ISP Technologies Decimator Noise Reducer

Turn knob clockwise until noise's gone. Can be powered with either a 9 volt battery or a 9 volt regulated adapter, negative center pin. It isn't true bypass.

10-Very easy to use.

I use Fender Custom Shop instruments, Fulltone effects and cable, Monster Rock cable, a Toadworks Redux Asynchronous Delay, a Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 power supply, and a Traynor amplifier retubed with Eurotubes.

I place this pedal right after my guitar, and/or first in my effects chain.

Sometimes I don't use effects and plug it in on top of my amplifier. When I use a humbucking sound I unplug it.

The ISP Decimator works great. It does affect my tone: no 60 cycle hum/line noise = better sounding guitar, effects, amplifier, better overall sound.

10-Pristine sound quality.

Solid as a rock. I've had this pedal for about a year, no problems.

10-Very dependable.

Never had to speak to them.

No Opinion.

Great pedal. Try one!

10-Fantastic Value!

One knob, which would seem easy enough, but you probably won't find a setting to work with each effect you have.

I guess the point is to find the minimum threshold where the buzz/hum is gone. The problem is that at idle, there's no hum, but then as soon as you even begin to play a note, there's fizzle. The hum/buzz isn't back, but it's just a weird fizzing sound. Set it higher to eliminate the fizz and then your sustain is effected.
Also, when you find a setting that works well when running your distortion, it may not work well when using your overdrive.
It also kills all modulation effects. I tried placing it before, after and in between and it totally wipes out all phase, chorus and flange.

Boss housing. Solid and strong, but I only had it for a week before I returned it, so I can't say.

Un-usable. Period. I don't have experience with other noise gates/suppressors, so I can't say if it's the nature of the beast. If you set it for your highest gain effect, and then if you want to play clean, you not only have to turn off your distortion, but also the decimator, or it will choke off your sound. But when you do that, the amp hum is there and is more noticeable now, since it wasn't there before. So if you start out with the amp hum, switch off the distortion to play clean, it's not so noticeable. My advice: try to eliminate your hum with good cables and clean power sources. Also, you will never be completely silent. It's just the way it is. Do the best you can and live with it. Don't waste a week with this thing like I did.

Just one control. There's nothing easier...

I use it to silence my Laney VH100R which is know to be very noisy. It realy works. In addiction with a noise gate is perfect. But you can use only the Decimator.

It's made of steel. If a nuclear holocaust happens it will survive...

I think I'll never need suport...

I play heavy, rock, pop and instrumental rock. I play for more than 14 years. Now I use a Jackson Kelly, an Ibanez RG320FM (both w/ Seymour Duncan pickups), VH100R + TT412A, G-Major, RP-12, Crybaby and CS-3.

I've tried a Behringer NR100 before... waste of money... ISP Decimator does what it promisses.

If it were stolen or lost, I would buy it again.

One control, input and output Boss pedal styled battery compartment and power supply input

This is the best noise gate I have ever used. No tone loss with this pedal. Good gate effect. Sounds and works effectively in front of amp or in amps fx loop.

This pedal is heavy and if you dropped it, you would probably break what ever you dropped it on, not the pedal.
I have gigged it and toured it and its been very reliable no problems.

Never needed them so no opinion.

Great pedal, effective fx. Much better than the Boss NS2. Its a shame it does not have a effects loop like the NS2 though and for that reason I am only going to give it a 9.

Come on, one knob...

I recently decided to part ways with multieffects units for my live setup, since I don't use amp models or any fancy effects. I found myself using a PODxt live just for the noisegate and the tube OD, so i went for individual stomps. I went in a friend's store to place an order for the ZW OD, an MXR 10band and the SmartGate or the decimator. The guy never heard of the decimator before, but said he'd bring in a smartgate that would take some tome to arrive. A few days later he called me saying someone brought in a batch of used pedals in great condition, including the decimator, so i took it home for a test. Long story short, i plugged it in, turned the knob to desired position, finetuned, and no noise, guess i won't need to try that smartgate.

I'm using this at the end of my recently simplified chain: Gibson Les Paul custom Ebony or ESP 2000 custom shop Eclipse (emg 81b 85n) into a dunlop dimebag crybaby from hell, Zakk Wylde OD, and the ISP, going into a marshall mode4 with an mxr 10band eq in the loop. It manages to tame the massive amounts of hiss and noise from the amp, as well as feedback coming from the messy EQ settings i like to use. It even eliminates the grounding noise the lespaul makes when used with a cable instead of a wireless.

Only gripe, as some said, is the fact that for clean sounds or slightly overdriven amp channels without the ZW OD, the pedal decimates sustain, so there needs to be some tapdancing when changing sounds. Doesn't matter much, since i don't use clean sounds that often, but even so, there can always be a logical, efficient stomping sequence to follow to ensure seemlsess switching.

Sound coloration? Maybe a slight decrease in volume if not properly finetuned, but that can be achieved by tweaking the 10band EQ in the loop.

Note: I used this in the loop...bad idea...it did take away feedback but it created a wide wall of white noise. Front of the amp works perfect, no need to stick it to the back of the amp

Haven't had it for long, but it's on 90% of the time during a set so i guess it's sitting safe

I don't know them, they don't know me

I've been playing for 13 years, and i'm the single guitarist in a band that sounds like a bastard child of a machine head/pantera/BLS orgy (which in my ears, is good!) So obviously i use a LOT of gain with particular equalisation, that gives off a lot of noise and feedback that this pedal can tame. Much better noise reduction than the PODxtLive. I wonder how it would tackle that impulse purchase of a Free Speech talk box (if i can find where i stashed it)

If it were stolen, i'd get another one (after castrating the thief). Does what it's supposed to do in my situation. Might not satisfy the tone-freak playing a 50year old single coil relic through a vintage boutique fender chimemaster but hey...some like their wine rare and properly room tempered...others are just satisfied if their pint of beer is ice cold and easily refilled.

The ISP Decimator consists of only one knob and is as easy to use as a noise reduction unit can get. It accepts a 9V battery or adaptor and is fairly straightforward to adjust to a desirable level playing around for awhile.

I play a Schecter Classic with alnico humbucker pickups through a Mesa Boogie Triple Rectifier with a 16 Ohms THD hotplate attenuator and Genz-Benz G-Flex 2x12 cab. I run 2 Boss RV-3 units and a Boss CE-5 Chorus through the effects loop. In addition, I run a Boss Chromatic Tuner pedal followed by the ISP decimator, Ibanez TS-9 Tubescreamer, and Morley Bad Horsie Wah directly into the amp.

Basically, I use the Decimator pedal to "reduce" the noise coming out of a fairly high gain "vintage" Channel 2 setting and a monster gain "modern" setting on the 3rd channel. With my amp settings it is impossible to use the decimator to cut all the noise and still have good sustain and dynamics on any of the channels (I run the decimator at -40dB at the most; usually it is further to the left and only hit -40dB in a club where my amp can really crank).

I certainly agree with the Decimator's claims for tonal transparency; at low to moderate settings the tone is no different with the pedal on or off. The decimator simply cleans up the signal and gets rid of a lot of the hum in addition to helping my amp not feedback if I am standing really close to it and the volume and gain are at a near-threshold where some feedback is possible.

I tried running the pedal through my effects loop which is recommended by a lot of people and written information but it was a wash; my effects loop is set close to 10% wet/dry mix so the tone of my amp is maintained and this means that I really have to crank up some of the settings on my effects pedals to get a desired effect level. In turn, this meant having to really crank the decimator in the loop to get a noticeable effect but it worked out fine because it functions so well in the direct line to my amp from my guitar.

Ultimately, I am giving it a 9 because there is always some room for improvement in noise reduction / gate systems. I used to play through a Johnson Millenium which allowed user-made patch presets and when I went from a distorion to a clean my noise reduction settings would change with the patch. This setup allowed for an easy on/off for noise redcution which only hurts clean sounds by cutting sustain and dynamics. Also, my patches with less gain needed less noise reduction than the full-out distortion ones and this made for a great deal of flexibiity and convenience.

Some users find the ISP unuseable with both their high gain and clean channels and are forced to switch it off every time they change which means a lot more dancing around on pedals and footswitches. I decided on a compromise wherein I still have some noise but never have to mess with the pedal once the show starts and never suffer note cutoff or stale palm-muting. I have used a Boss-NS2 before the ISP and I feel that the Boss-NS2 messes with the tone and does not allow for as much sustain/dynamic feel as the Decimator does. Spend the extra money and get the ISP if you are looking at the Boss.

It appears to have fairly solid construction; I have had no problems with it so far.

I have had no issues and have not contacted customer support.

Sound quality paragraphs pretty much sum up the reason I give it a 9.

I read all of the reviews here but decided to give it a shot because the ElectroHarmonix HumDebugger made it sound like my guitar amp was inside a 50 gallon drum.

Okay, it has one knob but it is very tricky getting it set right. I've been using right after my guitar and the idea is to turn the knob clockwise until the noise goes away. The problem is if you set it with your guitar volume dimed, when you back it off to maybe 5 the notes can get chopped off. And if you set the control with your guitar volume set to 5, some of the noise will come back when you turn your guitar volume up all of the way.

Since I usually use my guitar volume control a lot this does complicate things. I could use a volume pedal after the ISP Decimator and just leave my guitar volume set to 10. But for now I've been setting the control for no noise at maybe 6, and then when I turn it up I do get some of the noise back, but usually the rest of the band is louder, too, which would cover it up.

In any case, this is still a big improvement over the "old school" noise reduction units which were just a noise gate.

Other than the problem with the notes being chopped off when turning down the guitar volume control mentioned above, the pedal is fairly transparent- although it does have a subtle effect on the sound and response. If the alternative is to leave my guitars with P-90's at home, I am fairly happy with the results.

No idea. The pedal *is* built like a tank- it feels like it weighs 2 pounds but I did not put it on a scale.

Once again, no idea.

As mentioned earlier I had first gotten the ElectroHarmonix HumDeBugger, which was easier to set and completely eliminated the hum regardless of the volume settings of my guitar. But it added what sounded like a short 5 millisecond delay like you might get with a flanger- like playing inside an 55 gallon oil drum. If you were going into other effects it actually sounded kinda slick (like a very short doubler) but it just wouldn't give me natural tones so I exchanged it for the ISP pedal, which is very close to what I've been looking for, but not quite there.

I do audio editing on my computer and by taking a noiseprint I can remove hum or noise very transparently. It basically analyzes a short sample of the noise and removes it from the audio signal. So why not have a pedal that does roughly the same? Push one button in to sample the noise you want to eliminate and then set the other controls for the amount of noise reduction.

A pedal like this would probably be at least $300 but I think it would be worth it. But for now the ISP Decimator will have to do...

Its very simple and it does not cut your tone at all like the other Noise Gates.Turn the Threshold to where the noise disappears and Ureka you have a pro sound with no cutoff of tone and balls on clean or ultra gain.I cranked the Marshall JCM 900 and silent as can be.

Marshall JCM 900 Marshall Jcm 800,Marshall TSL 2000 100 watt.Lots of effects.Works like a charm.

Absolutely dependable.

never had to call them.

Been playing 17 years.I play Hard Rock music.I use Guitars that have Ballsy pickups.I use Duncans mostly.Quiets it up and still has the balls.

One knob. Turn it up to engage gage, down to reduce it. Not too tough.

No noisy at all. Unfortunately the kicker is you set it past 9 o'clock and it starts to cut off notes. You start to lose sustain and the dynamics of the notes you play. 11 o'clock forget it...worthless. I compared it to the Smartgate and Boss noisegate and it is better than those, but even when it is engaged the least bit, it does affect the tone.

No problem, but I don't even use it when gigging.

Never called them.

I play rock, classic rock, alternative and even modern country in a band that gigs 4 times a month. Don't use the pedal cause it does affect the sound. Not dramatically if used properly, but enough for me to not use it. Best bet to cut down hum is to make sure you have very good cables and a good power supply like the Dunlop Brick. Just bought one a month ago and was amazed how much quieter my set up is not. Less feedback too. Been playing 15 years through Marshall and Les Paul/Strat. Overall, it's a good product for what it is, but I'm so anal about my sound, I won't put anything in my chain that affects tone and doesn't have true bypass as well.

One knob. Dial it until you like it. Piece of cake.

Believe it or not this thing actually adds noise to your signal.

Go try it. Take it in & out of the chain. Put it on your power supply or power it with a battery. It will add noise while off and hush up when on. Did ISP do this on purpose so you think the pedal is working good? This noise gets to be a very big problem at stage volume with higher gain.

I tested this sucker in and out of the pedal board (furman SPB-8C)and with three diffferent guitars (LP studio, ESP -MH-1000, Epi gold top) and with two different tube amps.

Other than the almost unusable noise it adds, it does color your signal a bit and reduce the clarity of the highs. Sort of like turning the treble knob down on your car stereo. But it is minor.

No problem 2 years.

Read above notes on noise. It does open up nice and fast though.

one button...so easy a retarded caveman could use it.

OK, I am into a lot of very heavy music with a lot of heavy distortion. My 6505+ has the gain on 7-8 and this monster can produce some of the worst squeeling I have ever heard. It was almost impossible to put this thing past 3 and not have the feedback rip your face off. So I got this little beauty and plugged it in after my tuner and then straight into the head. I don't use any pedals at all, just the searing tone of my guitar (Schecter with the Duncan Invader) so I cant comment on how well this thing does in a daisy chain, but I think it would do just fine. The only thing about this pedal is that it is a NOISE SUPPRESSOR not a GATE. I have found that putting it in front of the amp is really where it should be. Not through the effects loop.
The drawback to this is it really only fixes the sound from my guitar, but there is still some hiss from the amp. My solution to that was to put an NS2 through the effects loop and it works great. No hiss. No hum. No feedback. No tone loss. Just the tone I have paid over $3,000 to get.

It looks sturdy enough ,but I wouldn't advise you chuck it at a wall or anything.

The customer service was pretty good. The guy responded to my e-mails within a day and they shipped me a new pedal back fairly quick.(I thought the pedal was broken, until I put it through the front).

This pedal does the job. Through the front it is better than the NS2 no real tone loss or cut offs, just be prepared to mess with the knob for a while. With the stuff I play (Emmure, Acacia Strain, August Burns Red) i need a ton of gain and pretty much shear brutality, but I also need it to be clear. The Decimator allows me to have that.
I just wish it worked better in the FX loop so I didn't have to get the NS2, but with the two I have PERFECT sustain, tone and noise reduction.

Simple to use, one knob.
Just turn it up until the noise just starts to go away. If you go any higher then it will take away sustain.
You will have to readjust this knob when your guitar signal changes because you increased the volume on the guitar or stomped on another overdrive pedal, etc.

It is the best noise suppressor I have tried.
But I have one beef...it is not true bypass so it sucks some tone!
It makes my signal sound a bit "spongey", "squishy" by taking away some of my punch and clarity.
Most people may not notice this but I am obsessed with my tone as I love the sound of my guitar plugged directly into my Marshall but as soon as I introduce non-bypass pedals my tone suffers.

Solid as a rock!

I did send them an email to tell them their ad is false advertising as it says "will not affect guitar tone" but infact it does suck some tone.
Of course I got no response

Here is their website:
http://www.isptechnologies.com/decimatorpedal.htm
Here are some third party reviews:
http://www.highlystrung.co.uk/acatalog/info_918.html

I have a wiring problem at my house which causes a lot of hum, especially when I use any type of gain, distortion, overdrive so this pedal works great for this without chopping off the trails of my notes prematurely.

But like I said earlier it does suck some tone and removes some of the punchiness which I love from my Marshall 1959 Super Lead amp tube amp.
Maybe it would be less noticeable with a newer amp that does not have as high of an input impedance or with a transistor type amp.

I play rock n roll, rock, southern rock, acid rock, alternative, metal, blues, swing, jazz, country, classical

I wish they would make it true bypass so that it would not mess with my signal when not engaged and better yet improve the internal electronics so it would not mess with my signal when engaged.

Very easy to use. One knob to turn, The only thing you might have trouble with is if you use it in you're effects loop to adjust the send and return.

I have tried 2 of the pedals. I have a B-52 At-100 and when I put it in the effects loop there is considerable volume drop, and when I adjust the send up high enough for no volume drop the thing distorts really bad. I am still trying to figure that one out.

Have not got this thing to work yet. I would hope it is reliable if you can get it to work.

Every body says that they are the greatest, But when I emailed them about my troubles they did not give any answers to the problems I was having they just wanted to sell me their $400 dollar Rack version. I dont think so!!

N.A

one knob...
the clue is where to put that thing in the signal chain and to dial in the less amount of noisegate you need.

like tony below i use this pedal as the first one in the signal chain to eliminate the single coil hum (which seems to be a very logical way to use that unit) and the results are really great. i rediscovered positions 1,3 and five of my stratocaster again...;-)
concerning the noise of the pedals following this unit-there is nearly none, cause all of that single coil hum which gets amplified through the next stages has been eliminated.
in fact before i got that pedal there were lots of situations in the studio or during gigs when i didn??t dare to switch to the single coil sounds but also didn??t want to put humbuckers or some other noiseless-shit in my vintage instruments. this pedal here is the solution.
yeah, it colours the tone, but to a very minimal extend. the sound is slightly more compressed and a little more compact, which sometimes makes my guitar sound even better (sometimes not). if you use it the way that i do you don??t have to tweak in a big amount of noisereduction and the pedal doesn??t cut the end of your notes at all.
keep in mind it??s a noisegate and it has limitations but this thing here works totally fine and can save one??s life...

very well buit.
anybody knows if it has true bypass? just for being curious.
by the way-true bypass really is a complete hype anyway. in fact lots of pedals which don??t have t.b. sound much better bypassed. john mayer blogged something interesting and true about that,google "john mayer equipment" .

i am playing nearly everything from rock to jazz.
studio work and gigs, i??m professional musician and play since 21 years.
i got this pedal today and spent the whole day with it, combining it with lots of other new and favourite gear.
i will use it live and in the studio, mainly with my ??71 strat, ??69 tele and ??68 jazzmaster, thd univalve, mesa boogie nomad and fender deluxe-highly underrated amp by the way.
i use lots of boutique pedals from t-rex, hao, z vex, sobbat, okko, jaques and others.
this pedal is a keeper and will help me in many situations. makes me want to tour again with singlecoil guitars...

Quite easy to use. One threshold knob you turn clockwise until the background noise disappears. Hope you don't have to turn it past noon because it will start seriously killing your sustain.

I did found this unit to be fairly transparent. I use it in my 'B' chain with all my OD/Distortion pedals. My 'A' chain of pedals is my clean sound into my channel switching amp, so that keeps the Decimator out of the clean side. My compatriot further down is right about it killing your clean dynanics and soft passages, so if you can isolate it with your dirt boxs you're better off. Sometimes I'll run A T. Jauernig Double DGTM with both sides running, or one side with say my MI Audio Crunchbox(nice box but gainy and noisy when stacked), and it quiets that mayhem about half way up. I set the highest acceptable level of noise suppression in the Decimator (around half) and adjust the gain on the distortion boxs up to where it barely stays quiet. Run it after all your noisy boxs.

Haven't had it long enough to truthfully tell you. Solidly constructed, and reports say it's built well. Cool shiny chrome enclosure, but get out your polishing cloth, smudge marks really show up

Again, no experience with them, and hope I never have to.

I don't know what a jazz guy would do with this pedal, unless those Roland JC 120 amps have gotten a lot noisier. For guys with high gain distortion pedals, noisy single coil pick ups (run it first in that case)or even a nosiy pre amp section of your amp (run it in the effects loop) this pedal delivers the goods. It's not magic, though. If you have to turn it up past halfway, I would lower the gain on the pedals until no longer noisy and you'll still be smokin', otherwise it will mess with your sustain and dynamics. 11 o'clock even better. I recomend it if you're looking for a good quality noise suppressor in a pedal.

Just for some balance here I wanted to share my opinion that I believe that the success that you might have with this pedal is completely style and application dependant. For high gain metal it would probably be great. If you play with a light touch in the vein of jazz, blues or any style with low gain, specifically single note stufff, that I implore you to try the Isp before you buy it!! It was extremely disappointing to me and is completely useless for my intentions. Money down the drain. This is an excellent noise gate however I guess I should have expected that any noise gate has very defined limitations. I was hoping that this product would eliminate the ridiculous noise of my Tonebone Hot British. Turning up the threshold to the point where noise is eliminated is great until you try to play light single note phrases ala jazz/blues/fusion. As soon as you play a note, the huge hum / buzz kicks in with the note making it very distracting and unnatural sounding. In addition, the note will be unable to sustain in an organic way. I could go on but here's the deal: TRY IT FIRST!! This product does what it's mean't to do very well. I however failed to do due dilligence and learned the hard way that the trade off's of using a noise gate are unacceptable to my overall needs. Good Luck.

OK - one knob that you turn until you get the threshold level correct. You'd have to be retarded (or deaf) to not be able to figure it out. Doesn't get any easier!

There's no coloration that I can detect. Some reviewers claim that they can detect an iota of coloration, but then some folks claim that they can hear the difference between an Eveready and a Duracell powering their effects! Seriously, this pedal is completely transparent. I run this pedal as the first pedal in the signal chain rather than the last. I'm using it to kill the hum and interferance from single coils Strats and P90s BEFORE it gets amplified by other devices. This is in complete opposition to the way 99% of people are using it. My setup:
Guitar - Nady wireless - ISP Decimator - Boss tuner - MCFX compressor - Vox wah - MXR Phase 90 - Boss Flanger - Boss DD3 delay - Marshall TSL 100 & quad box.
Running the pedal this way cuts pretty much all the noise that the pickups themselves generate, and at a very conservative threshold setting (between 9 & 10 o'clock). If I run the pedal as suggested in the instructions at the end of the effects chain, it has to deal with the noice from the pickups that has also been further processed with compression/flanging/phasing etc etc..... Hence in that position the threshold needs to be set higher and higher and the results aren't as good for me.

Exceptionaly well made pedal, very heavy duty construction and internally it looks excellent. Never had a problem with it, this one is a keeper!

Never had to deal with them direct. Bought it online from Bmusic.com.au, located in Adelaide, South Australia. Those guys are the best, let me tell you. Excellent service - I had the Decimator in my hands less than 24 hours after placing the order! From Adelaide to Melbourne! And their after sales service is hands down the best in Australia. So my rating is for those guys. Thanks Shane!

Been playing for all of my adult life (plus most of my teenage years), that's the scary total of about a quarter of a century. This pedal has allowed me to use true single coils once again, without the attendant noise problems! I don't know what I'd do without this little chromed masterpiece. I play a wide range of stuff, from SRV through to EVH and even YJM (why do the greats all have three initials?).

Very easy to use initially. Turn the threshold knob until you are satisfied with the reduction. BE CAREFUL not to go crazy on turning the knob too high or it will kill all of your attack and sustain! It's not like the Boss NS-2 where you cant play anything without all the knobs on full, this thing will cover all extremes!

The only hard part is getting the setting right, as too much will destroy attack and sustain and too little will leave noise, so finding the happy medium for your set up can take a while to begin with.

I'm going to be comparing this mainly to the Boss NS-2 as I used to use that. First up I'll start with the positives. This pedal is capable of eliminating pretty much ALL of the noise, alot more noise than the NS-2, this thing makes everything deadily quiet! I'm using a pedal to boost my guitar's input signal to drive the amp harder and that pedal makes a hell of alot of noise, but not anymore! The Boss NS-2 barely coped with this and there was still quite abit of background hiss and hum.

As far as not altering the tone, it pretty much does exactly what it claims to. If you set the threshold correctly it will not suck away any tone! I have very good ears so I can tell if there is an audible tone loss! I noticed the boss NS-2 sucking away a little tone but the Decimator doesn't alter the sound in any noticable way.

Just to give you an idea of how successful this thing is at eliminating noise I'll tell you the setup I have tried it with so far:

Gibson flying V (EMG active pickups) ---> TU-2 (boss tuner) ---> CH-1 (boss chorus) ---> MT-2 (boss metal zone, for boosting the input guitar signal) ---> ISP Decimator ---> Marshall TSL601 (on the lead channel with gain on 9).

Ok, now for the downsides, because there are downsides! If your using a setup where you use alot of high gain distortion AND a clean sound then there is going to be a problem. You see when you turn the threshold knob up to the right setting you eliminate all the noise, BUT when you switch to the clean channel of the amp it totally kills all of your sustain! if you let a note ring, it wont ring for any more than a few seconds! So that means when im playing live and want to change from a distortion to a clean im going to have to disengage the boost pedal, turn off the ISP decimator and switch channels all at the same time! besides any other effects like reverb! Just an extra thing im going to have to tap dance with now! So this thing can only be usefully set up for one particular amount of gain, it cant kill the noise on your high gain channel whithout killing alot of the signal and sustain when you switch to the clean channel! The Boss NS-2 was quite good at compromising on this.

One other thing, you have to be careful when playing palm muted chords etc, if you dampen the strings too much it kills the sound straight away without letting it ring on, but if you loosen the dampening on the palm mutes then your fine, so you may end up adjusting your playing technique slightly to compromise with this pedal.

Well its much heavier than as Boss pedal that's for sure! wether that means its stronger or not im not sure. But I feel it would easily last a life time of touring, so no problems here. I haven't had it for long so I can't say whether it will magically break down and stop working so I can't comment there. But I would definately take this on tour without a backup.

Never dealt with them

Overall this is a great pedal that eliminates all of your noise. HOWEVER if using alot of high gain distortion and then switching to a clean channel you CANNOT leave this pedal turned on, you have to switch it off or the cleans are practically un-playble. It makes things worse because I'm using a boost pedal so have to turn the threshold knob higher, but I tried it just with the amp's gain alone and it still killed the clean notes after a few seconds! So although this will absolutely kill virtually all unwanted noise with a boosted high gain channel it needs a different setting when changing gain levels! So its going to be very annoying having to keep turning this pedal on and off all the time!

If your in a death metal band and use stacks of gain and boost your amp but never use the clean channel then this pedal is for you! It will cut all the unwanted noise and wont affect your tone.

But if you play in a band that uses high gain distortion and lots of clean parts then this pedal will be frustrating. In this case an Boss NS-2 might be better, although there is a slight noticable reduction in tone/compression.

It would get a 9 if I didn't have to switch it off when changing to a clean sound.

Only one dial to turn. Very Simple.

I do alot of reading and comparing before buying music gear. I have a Rocktron Hush Pedal (dual controls) from the early 90's. I've heard great things about the ISP pedal and decided to see for myself. I brought my Rocktron Pedal with me and compared the two. The Decimator DID NOT alter the tone at all! The sustain is smooth. It does what it says. My amp is Quiet! The Rocktron makes the tone a little darker. I purchased the Decimator, and I am very pleased with it.

Nice heavy chrome casing, built like a tank. Should be reliable.

Haven't had to deal with them.

This is a great pedal. A must have for high gain amps. I play old school metal, hard rock, 80's hair bands. Been playing for over 15 years. My current gear: USA Jackson King V, Paul Stanley Ibanez Iceman, Dean Evo Premium> DSL Chorus~Vib> EQ pedal> Decimator> Engl Savage 120> Mesa Traditional Straight 4x12. I run a Peavey Valverb(reverb) unit through the effects loop of the Savage.

Just tune the knob and noise gone!!

it's transparent. it's not change my tone any more isp did it so good.

I let Decimator always on.

i don't know...

you got to check this pedal!

I also own HASH and NR-2 too
but I put them on my storeroom.......

Do you really need a manual? Only one knob to be tweak!! Dead simple.

I have tried the Decimator with Fender P-90 which is quite noisy as P-90 can be, along with Fulldrive 2 MOSFET go through Fender Twin Reverb. I added Decimator at the last place before the signal go to Amp. After turn on Decmimator...It's a jaw dropping moment, dead quiet. Very clean and Transparent. The Time Vector just did the trick, the CPU decides clevery to release short or long notes.

I don't think I will need any back up. The unit looks very solid.

haven't contacted them yet. Doesn't need to, I supposed.

I have been playing around 12 years. I have tried a Rocktron HUSH and Boss NS-2, neither can come close to the ISP. With this price, If I lost one of this, I will definitely get a new one. I can't be missed on pedal board, ever!!

Couldn't really be easier, you'd have to have a hollow for a head to be confused by it.

I run a 5150 combo with hi-gain tubes and run the tubes hard - the high gain causes alot of interference, in fact, enough interference to make me angry enough to get a decimator pedal.


I have to say, isp do do a very good job, i haven't really noticed any significant change in tone, my 5150 still sounds rude but now lacks the interference and cuts to silence upon muting - Does what it says on the tin :D

It's built like a tank, really, no kidding, i'd be happy to use it in hand to hand combat in between gigs, it really is just a chunk of metal.

Not had the displeasure yet, hopefully i will be able to avoid customer service entirely

I can see this pedal being invaluable for any guitarist who plays at volume, at hi gain or for owners of rowdy pedal boards.

I personally think it's great, i would particularly recommend this pedal to Metal heads who like to really crank those amps.

very easy, 1 dial, turn it to the level you need.

i found that this could sound bad if you rely on the battery. with 9v adaptor however, it's awesome.

people who say about killing sustain etc should either switch it off for solos or just drop the level a bit. i don't have any issues going from distorted to clean, unlike some reviews, but i guess the solution for those guys would be to drop the gain on the distortion so you can lower the level of the noise gate, thus meaning less gating on the clean.

no colouration, no treble cut like someone else said.

i had to send the 1st one back because it was creating its own noise (not good!)got the 2nd one, once i used the adapter, no problem

the company itself didn't get involved, i went through highly strung whose support was crazily good. send it back, we'll give you another one. simple.

i find that if you set it to take care of general hiss clean then it should be fine. if your pedal feedbacks, either learn to love the noise or turn the gate up. personally, i like the staccato effects you can get, it just does what i need it to.

it doesn't clean up noise when playing, but to be fair, why would it?

i'd recommend it over the boss noise gate, i've compared them both and this wins hands down. awesome unit.

This unit is about as easy as it gets, one knob. The controll knob is very precise.

I play mostly Death Metal and Grindcore stuff. For my setup I run a N.J. series Beast tuned a step and a half down, through a wireless unit, into a Boss Metal Zone, Hendrix Wah, then the Decimator into a Mesa Triple Rect with a Mesa 4X12 recto cab. This pedal works great with my setup. It cut my noise with out any effects on to just barely above my standby noise. With the gain on my amp AND distortion pedal turn way up with the ISP unit set at the 11:30 to 12:00 area it is so quiet that I can hear the clock in my practice room ticking. No more screeching and squeeling and it lets you play with a monsterous tone when you bash out a chord. This thing is what I've been looking for. It lets me get a tone very close the Static-X roar and then silence deal they have going. My only gripe is that it may need to be tweaked a little if you do a guitar change. The thing is so simple to use that it not a big deal though.

This thing is built like a bar of lead, seems to be very tough. But it's still new so I guess I'll find out how reliable it is in the future.

I didn't deal with ISP directly but my tech guy said Buck was pleasant to deal with and got the pedal to him quickly.

I've been playing Metal for about 7 years and wish I had this pedal from the begining. If it went missing I would replace it as fast I as could get another one. It makes brutal metal even more vicious because it lets me play with a very pro/precise tone with great stops. It also lets you control how quickly the gate closes so it sounds more natural, not cut off to quickly, unless you want it that way. I hate when great tone is killed by a rig that sounds over produced. Gone are the days with screeching and poping before and after songs. This thing is worth every cent I paid!

It's a bit picky, but overall not too hard to set up.

I bought this pedal blind based on the claims that it is completely transparent and doesn't effect your attack or sustain. The problem I have with this unit is that while it does come very close to acheiving tansparency in those areas, after spending some time with it I've realized that your sound is slightly colored by the Decimator even after you've set it properly.

My primary issue with the performance of the Decimator is the effect it has on palm mutes: it takes away a little bit of the punch and on various amps will have them sounding slightly sounding mushy or rounded off. Sustain is probably where the ISP comes closest to living up to the claims, as it indeed allows the advertised "natural decay" with only the faintest loss in sustain, but the loss is noticeable.

In the last paragraph I said that the palm mute issue was my biggest gripe, but I should've said second biggest. Whether it's used in the chain or the effects loop, (as goes for everything mentioned above) the Decimator taints the sound of your axe with an ever so slight "tinny" sound to the highs and causes a slight drop in what sounds like the upper midrange. I'd also have to describe it as making your sound a little more sterile. I know that term gets kicked around a lot, usually in reference to EMGs and SS amps, and the ISP doesn't impart any of that onto your tone, but the effect it does have I can only describe as sterile. It's very, very slight and I'm not suprised that most people can't hear it, but after extensively A/B ing it on several diiferent amp/pedal/axe combinations, there is no question that it is there. A lot of people rated this pedal at 98-99% transparency, but I'd have to say it's more like 90%. Granted, in a live situation nobody in the crowd's going to shout out "Hey, that guy's gate is really sterilizing his tone!", and even band members probably won't notice it, but the effect is there.

As for it's actual suppression of sound, I'd also have to say it's a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand, the Decimator does have the capability to tame even a dimed Metal Zone with only the minor tone coloration described above, and the claims that it makes your amp so quiet you'd swear it was off are to be believed, but there are a couple of drawbacks. First off, the way the threshold works is that it will kill all of your feedback below a certain point. If your feedback level builds up to the point where it exceeds the gate's threshold (a scenario which usually occurs when you have your hands off the strings for more than a few seconds) , the feedback immediately becomes audible at full volume with no reduction in sound from the Decimator. You know how feedback usually gradually builds in volume so you have time to kill your guitar volume? With the ISP you get a piercing squeal that comes out of nowhere if you get careless. It also really pisses off band and crowd members. Also, and I suppose this is more of a critique on the nature of gates in general rather than this unit in particular, the hum from your guitar which is "decimated" when you put this pedal in your chain and aren't playing comes right back into the mix when you resume playing and is not filtered out in any way. I can chalk that last one up to unreasonable expectations on my part and I wouldn't bust it just for that, but the other problems I mentioned make me unable to give this product a full recommendation.

On the flip side, I will say that there is definitely no pedal out there that beats the Decimator at what it does, but this is still not nearly the magic box that it's made out to be.

Very, very nicely made unit, heavier than anything else it's size and a good number of larger boxes as well. The chrome on this thing is very nice and will make it stand out in your board. Switches on and off every time. Sturdier than any Boss pedal.

I give it a 6 with an extra point because I do believe this is the best thing going right now as far as noise gates are concerned, but it does demonstrate some areas in which noise reduction technology as a whole could use some development. Personally, I'm trading mine in while this is still a hot product.

It has one knob and you either have it on or off, how much more easy could it be?

I have a bogner uberschall, esp M-2, and I was using a mxr zakk wylde overdrive in the front end and an mxr 10eq in the back end. I had a boss ns-2 with me and I wanted to see which was better. To my surprise the decimator elimanated more noise than the NS-2. I wanted to try it against an mxr smart gate but I didn't have one avaliable. Also having the the decimator in my signal chanine didnt effect the signal at all.

I've had mine for 3 months and havne't had a problem with it yet.

I sent an e-mail requesting information about the decimator rackmount g and never got a response.

This is a great pedal, it will kill any noise in your signal without changing the tone.

Stupidly simple to use. Comes with a one page manual.

I bought this pedal based on the reviews posted below,and a few magazine reviews, most of which seem to be drooling over this pedal. The only review I read for this pedal that actually listed any cons was Guitar Player.

I used with a Carvin Legacy head and a Schecter C-1 with Seymour Duncan JB/'59 pickups. I get a very slight hiss from my effects chain, and with the gain on the lead channel past 7.5 I get some real nasty feedback. Above all, I wanted to try to eliminate the feedback.

I tried it both in the effects loop and between the guitar and my amps input. It actually seemed to work better between the guitar and amp, before my effects loop. Turning my guitars volume down, I turned the threshold knob clockwise until all noise disappeared. At this pint it was around 9 o'clock. When I turned the volume of my guitar back up and started playing, it wasn't enough, so the threshhold eventually made its way to 11 o'clock.

So here's where it gets ugly. Set at 11 o'clock, it seemed to take care of the problem, I had dead silence before I started to play again. However, at this setting, it was starting to take away from my sustain, and it didn't keep the noise out every time that I stopped playing again. I didn't dare turn the threshold up further as it was already starting to cut off notes.

Now I move on to the clean channel having taken care of the noisier of the two, and this thing is absolutely killing my clean sound. If i pick anything somewhat lightly, it struggles to get through or doesn't sound at all. Sure, I coulld just shut the pedal off when I play clean, but I use a few effects and I just don't want the hassle of switching to the clean channel on my fotswitch, then shutting of the decimator, then messing with whatever effects I might use. It's too much tap dancing.

I only kept it for a week. It looks pretty tough though.

I can't say, I didn't deal with them.

The decimator is OK at best in my opinion. It's a little better than most noise supressors, but theres stil plenty of room for improvement. It either does too much or does too little. It's not a terrible pedal, I think what you get out of it all depends on your playing style. The things I hated about it, such as it killing my very softly played clean parts and cutting my really sustained notes too short, probably wouldn't matter to some guy playing mosh metal riffs through a 5150 or a Krank or something. It all depends on what you're going to use it for I suppose.

I will give it this much, it doesn't degrade your tone a bit.