Wes Borland
Glenny Telford (SkinLab)
Wayne Static (Static-X)- doesn't use any pedal effects!
Josh Rand (stone Sour)
Ace (ex Skunk Anansie)
Tony Rombola (Godsmack)
etc.

I didn't play live with it yet, but I trust him.

I play alternative Rock/Metal, but, in my opinion, the style is not important to a NS-2 review... I play guitar for 11 years and this is one of my best buys.

I would buy another one if it was stolen or lost.

if you're setup is all crap, it will not do miracles...

Very good buy. Good quality, nice price!

ps: sorry, i know my english sucks!

First thing is read the 5 sentence long instructions on the manual. If you don't have a manual its fairly simple to use. Turn the threshold up until it cancels out the noise(it won't cancel out all the noise, but 90% of it, which is a big difference). The decay sets the time for the noise to stop. So the higher the decay the longer it takes to cancel out the noise.

I thought the boss ns2 canceled out all the noise. It cancels out the majority of the noise, but only when your not playing. The second you start hitting the strings the noise returns, but its much quieter. When you stop playing the noise cancels out. I own a fender pro junior and its a noisy little bugger. When I use my epiphone with humbuckers it cancels out the majority of the buzz and hiss. Its only slightly present. When I use my single coil strat it cancels out the majority of the 60 cycle hum, but there is a little hiss/buzz present, more than the epiphone. It doesn't kill my tone at all. It makes chord changes sound smoother. The second you turn the pedal on "boom" all the noise is gone. Its leaves ya a warm feeling inside.

I have not had it for a long period of time, but from what I can tell it seems sturdy. I've heard good things about boss pedals. Musicians friend offers a 1 year warranty so I bought that for 8 bucks in case something happens.

Everything is fine and dandy so far, no need to call them.

I think it is well worth the $90. My set up was so freakin hissy and buzzy it was driving me absolutely crazy. The boss doesn't get rid of all the noise, but 90% of it is gone. It even quiets down my 60 cycle hum/buzz quite a bit. Its a good pedal. I mainly play alt/country rock. I'm mainly a strummer and this cleans up chord changes quite well. I've been playing for about 4-5 years. I own a fender strat, a epiphone dot studio, a fender pro junior amp, a holy grail reverb, and now the boss. I have a very simple set up. I don't even use the reverb that often. So I mainly plug the guitar into my amp. The boss quiets everything down. If it were lost or stolen I would buy another one. The thing I don't like about this pedal is it doesn't get rid of all the noise, just the majority of it. The second you turn the pedal on you can hear the noise vanish like that. I could have purchased the Isp decimator, but it cost 30 dollars more, from what I've heard it works very well. If you have any questions about any of my gear feel free to email me at postalsock@hotmail.com

Probably the easiest pedal in the world to use. I just got home with it and plugged it in. With the threshold and decay at their minimums, it works perfectly. I hear absolutely nothing other than normal amp hiss when i am not playing. The manual could use some work, considering its mostly comprised of pictures and does not fully explain what the mute option does.

Sound is perfect. Could not ask for more, period.

It's a Boss, I'm pretty sure it will stand the test of time. I would most certainly gig with this pedal, considering it worked perfectly directly out of the box.

N/A

I play thrash/death metal, and this pedal is an absolute must have for my gear setup. The amp I currently use is the 5150 combo amp, which, if you know anything about the 5150, has a very high gain output. In addition, I play the LTD DV8-R with the Dave Mustaine Livewire active Duncans. These pickups have an extremely high output, and in conjuction with the 5150, a lot of noise is created. The Boss NS-2 simply eliminates all noise that comes from having this extremely hot rig. If it can completely cut the noise out of my setup, It can definitely do wonders for you. The only reason why I give it a 9 overall is because of the sub par manual (in my opinion) and the high price. If you want a quality noise gate, though, spend the extra cash, you won't be disappointed.

Easy to use; play with the threshold and delay knobs to find your "tolerance" (how much cut off vs. noise still coming through). No manual, bought used. No upgrades. You can use it at the end of the signal chain or with the integrated effects loop (which is the way I use it). Sturdy, typical Boss design.

Doesn't color my sound like certain other players might say; unless you are a real tone freak, with hyper precise criteria for your sound, I don't think you'll find any tone sucking (maybe a vintage setup might suffer). I play through a Marshall TSL 100, Lone Star Strat, Tele and Tokai Les Paul. Effects chain is: Guitar, NS-2, (looped in the NS-2: BBE Opto Stomp, CryBaby 535Q, BBE Green Screamer, MXR ZW-44, CE-5). DD-20 through amp effects loop. No noise (it is a noise suppressor !).

Very dependable. Trust it on a gig. It is a Boss; they're hard to kill !

Didn't have anything to gripe for. Although, since the pedal was used and didn't have a manual, I easily found a PDF version through the Boss web site, which was great.

I play hard rock, and I do a lot of soloing and jamming. The NS-2 has changed my perspective on the use of external effects pedals. Before I purchased it, I was worried that I would always have to deal with hum and static from pedals. I hate noise, to the point where I was willing to sacrifice my ideal tone to cut down on noise. I had put up my ZW-44 for sale, since it is a noisy pedal. With the NS-2, the noise cut is dramatic. The ZW-44 can now be used to give me a great cutting lead tone without the noise. I like to take breaks in my phrasing, so when I'm not playing, it's almost like the amp was on standby. I see a lot of professionnals use the NS-2 in their setups (Check the setups at the end of Guitar World issues).Would buy again if stolen. Must have for pedals through a high gain setup. I'm also considering a DC Brick or Voodoo Lab Pedal Power to reduce noise even more (batteries aren't practical, although give out less noise.)

Its pretty easy to use. It took me a few hours to get a hang of it. Ive never really messed around with a noise suppressor before. It comes with a manual which seems informative enough. I actually looked at it more than once.

It deffinatly does the job it says it does. Because I never owned a suppressor before, it took me a while to grasp the working concept of the thing. Once figured out,,easy enough. I have found that it isnt a one setting for everything pedal. If you set it up correctly for one channel of gain and change to another with more gain or use another guitar with hotter pups you will find you will need to adjust it. I only use it with extemely high gain applications so once I have it set for my gain channel its good to go. When I bought this pedal I thought I would try running it like any other pedal in my chain of effects,input-output and so on.. Nope it doesnt work like that. I tried and it just doesnt work at all like that. You cant even get a sound out of it. It comes with a send and return jacks for a loop. You must use it like that. Place your distortin,OD, compression type pedals in the NS-2's loop and your good to go...Works great like this. It really does make your rig quiet. It comes with an additional light that is off when you are playing but after you stop and your sustained note fades you see the light slowly come on. Once your sustain is gone the light shines bright showing you its got a hold on your noise,,,pretty cool. The pedal comes with a knob named decay and its useful if you find the pedal kicking in too fast,,,cutting off your sustain. Im running it first in my chain straight into my amp,,,NS-2, barber tone press,bb preamp, mi audio blues pro, mi audio crunch box,,,to give you an idea Im able to have my boogie recotoverb on high gain channel 2 with the compressor on max and the bb preamp overdriving my preamp and it still can keep it relatively quiet. I dont ever use that much gain and compression in front but its nice to know you could,,,when I turn off the ns-2 at these settings the noise is uncontrollable.. so it works.
P.S. the threshold knob doesnt need to be maxed for everything,,you will get a better result from it if you slowly turn that knob clockwise until the noise is gone. thats were you should have it.

its a boss

dont know

I play everything from blues to all out metal,,,I only use it for extremely high gain,,otherwise its off. So far its done me well so I really have no complaints at all,,,if it went missing I probably would replace it again,,,but because ive never owned another,,,who knows. I bought this pedal because of the rave reviews on this sight,,,I wanted to originally try the ISP decimator but the reviews werent as good and you had to order that one online.. With the NS-2 not being an effect type pedal I was willing to give it a try,,,I just wanted the noise to go away and it did.

It is very easy to understand. The only thing thats not so cool is that the send and return jacks are positioned at the wrong side, because you would have put the send to an input of an pedal and a return to output of a pedal(Go look at a picture and see!),it would be O.K. if you had longer patch leads!

other than that it is very easy to use, that is if you read the manual!

WoW! Try putting a very noisy pedal in the loop of the Boss ns-2, and you will know what a noise suppressor does(Something like an MXR Dime). A very clear sound can be heard, it wont change the tone at all, Set the decay time to the far left, and threshold at about 12'0 clock.
It is important to use this with pedals in the send and return loop of noise suppressor, it wont be that effective when using it with amp distortion, because you cannot it only eliminates noise within the loop and before the pedal(your guitar).

I have played a few gigs with the noise suppressor, and people cant understand why my sound has no noise. And it is almost indestructable, when a jack is inserted it stays there.

Well i live in South Africa, so i was a big struggle find a boss dealer with the ns-2, after a few months I found one.

This is for an active musician, playing the blues,neo classical or even black death metal. Without this pedal you would sound very crap. This pedal is wort every penny.
Currently I am using the Boss ds-1 and Digitech metal master, it makes it sound like a studio produced sound.

Easy to use, basically a 'no brainer' with just three knobs. It took me a while to figure out how to set it up though, thank god I have the boss guitar tuner, using send and return from that with all my pedals.

Doesn't affect sound quality at all, trust me, after playing for 35 years, I would know if sound quality was affected. Some problems with a clean sound (which I rarely use), but it is just a case of changing the settings a little is all, but, hate to do that during a 'live' gig.

It's a boss pedal!.. reliable as hell!

Do Boss even have customer support?.. can't imagine it would be needed?

I play Classic Rock, I use distortion, overdrive, compression, a wah, a uni-vibe and a boss super shifter, I have three strats so you can imagine the hiss and hum I get. I should have gotten this years ago, but I was put off because the noise gates in the 70's silenced the first note played, not so with this, because of the neat litle delay button. I use a lot of hendrix-like controled feedback and this doesnt interfere with that or my style.. the guys in my band love me now!! -- so quiet!!

I didn't have any trouble setting it up, it was pretty straight forward. It might take some others a bit longer and that would depend on the type of noise they're experiencing.

In my opinion it improved the overall sound of distortion boxes because it didn't contain the noise and hiss that pedals sometimes create. It's a real thrill to get perfect silence when the guitar is idle. This is an absolute must for live players and it couldn't hurt in the studio either. I have a Boss GE-7 pedal and it's great as an equalizer but creates some hissing when I try to push it a little. The NS-2 eliminates all the noise so I can take full advantage of all my other devices.

It's a Boss for Pete's sake.

I play funk and R&B mostly but a cover band has to do it all to get gigs. I have 5 different amp rigs to suit the gig I'm playing. Rivera full stack, Mesa Stiletto duece, Bassman combo, Fender Super Sonic and my 5w Epiphone practice amp. If it were stolen it would be replaced immediately.