Boss NS-2 Noise Suppressor

Not too much to understand here, three knobs:
Threshold - Sets the level where noise reduction or mute starts working.

Decay - Sets the time it takes for the reduction to begin decaying the signal.

Mode - Switches between reduction and mute.

This is directly out of the box from Boss, no upgrades and the instructions are pretty clear. As far as getting a good sound out of it, it really depends on your set up and what you're going for but with only three knobs and the option to run your effects through the loop or through the standard input/output you have some options.

I've slowly become more of a purist over the years and don't use effects as much as I once did. My set up is simple: LTD KH203, EH Holy Grail Reverb, Boss NS-2, Peavey 6505+...that's it. I purchased this because after having the preamp circuit board replaced in my Peavey (apparently there were a few things wrong which caused the amp to cut out thus reducing the noise and chance of feedback)I noticed a significant amount of high pitched feedback and a slightly muddier tone in my one band. We play southern metal and hardcore and typically I run my pregain between 6 and 7 on the lead channel with the postgain at the 12 O'clock position. Since I work off of our other guitarist I can't have a large amount of noise and feedback in choppy sections and the NS-2 seemed like the best solution.

After hooking the NS-2 up and turning it on I noticed the following:
Reduced noise
No more high pitched squeal or feedback
A slight amount of compression

I had read of people finding problems with reduced signal strength and even experienced it while demoing this unit for a customer. I, however, didn't experience any loss of signal strength and it actually added definition and reduced the muddy tone I had experienced without it. I think it really depends on your pickups and amplifier...this didn't work well with the Fender Hot Rod Delux and actually made the amp sound a little more like a solid state amp...but it's ok, I'm not fond of Fenders.

I wasn't trying to sound like any particular artist, just trying to clean up my sound while maintaining the "balls" of the 6505+.

I just purchased it but I don't feel I'll have any problems with it. I highly recommend that anyone who does purchase one should pick up a power supply to avoid having to change batteries.

I'm a sales associate at a music store and have a direct contact number for our sales representative for all our Boss products and he's actually very easy to deal with.

I play southern metal through a high gain tube amp and this is a great addition to my set up. Having played for almost 16 years I know what I want as far as tone is concerned and I know this item to actually do a little more than it says it does. I'm speaking of the slight compression effect produced by the NS-2...a nice bonus.
I highly recommend this for anyone dealing with a high gain tube amp that is experiencing lots of noise, feedback and squealing, and muddy tone. I don't recommend this to anyone who is overly critical about dynamic response.

You have to read the manual to use this pedal and experiment. I gave it a 8 because so many people use this pedal incorrectly and give it a lower rating. The ISP decimator is easier to use with only one knob. For every one who gave the ns-2 low rating please read the manual and place noisy pedals in the send and return loop of the ns-2, it works better that way. IF you have a noisy amp the ISP Decimator would be a better choice.

If used correctly for your application than you can cut most of your noise out especailly with single coil pickups. I noticed a very slight tone loss with the effect on. This could also be due to the extra cable length using the send and return. I own the ISP Decimator and the isp is more transparent but both Noise Supp. have their own strengths. The NS-2 works great on noisy pedals When placed in the Ns-2 loop(send/return) and has a more natural gate than the ISP. The ISP did not work as well for noisy pedals but worked much better on noise coming from the amps distortion. The Ns-2 did not work as well with the noisy distortion coming from my mesa boogie.

Used on stage for 6 years with a problem. Boss rules!

This pedal can work wonders if you have noisy pedals and place them in a loop. The pedal also works great for noisy single coil pickups. I also own the ISP Decimator and the isp works better with noisy amps and Humbuckers. The ISP is also more transparent but the Boss Sound is totally acceptable. Try both pedals out to see which works better for you.

Easy to use, only 3 knobs. Manual is fine.

It removes noise ok but also results in a significant loss of volume and tone, particularly higher frequencies. More annoying is the hoorible volume swells when you start to play. A slow incremental volume increase - totally unacceptable.

Sturdy enough pedal, will last for ages as you will never use it because is sounds rubbish.

unknown

A terrible useless pedal. Volume swells make this pedal unusable. I dont know how this thing could of passed quality control. Obviouslt BOSS couldnt give a toss any more about quality.

Easy to use, 3 knobs. You need to spend a little time with the threshold control but easy to work out.

Poor. The pedal will suck your tone (particularly higher frequencies) and reduce your volume by 10-30%. The volume bleeds in and out constantly making it useless for fast palm muting, staccato notes - playing with the threshold/decay controls does little to alleviate problem. When used with a distortion pedal on high gain caused a horrific screeking noise when NS-2 turned off. This pedal will remove hum fine but has unacceptable consequences! I wasted my money here bigtime. AVOID.

No issues with reliablilty. Sturdy enough.

unknown

Removes noise but removes tone - volume - quality as well! Volume swells will drive you nuts. Just because it's BOSS doesnt mean it's a good pedal.

Very easy to use. The only issue is placement. Where should you put it in your rig? I plug it in directly after the guitar, and this has it's disadvantages tonally, however; if you put an overdrive pedal before this it works well, but the levels on your overdrive need to be set to match your normal guitar level or you will have to adjust the threshold to compensate for the added gain.

I run this into a A/B Channel select into a Overdrive A, or bypass B(dirty channel) with a Boss chorus and a Nobel digital delay in the FX loop. The reverb in the amp covers up the decay of this pedal(no matter what you do there will be a split second of noise after you stop playing) with the reverb on, it's totally unnoticeable. Might not be perfect in a studio setting but close enough to make a difference.
Even my wife said it cleaned up the sound to make me go from "garage" sounding to "pro" sound.


Many people talk of the "tone sucking" that this pedal does. This is partially due to a "noise cancelling" circuit as well as the gate circuit. It takes out 60 cycle hum before the gate so you don't have to have the threshold as high. There is a slight noticeable drop in gain, mostly on the treble side. I plan on buying a boss GE-7 which should more than make up for the volume drop.

Also, there is an FX loop built in this pedal, works like an AB box. When used it filters before and after the FX loop so you have zero noise in your chain. Of course this does not work for any delay effects, unless you're looking for a gated reverb tone.

Overall, it's freakin great being able to use a high gain setting on a coil-tapped humbucker without any hum. Just remember put it BEFORE your distortion or you lose all dynamics. If you put it after, only loud notes will come through. Besides, in an fx-loop you usually have the master volume or channel volume BEFORE the loop so if you change volume you will have to adjust your threshold. Too loud and you won't be able to gate anything. So just put it before your amp.


Not recommended for blues players. There is not enough dynamics to really get your tone out of a class-a amp with this. Plus the mild tone suckage would just ruin good blues tone.
But for rock or metal this hits the spot.

Boss pedals are solid. I've never seen one fail as long as it was taken care of. No need for a backup
Remember they are CALLED stomp boxes doesn't mean you have to stomp like you're in a UFC match

Use one of these. If you've got money, buy a ISP decimator. If you're on a budget, this will way more than make due. You may need slight adjustment on your setup to get the sound you want(ie the GE-7 i mentioned) but this thing works very well alone.

If you play metal or other nondynamic music style go ahead and buy it.

If you depend on dynamics in your playing, ranging from silent to loud, don't bother.

There's something about not being able to hit those really silent notes. This pedal makes the electric guitar seem like less of a real instrument.

Im going for the Suhr, silent coil system

Crapped out on me after one week of playing.

Whenever i hit a note/chord it starts making loud hiss and fusses.

Good idea, shitty product

After reading the comments here, I bought the NS-2 to kil the buzz on my single coils on my Epiphone Casino. I plugged it in at the end of my pedal chain, plugged into my little Ampeg Jet, and there was my buzz. hit the pedal, cranked the threshhold until the buzz went away. Wow! Ease of use points go down because I can't figure out if the decay knob actually does anything.

Wow. Silence where there was once a severe buzz. Does it affect the tone? probably, but not very noticeable to me. Does exactly what I bought it for. After visiting the Boss site and seeing the manual, I see that I should have run my effects through the loop. I'll try that to see if it makes a difference.

Big Boss pedal fan. I just bought it (ebay $51, plus another $10 for shipping). I assume it will last for a long time.

I went to the web site to download the manual. It was right there! my real support comes from these Harmony Central posts.

This does the job it claims.

This is the Boss NS-2 and I am not sure of how old it is but it was in good shape. I purchased it used from someone on ebay for $65.00. You can go to the Boss website or read down for the functions. I give it an 8 on ease of use. It definately it is not a plug-n-play set one knob pedal. I experiemented without quite a bit. Pedals in the loop, out of the loop, before the pedal, after the pedal, and of course knob turning.

This is a great pedal. The reason I purchased it was because I had buzz and hum coming from my single coil guitars and even my humbucker equipped guitar at most of the venues we played. I have some noisy effects that it would be just an added bonus if they were cured. I set it up as stated in the manual with everything but delays in the loop. My final setting is reduction mode, threshhold on about 2:00-3:00 and decay at all the way counter clockwise which is minimum. The decay is interesting at first my settings were to have the decay at closer to maximum because I did not want to lose sustain. But then through experiment and maybe I saw a "pro" with this on his board in a magazine I set the decay turned all the way counter clockwise. This is a great setting. What I notice is as the note fades the NS-2 led lights up and it starts to do its job as the note is still there. How awesome is that. A gate only works when the note stops, this actually starts noise reduction even while the note is decaying.

In addition I was getting some funky noises from my Danelectro Dan-Echo delay pedal and my cheap Fender pedal tuner. I moved those units to the front of my chain with the output going in to the the input of the NS-2. All noises are cured. My rig is now dead quiet between songs even when I am using the tuner which was making audible noise when the led's would light even in mute mode.

For everything this pedal has done for me, improve my tone because there is less noise, quieted noisy pedals, kill single coil buzz from lights and other noise sources, and quiet my rig during song breaks I have to give this a 10. It did more than I asked.

I have all tube amps and high end American made guitars this unit is worth every penny and I would have to get a new one right away if it failed. I hear no change in tone at all. In fact I hear improvement because the single coil buzz is gone and my notes ring clear.

This is my first Boss pedal. Seems very reliable. I have Electo Harmonix, MXR, EMMA, Ibanez, Crybaby, Danelectro and Fender pedals. I have had bad luck with the inexpensive pedals.

When I shop for a pedal I usually take note of what the pros have on their boards. This pedal seems to be there quite a bit and I see why. This should asks speak volumes for the reliability.

No dealings with Boss direct.

I gig about 2-3 times a month. I own plenty of gear 1/2 high end stuff and 1/2 normal joe stuff. This pedal is a winner. I would replace it right away if it failed.

Don't mess with line conditioners, hum eliminators, gates or other hocus pocus to cure single coil buzz. This is the answer.

this pedal has a noise reduction circuit AND a noise gate too (which aren't the same thing) . I have never bought a lot of pedals,but this pedal is one of the very best I have bought

this pedal is great. My setup consists of a Boss GE-7 which goes into an Ibanez Tube King (which is great,because that pedal ALSO has a noise reduction + gate circuitry) ;the Tube King,in conjuction with the NS-2, is really effective,however the NS-2 will work great even by itself.
So I patch the pedals into the effects loop of the NS-2,with the Treshold set at about 3 o'clock,and the Decay at minimum; this goes to an old ,awesome Selmer head which is always running flat out with a powerbrake.
WOW! I get the same sound that Malmsteen has in his REH video opening,the part where he's playing 'opening solo' with the golden strat.
If I switch the NS2 off,all hell breaks loose,the noise is almost unbearable. The NS2 is brilliant,highly recommended

really an essential pedal ,if you use a setup similar to mine or if you have noisy preamps,etc

You have to be analytical about where your noise is coming from, and throw the manual in the trash. If hum is from high gain, the hum is originally coming from the guitar, not the overdrive effect or amp. Gate the guitar. The only thing I imagine the loop feature is good for is effects with self noise or an amp which hums with nothing plugged into it (But you could simply gate after those instead). I tried this with an overdrive in the loop, assuming it would not work well, and it sure didn't--unusable sound.

I bought the NS-2 today to test out as I can return it within 48 hours. I may keep it, or decide to try a different model noise gate. I like to alternate between warm clean and very high gain. I only got this for high gain. I use humbuckers and tube amps.

The noise reduction itself is really good. I have it between a Les Paul (mini-humbuckers) and Boss MT-2 (maximum gain). Loud hum normally. Set the NS-2 threshold just over the hum, and the silence between played parts is enough to give you an uneasy feeling. The gate timing works rather well, about as un-noticeable as you could hope for. Reduces some noise (and a little tone) even when the gate is open.

The high gain sounds fairly uncolored, but it seems the NS-2 soaks a bit of overall signal and results in very slightly lower gain. Considering the reduction in noise though, the overall results when using high gain are immeasurably better.

If used between guitar and amp for clean tones, you lose some character. It doesn't sound "bad," just slightly worse. I don't have a noise problem with clean, so I'd prefer it off, but in a song with both clean and dirty it sounds ok enough to leave on for simplicity.

I'd rate the clean sound quality about 7, but 10 for use with high gain, which causes the only noise I really worry about. Other hiss/hum isn't worrysome in my gear.

Boss is usually very reliable.

After trying this I don't want to be without some type of noise gate. I don't know if this is the best one. I know I don't want something with just a filter/supressor and no gate, as I'm sure it would rob way too much tone in relation to the noise it would remove.

Remember to put the unit right after the noise source, before that noise is amplified by gain.

I've had this now for a couple of weeks. It will take a little time to set up properly if you've never used a noise gate/suppressor before. I found I had to manipulate the volume knob on my guitar as well as the master volume and gain on my distortion pedal to achieve the desired effect. Once I did, I was very happy.

I've read other reviews from users who said they noticed a change in their sound once the NS-2 was activated. I can honestly and happily say I noticed no such change in my guitar's sound. I sound tested it by activating and bypassing the NS-2 while playing. All it did was clean up the noise. Nice.

I've been a Boss customer for years and their products have always been solid. I don't anticipate any problems. I'll rate it based on my other Boss pedals have had for years.

Never had to deal with customer support for reasons listed above.

I play mostly heavy rock and metal. I've been playing almost thirty years. The main culprit in my signal chain is a Krank Maximus Distortus distortion pedal. I also have a Seymour Duncan Pick Up Booster, Boss SD-1, MXR Phase 90, Boss DD3 and BBE Sonic Maximizer all fed into a Marshall JCM900 Dual Reverb half stack.

If my NS-2 were ever lost or stolen, I would replace it with a new one immediately. What I love about it is how it eliminates all the hiss and noise from my rig and yet it still preserves the tonal integrity of my sound. It does what I need it to do and there is nothing about it that I'm not happy with. I can't believe I went this long without one.

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.

Quite easy to use. On the Boss-Site I found a diagramm explaining the placement of several effects (before/after the NS-2, into the loop... ) which was really useful.

A must-have for high gain seetings. It reduces feed-back and hum without altering the tone (...I cannot hear the difference). You only have to mute the strings and the NS-2 kills the signal/noise for instance.
I have a phaser and a cry-baby running over the internal effect-loop of the NS-2. I just love it how quiet they get when they're just turned on (but not played). Before I had the NS-2 I could hear the phase-rotation (in the distorted channel of the amp of course) even with the guitar's volume knob completely turned down. No more.

But unfortunately...
if turn the guitar's volume-knob down the NS-2 will start to suck your tone. The tone will start to fade in/out. It seems to me that the NS-2 cannot differentiate the actual signal from noise any more. In order to avoid that you have to pick harder or turn the NS-2 off... and that's an unacceptable solution.

Seems very solid to me (like all BOSS pedals).

Never had to contact them.

All in all a great pedal IF you don't play with turned down volume knob. It works for me because I mostly play with fully turned up. In other cases I turn the unit off (yes, it can be that simple ;-) ). I didn't notice any tone sucks at all.

you got a couple of knobe to mess around with doesnt get easier then that! sounds easy to me.

This is by far the best noise reduction i have used so far. It does't suck tone like some other noise reducions. I owned a rocktron hush super c before and that thing sucked all my tone away and left the noise. So I have gone to use only the boss ns-2. I have 3 of these on all my amps. i run a Carvin V3, Peavey JSX, and a Roland JC-120, and it gets rid of all the hum and leaves the tone.

works great never had a problem with it.

never had to deal with them.

This unit works great. If it can get rid of all my hum through my amps and leave my original sound without messing it up it, It would be good for someone else to.

Very easy to use, for anyone that can't figure it out straight away there are clear instructions.

Oh dear.
2 things:
1/ Be prepared to lose all the bite from your sound. It sucks tone down to a muddy, playing on the other side of a brick wall, mess. It will also compress any dynamics right out of our playing, mainly because you need to hit each string at full force just to hear your signal, which leads me to...
2/ If I'd wanted a volume swell effect, I would have bought a volume pedal. A noise reducer should work on the tail end of what you're playing, but for some reason this graduates the start too. It reduces the volume of your entire signal, then very gradually brings the volume up. I would've thought anyone could figure out that it should stop reducing the second it hits the threshold, but apparently BOSS thought otherwise. So if you want to kick into a good riff, forget it with this thing on: you have to kepp playing hard and fast for a good 10 seconds before it gets up to volume (which is still not good, see No.1), so palm muted riffs are also not gonna happen (which is where you need one of these most).
You wanted crisp, clean sound without signal noise? No chance.
Having said this, it is very good for getting rid of signal noise when you're not playing, and as a mute switch. But that's not really worth ??59 is it?
And no, none of this is down to my other equpment or set-up etc...

It's really well built and solid, and doubtful it'll break. You wouldn't need a back up (assuming you could bring yourself to gig with it in the first place).

It does, however, lose a couple points for the unreliability of the effect itself.

Not needed support for it.

I really don't see how this is good for anyone. If you're playing with the kind of high-gain stuff that warrants this pedal in the first place, then the degree to which it screws your sound makes it a complete waste of time.
I'm playing an EMG equipped ESP, with a DigiTech ToneDriver and Death Metal and a Crybaby From Hell (which has a volume boost) needing the noise suppressor. With all/some of these on I do get noise, and the NS-2 kills it dead. But then I start playing... Oh dear. According to BOSS' description it sorts the noise from the guitar and doesn't affect tone. Flat-out lie. It takes about 10-20 seconds to realise you've started playing, and completely destroys your tone (get going then switch the NS-2 off halfway through, you'll see what I mean).
And don't get me started on how annoying it is that the send/receive jacks are the wrong way around...

ridiculously easy. plug in whatever you want to be quiter and fiddle with the threshold.

Does exactly what you want it to do. just gotta find the right level of threshold and if you want, decay (i have it set to zero). it does compress your tone ever so slightly but i actually found it to be an improvement!

yup, boss are about as dependable as it gets.

haha not a clue, its probably awful.

i play rock and roll with my Les paul junior and P90's. this pedal gets rid of unwanted noise. what more can you ask for?

Simple enough to use. It took a while to figure out what the difference was between "mute" and "reduction" modes because the manual was obviously translated from another language by someone who doesn't have a complete command of English. However, it is pretty simple to figure out that you dial up the threshold until the hum goes away. I have not found that I need to adjust the decay. I use it in "reduction" mode rather than "mute" mode so that I can switch between having the noise reduction on vs. off. In "Mute" mode, the effect is always on and engaging the pedal will mute serve as a mute. I already have this feature in my pedal tuner so it's not necessary to have another mute switch. Plus, I like being able to turn off the noise reduction when I actually do want noise and feedback.

I agree with the previous reviewer, to some extent, in that there is some gain loss and a compressed sound, especially more perceivable at gigging volume. However, I still find the tone to be pleasing. No loss in treble response. I played a gig with it recently. With a weaker Tele, I wasn't able to get long sustained notes but perhaps could have dialed up the distortion a little higher. With a higher output guitar (an SG with Kent Armstrong P90's), I was able to get really creamy sustained leads with no interference or pre-mature gating by this effect.

I've never had to replace a Boss pedal.

Never needed to contact them.

I've been playing classic rock semi-professionaly since the late 80's. The pay-off of being able to stick P90 retrofits back into my SG and have no hum, vs. a little drop in gain, is invaluable. At one time, I had been playing "You Shook Me All Night Long" by AC/DC without a noise gate and was ready to chuck my guitar out the window. All that buzz and hum in between the sharp chord changes was killing me. Even the solo got eaten up by hum. Same song at another gig with the NS-2 and it was night and day. If you ever thought of shelving your single coil pickups, or guitar for that matter, due to noise problems, I'd seriously recommend you invest in this product, especially if you like how single coils sound. I might consider trying out other noise gates like the MXR smart gate to see if there's something out there that doesn't compress your gain.

It's very simple to set-up and use, but I give it a "9" because you actually need to look at the manual, heh. Manual is great though, they show you a diagram of how everything gets connected, very easy to understand.

Like all noise gates/suppressors, it is going to affect your tone.
As someone else mentioned, it does add a bit of compression and seems to boost the mids. You can work around this by tweaking your EQ (on amp or pedal/processor) and if you're using a compressor, tone down the settings on that a little. I would say it's a fair trade-off though (better than hiss!)

I have the settings at - Threshold: 11 o'clock, Decay: min, Mode: Reduction and this is enough to make it totally silent! I've even turned the Thresh down to 10 o'clock to let a little bit of noise it just to make it sound more realistic, but it's still damn quiet!

I've only had it for a few hours, but it's built tough like all Boss pedals and those will hold out for YEARS as long as you don't abuse it too much.

No need for it now and hope I won't later.

Ok, now get this...
I've had the MXR SmartGate for about a year, and while I love MXR pedals, this one sucked! It only eliminated about 70% of the noise, but added LOTS of compression and the note sustain was a joke. I looked into other options and the NS-2 looked interesting because of the built-in "send/return loop". Figured I'd give it a try, and if it was no good, would just return it to the store.

The NS-2 is amazingly effective, blows away the MXR SmartGate!
I couldn't believe how well it worked, I even went and double-checked my pedals just to make sure everything was on, lol. It's kinda creepy how quiet this thing is!

I have a fairly hi-gain rig for metal:
Gibson Explorer w/ EMG 81/85's >> NS-2 >> Boss TU-15 tuner >> MXR DynaComp >> MXR Phase 90 >> MXR Wylde Overdrive >> MXR 10-band EQ all going in to a Marshall AVT150 head w/ a 1960a 4x12 cab.

It ain't rocket science...

The ns-2 does remove hiss from hi-gain amps, but at a price, IT SUCKS TONE. Anyone who thinks otherwise must be deaf, or playing at bedroom levels.

As soon as you turn this on, you will get a drop in volume and a compression on your sound. I have tried all wiring configurations with the same drop in volume/compression thing happening. I have tried it with only the ns-2 between the guitar and amp and the same thing happens.

I use QUALITY equipment, all cables are hand wired using the best quality cable and neutrik jacks. Guitar is usually a RH4 Blade, plugged into a very high end amp, a Cornford MK5011. Guitar straight into the amp is the best guitar sound, clean or dirty, you will EVER hear.

It's a useable pedal for some applications, but I mainly switch it off at the begin of a song and on at the end ?????

Boss pedals have never let me down in over 25 years

never needed them

It's OK, it may well be on ebay within a couple of months...

Boss have got a very good rep, and they don't really deserve it. Sure they're pedals last forever, but of all the Boss pedals I've got(5), I've had to modify 4 of them to get them up to scratch sound wise, and these mods are always replacing shite quality components with better ones. Why Boss don't use better quality components in the first place is beyond me. The cost of the components