Boss NS-2 Noise Suppressor

Not too complicated.

This pedal is useful for taking the noise out of OTHER pedals, not so useful as a noise gate.

Run your noisy distortion or compression pedals through the LOOP of the NS2, NOT the input/output. POOF - pedal buzz gone, Decay and Threshold settings have no effect on this, you can just leave them all the way down.

However, if you're trying to quiet down noisy single-coil pickups, get ready to turn the threshold and decay WAY up. Really kills your attack and sustain. I suppose the only way to do this is find a threshold you can live with, and then add a delay pedal AFTER the NS-2 to get back some of the ambience it clips. I would really not recommend using it for this purpose. Which is too bad, because it seems to be its MAIN purpose.

Seems reliable, i have yet to have a problem w/ a Boss pedal.

Like I said: Useful to quiet down OTHER pedals. Any other application will probably leave you dissatisfied.

If I were rating it at quieting down other pedals: I'd give it a 10, takes the buzz right out and doesn't color tone. Have your distortion pedals cranked full up without a whisper until you hit the strings.

But because it's supposed to be a noise gate too, it gets a 6.

Let me start by telling you that I'm running a les paul loaded with burstbucker pro's through an engl blackmore 100 head to play metal. Drop C bone-crushing metal with as much gain as the amp lets me achieve.

It seems simple enough at first, plug in the guitar at input, amp at output and all set right ? WRONG! So I tried the NS-2 in the amp's effects loop to cut out the distortion hum... still no good at keeping the feedback out no matter how I set the threshold/decay buttons.

The manual actually contains a clue as to what the best setup is, but you have to treat the preamp like it was a noisy distortion pedal. So the way I run it now is:
Guitar->NS-2 input and then NS-2 send->amp input, amp send->NS-2 return, NS-2 output->amp return
It kills all feedback and noise so I can do (extremely loud) choppy riffs without any beeps coming in between chops. Because my amp lacks a fx loop on/off switch, I run the output of the NS-2 into a line selector which has chorus/delay/reverb in its loop to switch the fx on and off. The nice thing is when the NS-2 cuts the sound, the reverb and delay get to finish their chimes naturally without any feedback going on.

Is this easy to use ? On simpler setups you can probably just follow the manual to set fx in the NS-2 loop, but when using heavy preamp distortion like engl's or mesa's you have to work it out a bit and realize the preamp is just a supermegadeluxe metalzone which should go in the NS-2 effects loop.

Sound is awesome when not playing... i.e. it's dead quiet. When playing I don't notice it's there, but you have to turn the pedal off and on when doing slient phrases in songs.

Could just be me cause I have to set threshold to max and decay to minimum to avoid the feedback on my setup. I just turn it off for cleans or when I have to play crunchy through the heavy channel of the amp. The reduction causes a more subtle cutoff so the reverb and delay can fade out naturally.

It's boss. Have about 8 pedals and all are still in perfect health after 12 years.

I thought 80 euro's was a bit much for something that would just cut sound. But after 1 rehearsal I am incredibly happy with it. I can actually use my expensive equipment (Engl head, gibson guitar etc.) for what it was meant (play loud and heavy music) instead of worrying about feedback. On small stages it's just impossible to get away far enough from the amp so this little bugger is truly a must.

If it broke, got stolen or lost I would get one the next day.

With this pedal it is critical that you know what the threshold and decay do. If you do not know how to set this pedal than it will not work well for you. You have to experiment with you settings to get a good functional noise gate for your set up. It is also very important to know how to set this up in your signal path. The best way to run these Boss noise suppresors are by inserting you guitar straight into the input, from there take the effect send and insert into your first pedal in your effects chain that are not timing based effects like mod delays, reverbs, and any long time based delays. ie. wahs, filters, gain based, eq's, boosts, octaves, and the like. After you send it through all of those type of effects pedals, return the signal back into your Ns-2 and it will eliminate all that added noise now before you run to your delays and reverbs so you get a nice clean signal to all those timed based effects. so the last thing is to take that signal out of your ns-2 output and run it to your delays and reverbs and then to your amp. This is by far going to make the difference in your tone.

If you complete the signal chain as I described up top this thing is amazing. Get your settings dialed in and it will keep your entire pedal board SILENT when you are not playing and you can't even tell you are running it when you are playing.

So far this thing has been very reliable.

Boss is great

Overall this pedal is a must if you like nice quiet pedal boards, it does not color your tone if you set it up right! Great pedal.

Easy as hell. If you read the manual.

Okay, i felt i had to write a review for this cause i nearly didn't buy this after seeing all the bad reviews it's had on here. 'Tone sucking' and 'tone coloring' blah blah. I dont see what everyones crying about, no one obviously knows what there talking about when it comes to this pedal. If it sucks your tone, then its obviously cause you havent set the threshold right, or got the right setting on.
I play through a mesa boogie single rectifer, modern channel with a tube screamer on to give it more bite. Sounds awsome but with the tube screamer on its feed back galoreeee. I set the thresh hold to just past half way, decay to 0, press it on and the noise is gone. Its awsome! Doesnt suck your tone in the slightest, great for solo's , breakdowns and everything. Its probably one of the most useful things in my rig.

Built like a tank, just like all boss pedals.

I cant really comment on this as i've never dealt with Boss customer support.

10/10. This is just an awsome noise gate.

Very easy, especially if you have a basic understanding of noise gates and follow the clear instructions provided in the instruction manual (available online from Boss if you buy used or lose the manual).

Tried in various setups...single coil and humbuckers, placed at end of effects chain using NS-2 input/output, placed with guitar/amp in input/output and effects chain in the NS-2 send/return loop (best results with this setup). My other effects used for testing were the Boss TU-2 (tuner) and AC-2 (acoustic simulator), Blues Balls wah, and a Bigg Muff.

The NS-2 works beautifully with my effects chain placed in the NS-2 effects loop. The decay is natural even with the threshold set high enough to cancel the noise when my Big Muff is on.

The decay is much more natural when using the NS-2 effects loop rather than simply placing the NS-2 at the end of the signal chain. My guess is that the NS-2 passes some of the straight guitar signal to the amp just as the gate closes which helps preserve the decay, but that's just a guess.

I also tried the popular ISP Technologies Decimator. The Decimator had nothing on the NS-2. It sounded like I was using a tremolo effect in the middle of the decay with the Decimator - very unnatural.

It's a Boss pedal. My TU-2 has gone through two floods and still works fine. No amount of gigging should wear down one of these things.

never had to deal with Boss customer support

Great noise gate for guitar effects pedals. Been playing over 12 years, using a fair amount of pedals, and wish I would have bought this pedal much earlier than I did. It is awesome to be able to play single-coil pickups without the 60-Hz hum in the silent spaces and to keep my Big Muff on without terrible hissing between phrases. When used properly - placing the effects in the NS-2 effects loop - all that noise is canceled without affecting the natural sound of the attack and decay.

Considering how well this pedal works and the price compared to other guitar noise gates, I do not know why anyone would buy something else. I directly compared it with the ISP Decimator and the all the Decimator decimated was my dynamics on soft notes. I cannot recommend the NS-2 more highly.

The pedal is pretty straight forward. The controls are easy, you don???t need much experience with pedals to work it out. The inputs may confuse some people but its easy if you know what your doing. The manual that came with it shows you how to set it up properly.

I am using a agile al-2500 (les paul style) with EMG's (81-bridge, 85-neck). From the guitar it goes into my NS-2's input out the send jack into a OD-20 to a DS-1 to a Behringer UC-200 chorus then to NS-2 return jack then to my amp, a Success 50w(piece of ****).THIS PEDAL MAY VERY SLIGHTLY IF ANYTHING EFFECT YOUR TONE. The NS-2 cuts out pretty much all the noise of my pedals. THIS PEDAL IS MADE FOR CUTTING PEDAL NOISE!! it can only cut out a very little noise from an amp. if you a using a pedal to boost your amp(e.g. tube screamer) ant its in the NS-2's effects loop it will cut the majority of the noise but not all. This does not squeak or click or anything when it cuts in or out and even with the decay at minimum it does not cut out unnaturally when you stop playing. Also it does not fade in slowly, the split second you start playing again it cuts back through with full volume. If it is cutting a lot of your volume it is probably set up wrong. It can some times cut a long note short especially if you are using the guitars volume control. Im giving it a 9 because it doesn???t cut amp noise. I would say if you were using a separate pre amp and power amp it would cut the noise if the pre amp was in its effect loop.

It is in a solid metal casing. boss pedals are known for there reliability, but i would still use a back up if gigging because anything could go wrong and this pedal is an essential.

This pedal is a must have if you play anything with high-gain distortion or if you are using a lot of effects. Active pickups usually give a bit more noise because they pick up a broader spectrum. I don???t gig yet because im not in a band atm, but it is a boss so when i start gigging it should still be working fine. i have tried a few different noise gates, a lot of them tend to cut your long notes off more suddenly, and also click when it cuts out the sound. I would advise this to anyone using pedal distortion

There isn't much subjectivity about this type of pedal - they either kill noise without damaging tone or they don't. It's therefore easy to set the pedal to do what it's capable of (you don't have to find a particular sound).

I use a PRS EG4 (has two s/c's, one h/b and 'in between' sounds) into: HT Boost pedal, always on > Boss Compressor, always on > Ibanez TS9DX > Boss Flanger > Boss Chorus > [BOSS NS2 suppressor, always on] > Digitech delay > Digitech Reverb > Blackstar valve amp. With the NS2 placed before the delay and reverb, as suggested in the manual, I can't hear any deterioration in the sound when all pedals are on, or when they're off. With the NS2 pedal off there's a lot of noise, with it on there's none. Job done. Only very slight worry is that the 'threshold' setting seems to need to be all the way up, but that's not been a problem.

Very solid, as usual with Boss,and once set, I won't be fiddling with it much. Don't envisage problems.

Not needed.

I've just joined a band playing a lot of covers and have to use a number of pedals so noise has become a problem for me. I was going to get the ISP Decimator on the strength of Utube recommendations but couldn't find a shop that stocked one (in central London!). As I needed something urgently I got the NS-2, about ??30 cheaper. However, I wasn't disappointed. I've noticed no deterioration of tone and the considerable noise my pedals make is gone. Jst remember not to put the NS2 after delay or reverb FX. Also, personally I don't bother with looping the FX into it, just put it in the chain. All good.

There might be a little trouble for those who are new to the concept of a noise gate. Though it??s pretty simple if you read the instructions and try different setings.

I used it on my Peavey 6505+ with a Mesa rectifier Std 4x12 cab. I play high gain metal. My setings where:

Threshold - 11 o clock
Decay - Minimum
Mode - Mute

The NS2 does colour your sound, no matter what setings you have on it. The best way to describe it is a slight loss of the edge of the tone. Muted chords still sounds great but loose just that little extra touch. I tried it on other rigs and had the same issue.

The NS2 does it??s job though. No more hissing and squeeling, as a noise gate should be. It works great, though it can cut the end of a sustained tone.

I recently got rid of this and bought an ISP Decimator instead, and the decimator is a lot better. Though if you can??t afford the ISP, and if you don??t mind a slight loss in your sound, then the NS2 might be for you.

Seems to be very sturdy.

Haven??t dealt with them.

I would not recommend the NS2 if you have expensive stuff and want the very best out of your rig. The NS2 WILL colour your sound in a bad way.

However, the NS2 still does it??s job and works good as a noise gate. So if you aren not so picky, then you will be very satisfied with this.

There's only three knobs and what the knobs do is pretty obvious. I bought the pedal used so I don't think I got a manual with it, but Boss manuals generally aren't anything special--not fancy, but they get the job done.

Here's my setup:

Guitar(s) > AKG WMS40 Flexx wireless system > Boss CS-3 > Boss PH-3 > Boss OS-2 > Boss EQ-20 > Boss CH-1 > Boss RV-3 > Boss NS-2 > Guitar amp or PA system

"Guitar(s)" refers to any number of the guitars that I play, and since I have three that I normally use with this board, I didn't want to list 'em all. Anyway, this pedal does what it's designed to do--no more, no less. Some of my pedals can get kind of noisy and when I use two or three noisy effects at the same time, there can be quite a bit of line noise, but the NS-2 kills it all.

I'm not sure why people are complaining about the tone-sucking qualities of this pedal, because in my opinion, there aren't any. It's really pretty transparent. With a clean signal, it's impossible to tell the difference between having the noise suppressor on and having it off. Unless I'm running lots of effects at the same time, I have trouble remembering why I bought the thing.

It's a Boss. 'Nuff said. If a nuclear was to occur, the only things left working would be Boss pedals and Timex watches. I've used all of my Boss pedals (don't have the cash to buy two of everything) for years and none of them has ever failed me. Perfect 10.

Never dealt with Boss directly, and don't plan on it. I've heard mixed reviews about their customer service department, but I can't comment on it myself.

The main reason I bought this pedal was because one of the guitarists I play with thinks it's an absolute necessity. Whenever I play clean, I get mad at him for making me spend money on something that doesn't change my sound at all. Whenever I play with a ton of effects, I'm glad that I bought it. Like I said before, the NS-2 kills noise and doesn't color your sound. If this one were lost or stolen, I'd probably buy another one.

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 is usually a couple of quid !

Super easy to use. Put threshold to max, delay to min, and mode to reduction... thats it.

This thing is awesome. It doesn't take away any of your guitar's natural sound. All it does is take away ALL unwanted feedback. Your guitar still sounds exactly the same, just without unwanted feedback.

Yes, you can depend on it. And yes, i would use it on a gig without backup.

dont know

It doesn't matter what kind of music you play... at all. This is a must for anyone, especially someone who uses heavy metal distortion (like me). I've had this for a while, and it never has failed me. It never will. But if for some reason it does, I will replace it. The thing that I love about it the most is that it has an output jack to supply a power source to your other effects pedals. All you need is one power adapter. I wouldn't spend any other time looking for any other noise suppressors. This is it. Boss makes so many good effects pedals, but this is probably the most useful and most versatilve one there is. GREAT BUY!

This pedal couldn't be more easy to use. The manual helped a little too.

My setup: Peavey Bandit 112 >> NS-2 >> TU-2 >> Epiphone Les Paul

This pedal works so fine! It cuts out all of the feedback and unwanted noise I have from my amp, especially at high volume.

I've had it for a while and I doesn't even have a scratch on it.

Boss fo' life!

I play a lot of Metal and HArd Rock. If it were stolen I'd beat up the person taking it and if it were lost yes I'd buy another one. It's great just to jam alone, with friends, record and even live!

Wow, I had to read the manual otherwise, I would have returned it!

This thing operates really unusually and at first I hooked it up like I thought it should be used and it worked but really killed the treble response.
Once I read the manual and learned that my guitar and only my guitar should be plugged into the input jack everything sounded wonderful.
I do use Dimarzio YJM humbuckers in my 2000 American series Fender Stratocaster and they have a very low output and so I found out that the NS-2 workes best with the threshold all the way to the left. I little to insensitive I suppose but it does work great there.
The NS-2 kills all the noise, 100%, before the amp.

I use this with small Fender Champ tube amps and with vintage Marshall stacks. It's all good.

In an amps effects loop the NS-2 would be tricky to hook up. Guitar to input, send to amp input, effects send to NS-2's return, Ns-2 output to amps return....lots of cables....

It sure would quiet one of the those noisy B-52 stacks

My friends NS-2 burned up using a non boss ac adapter. I have been using Ibanez adapters for over 10 years with no problems.

I've been shredding metal since Michael Schenker hit the scene in UFO back in the 70's.

I think $100 is pretty steep when you consider the Boss ME-50 can be had for just over $200.

Top musicians everywhere rely on the NS-2.

It's perfect if you can afford it.

Fairly simple if you're just going in and out, if you're using the loop it's slightly more complicated. But still as easy as it could be.

I'm using a Cort G290>TU-2>Whammy>Wah>NS-2>OD-20>Zoom PD-01>CH-1>PH-3>BF-3>DD-6 into a Marshall MG100DFX. This thing gets rid of pretty much all the noise, even when using heavily distorted modes on the OD-20, as well as modulation noise. I notice no real loss of sustain, although when I use the loop i lose a bit of sustain, but my rig isn't noisy enough to warrant using it.

I've had it for nearly a year now, and although there have been one or two paint chips it's fine.

N/A

I play alternative rock, a bit of jazz, a bit of metal and this removes 90% of the noise, the other 10% I can live with. I find that mine worked best BEFORE my OD-20 and other effects. So before giving this a bad review try it EVERYWHERE in your setup, and if that fails try the loop function. If that doesn't solve your problems, reduce the gain on your 3 Metal Zone pedals. ;)

For my style of music (Metal) I had an easy time setting it up. Very easy to use in my oppinion, Im no rocket scientist. Got the hum out of my triple rec and 5150 II in nothin flat.

Im currently using this with my ESP mh 400nt plugged directly in and then from the pedal to either of the amps. (Triple Rectifer or 5150 II). Not noisy at all anymore, now that I have this little ns-2. I didnt losse any gain or sustain at all. People that say that about this pedal need to spend a little more time tweeking the 2 knobs. Distortion is not affected at all.

I havent taken it on stage yet, but all boss pedals are as rugged as they get. Mine was bought used from a touring musician and it looks very clean and works great still.

Never dealt with boss directly so Im not the guy to talk to about this subject.

I play mostly metal, metalcore, hardcore, and my sound. This pedal is a perfect match for my situation. Maybe not for the Eric Clapton fan who doesnt have much tube gain hum in his setup. I have been playing for ten years and have been kicking myself for 2 days since I bought this for not buying it years before. I dont use many effects but I got a thing for high gain tube amps and active EMG's and this is a must for that setup. If it were lost or stolen, give that dude props that stole it from me because hes got taste, no for real though, he does. No, I would buy another one ASAP. I love the simplicitly of it and ease of use. I also like its effectiveness alot to. I havent found anything to dislike about it yet, but bear with me I have only had it 2 days. My favorite feature about it is that it is capable of powering other pedals by boss. I think it can power 5 more at the same time. It helps me in my music by taking that hum/hiss out of my setup. Nothing is more annoying than hearing that noise when you are trying to discuss/write a song or structure. Get one quick...

Ease of use depends on what your setup is. If you just have this pedal between your guitar and amp, then just reduce the decay all the way to the left (minimum) and put the selector to reduction instead of mute. Then start turning the threshold knob clockwise. Around 12:00 position, all your noise must have disappeared. Over the 12:00, you could lose a bit of sustain in your guitar. This is when you need to use the decay knob. If you feel you are losing sustain, just start increasing the decay...

however, if you have more noisy effects, and you want to make the best possible use of this pedal, this is my setup.
I had a noisy 1.7 AMPS power adapter. I plugged it into the "IN" of the NS2 and made a chain of 5 plugs and plugged it into the "OUT" of the NS2. The NS2 is now being used to power 4 other noisy pedals. I think it eliminates noise in the power to the 4 other pedals. Although I could not find any mention if the NS2 reduced noise while powering other pedals, I think it was helpful though.
Then I put the noisy pedals in the effects loop of the NS2.
I dont know if there is any pedal out there that gives so much versatility. My only gripe is that each time I turn on the power to the entire setup, the NS2 has to be kicked on manually.

What the NS2 does needs to be understood before jumping to conclusions. This just reduces noise when you are not playing. When you are playing it assumes that the noise cannot be heard. The moment you stop playing, based on the threshold you have set, and the decay time, it kicks in! That is why I mentioned, if you find yourself setting the threshold beyond 12:00 position, and you see that you are losing some sustain, then start messing with the decay. Also, if you find that your distortion setup is the noisy one and your clean sound is, well, clean, then you might suffer a lot of sustain when you are playing clean. So, you got to play with the settings a while before you find the right match for both your distortion and clean sounds. This can be quite a challenge. I've had it for almost 2 years and i still mess with it sometimes. Not to mention the problem you will have if you are using more than 1 guitar especially with varying levels of output in their pickups!
I have been told by a pro-gear seller that the only way to acheive studio level noise reduction is to remove it professionally after recording and studio quality setup. So, the NS2 is a quick and dirty solution for all you bedroom players and small time garage band guitarists. Dont get me wrong, other distortion pedals also have the same reviews.

So far works well. I guess it can be gigged without a backup.

Did not deal with them yet.

I play mostly Metal. Any metal, you name it. Death, Doom, progressive, 80's. This pedal suits me just fine and eliminates most of my noise. but I do use quality ( noise-free and less expensive ) guitars and amps so I dont suffer much.

The most important thing everyone should keep in mind is "Garbage in, garbage out". So, if you are plugging shitty squier strats with single coils into high gain cheap noisy pedals, then no amount of noise supressors will help you. First take a look at your setup. Then remember the greatest guitarist of all time ( in my opinion ) Joe Satriani's words "The real tone is in your fingers" what he means is, the way you play makes a world of difference. Again, that means, the way you mute the strings, your palm mutes, the way your fingers mutes when you are going down the fretboard, your skill at picking, everything matters! So, dont blame the setup or the amp or guitar, if you are not good enough. Again, I have learnt this lesson the hard way but every beginner and every pro for that matter has walked that road too. So, be patient and practise hard and you can play like your hero!!

Overall, this is a good pedal for its features and price. Go for it. you will appreciate it for a long long time. Rock on, and dont forget to, Rock HARD !!

Its very easy to use, simple operation and helped by a clear instruction booklet.

In my opinion, its not half as good as the reviews say it is.

I bought this in a hurry, I needed a noise supressor in about 48 hours and didn't spend too much time looking at the rather hard to get and more expensive competition (MXR, Rocktron, ISP). Tip, spend more and look harder, don't be fooled by the big name. I run this infront of an all valve Marshall set-up and it takes the "punch" straight out of my set-up which is probably the most annoying thing about this pedal. Now, I know what you're thinking "What do you expect for the money?" but really, I expected a little better than that. It does suck tone.

Next, the noise supression itself. It is very decent. But there is much room for improvement. It doesn't completely cancel out that excess noise. Instead, it'll cut about 60-70%. Again I expected better considering the company.

Now, don't get me wrong, it does do what its supposed to and it does a fair job of it BUT it has faults as stated.
It does get rid of noise.
The mute control works quite well.
In all honesty, it does what it says on the tin. The only downside being, it doesn't really do it all that well.


I give it 5, its not that great but at the same time not awful. The tone sucking for me is a major issue.

I've gigged a few times with it and its still here in once piece.

However, I did have to tighten the mute/reduction switch and input jack on purchase as they were quite loose straight out of the box. Fine since.


Because of that, 8.

You can see my main opinion in the sound section.
My major beef with the pedal is that it will suck your tone. I could live with the fact that it won't fully get rid of noise but the other issue really gets to me.

If it were stolen or lost? I'd buy something that will really get the job done. I'd not buy it again, not worth the price tag.

Its hard to judge this pedal first hand, you can't really try it out till you've bought it without pulling your own set-up into the music shop. As far as I'm concerned, considering the hype and brand reputation it leaves a disapointing feeling.

Extreamly easy to use.

Im running a Gibson melody maker with a Jason Lollar P90 pickup into NS-2 into a analogman DS-1pro Dist into a Blues JR. Fantastic !Very quiet and works like a charm.

Tough!

Never needed it.

I play Rock,old metal,jazz,blues and bluegrass.Ive been playing 25 years.If it were lost or stolen I definately would buy another.I only wish I got one much earlier. Really improves sound in high gain situations.Excellent I never new silence was so nice !

It doesn't affect tone since it's a noise gate but it's very easy to turn the two knobs on it and quell your noise if you make sure you hook it up properly in your chain (I'll write more on this below).

The manual for it is very user friendly and well written like all Boss manuals. I highly recommend going to the Boss website and downloading yourself a copy of their effects guidebook too. Very well thought out.

The way that it works the best for me and probably others as well is to do the following IMPORTANT: guitar into input of gate then output of gate into head or pre amp then all pedals go in the loop of the gate ('send' from gate to input of first pedal in chain then from last pedal in chain into 'return' on gate). That's what makes it so great is that it gets rid of noise at two points! Very well thought out! I've never seen a gate with that feature.

My setup-Wah, clean boost, dist. pedal, guitar rack with pre amp, efx, and power amp.

It's not noisy at all it's a friggin' noise gate lol

As far as sound quality goes this is the best noise gate I've ever owned and I've owned a few.

I can absolutely depend on it and I would proudly gig with it anytime without the benefit of a backup. Boss pedals never let anyone down. The distortions they make sound like crap to me but I've always loved their other pedals.

never needed any kind of customer support from boss other than downloading a couple of manuals and on their website you fill in some stuff and they get back to you very fast with what you need.

I play classic rock, prog rock, metal. This is a perfect match. If it can get rid of my noise it can get rid of anyone's noise. Hell Yngwie uses it and we all know he has a ton of gain.

I've been playing the guitar for 15 years and I own all kinds of pedals and rack gear.

If it were stolen or lost I'd pray that the bastard would get hit by a hummer while running away from me then I'd order another one.

It's perfect for me in every way hell it even acts as a power source for other boss pedals with the right stuff. I have a very noisy pre amp and i'm boosting it even further so it was the only thing that solved both my pre amp noise and pedal noise. Get it now!! Any questions? email me.

Threshhold, Decay, and Mode adjustments. Pretty easy to use. Manuals are downloadable at www.bossus.com. Very easy to set up and get going. It has inputs/outputs for running in front of the amp or through an effects loop. I give it a 9 because it's not a no brainer, but would you expect it to be?

Running it at the end of my pedal chain in front of a Fender Super Reverb, playing with a US Fender strat w/texas special pickups. Anyone who plays with single coils knows that you get some hum when you put and overdrive pedal in the loop. This little box is one of my best investments, it squashes the buzz before it comes in to play. The decay feature works perfect for my application. It slowly fades out the sound very natually and before the buzz comes though. I couldn't have asked for better. I'd have to say it works equal to or better than the gate on my rack mount Alesis 3630. There is a slight boost when it's engaged but nothing to whine about. It doesn't affect my tone a bit. I'm not sure if it's 'studio worthy' but for live, it works great.

Bought it used, hasn't broken yet.

Haven't had to deal with them directly, but the website has all the info I need. Easy to surf and find the manuals download page that I was looking for.

I couldn't do without it. If you got buzz, it's a must have item.

Well, never seen anything easier to use! Just plug your guitar, put your effect chain and/or overdrive/distortion/preamp into the loop and run into the amp. Set Decay to 0 and tune the Threshold according to the noise level and that's it!
IT WORKS!!! The manual? You don't need it!

I use it with an Electroharmonix LPB-2BE tube preamp pedal into the loop and with my Strat Plus (Seymour Duncan loaded!) and I run into a Line6 Flextone II XL (set as a Marshall JCM 800): TONS OF TONE! The NS-2 adds a litte compression but it doesn't affect your tone at all. I can get from that stuff the sound I LOVE!!! And ALL the noise and hiss from pickups and preamp gain are cutted off...
NOISY??? IT QUIETS THE BEAST!

Yes, I cannot do without it now that I have it! I use it at home, in the studio and when I play live....at home I put it between the guitar and a Line6 GuitarPort and it does its job as well.

I bought the pedal used from a friend, no manual.
I asked Customer Support for the manual and some schemas and I had everything in a few minutes...so...
And it's a Boss pedal...you don't need more Customer Support or repairings!

I play Deep Purple and Whitesnake covers and some other hard rock stuff, plus I play my heavy stuff at home...the NS-2 is here everytime for everything and it matches my needings!
I needed something to allow me turn up the gain on the preamp without getting too much noise and preserving my sound : now I have it.

Follow the instructions and you're golden. Finding the right settings for theshold and decay may take a few minutes to get but that's about it. I was done setting it up in less than 5 minutes

I play a LP classic with BB2 and BB3 into a morley volume pedal>zakk wylde wah>digitech whammy>yngwie malmsteen overdrive>digitech delay> 1987x marshall halfstack. This unit completely eliminates the noise I was getting. The malmsteen overdrive is way too noisy but gives really good tone. Once the ns2 was in place I was in tonal heaven. It does add some compression, but that's a good thing for me.

never gig without a back up, but boss pedals are tanks.

This is a great pedal for any type of music. I was a bit weary of buying a noise suppressor since I've had nothing but bad expieriences with them, this is an exception though. My overdrive is really noisy but I love the tone I get, this ns2 fixes everything. It even fixes the crazy feedback (bad feedback) I get from my wah. Truly, this pedal is a god send.

Easy easy easy....plug guitar in the Input, and the amp from the Output. The Threshold and Decay settings need some fiddling around with, but anybody can quickly learn the relation between the two controls and get the desired effect within a few minutes.

I must admit, however, the Send and Return jacks were a little confusing at first. I couldn't quite figure out how to use the loop properly until I played around with it considerably. In addition, there were a few times when I mistakenly plugged the guitar into the Return jack and wondered why there was no sound. I think it would have made more sense if the jacks were reversed (the Send jack on the right side of the pedal and Return on the left), as this would have faciliated easier pedalboard wiring, but it's not a huge issue.

I play an Epiphone LP Standard Plus through a Marshall VS100RH, with Boss effects in the fx loop and a Crybaby in the front end.

It's the best noise-reduction unit I've played, bar none. I haven't used a single guitar/effect that this pedal didn't shut the hell up. It can clamp down hard to keep out noise, but it opens up naturally, so it never feels like it's choking your guitar. Admittedly, on extremely high threshold settings, you'll sacrifice some sustain, but playing with the Decay control will allow you to retain most of it.

Sometimes, I use an overdrive in combination with my Marshall's drive channel. This is a noisy technique, since I set the amp and pedal to half gain in order to blend the two for a different distortion character. However, if you throw the overdrive in the loop of the NS-2, there won't be any excess noise from the pedal. Since the NS-2 is busy keeping out the noise from my guitar at the same time, the amp (running on half drive) is almost devoid of excess noise itself. It's perfect!!!

I do have one gripe, however: when switched to Mute mode, the threshold seems a bit less responsive. This might just be me, but I think it feels a lot looser on Mute mode....it will seem to clamp down hard, and then open up at the tinyest movement. But this is not an issue for me, since I never use this feature.

Indestructable. I will probably die before this thing does.

Never dealt with them.

This is one of the most important parts of my rig. If it was stolen, I'd have to stop jamming until I got another one. It's truly that vital.

It tightens up my playing, makes my overdrive chunkier, and keeps everything in check. If I don't want feedback and noise, I won't get it. If I want a bit of noise, it'll let it through. It does EXACTLY what you want it to do, and that's rare for any pedal.