ISP Technologies Decimator ProrackG

Pretty simple to setup, a no brainer, let's move on...

I'm using this with a ENGL 580 preamp and an ENGL power amp, also some other rack effects. No huge noise problem, but it is nice to have anything that is there eliminated. From what I can tell, no issues with messing with your sound.

No issues. Pretty solid.

Haven't used.

I do have a few gripes... 1. If this is to be in a rack, and you are going to plug your guitar through this first, WHY is there no jack in the FRONT?!? Such a simple option, just put one in back and one in front! Who is going to be reaching around the back of a rack all the time?! Always give options. 2. Why are the jackes in the back on the LEFT side?? 90% of everything else I have is on the RIGHT. Now I have to use longer cables instead of my nice short 1' ones. Not to mention, now I have my audio cables from this unit right next to all my power cables from the other gear! I swear, everyone who builds rack gear should get a standard going. Power to the LEFT, audio to the RIGHT. 3. Is it just vanity, why does it have to say in HUGE letters DECIMATOR. It looks crappy in my neat rack. I liken this to those guys who put a huge banner on their car: "TOYOTA!!" "HONDA!!" You almost want to go up to them and ask: "Hey, what kinda of car is this??" Haha... Get rid of the huge letters. Put an input jack there.

Other than that, everything else is great.

Extremely easy to set up!! Plug your guitar into the Input 1, and out into your amp. FX Loop send into Input 2, and back into the FX return. To get it going, start with the dials all the way to the left, then rotate each one clockwise until you hear the hum go away. You can just forget about it after you do it once (you may adjust to your liking a little bit later after you learn how your amp and playing reacts with it, but not much at all - it's pretty straight forward)

I have an extremely high gain british made Laney GH100L head going into 2 Laney 4X12 cabs. It's a single channgel tube (4X EL34) head with a switchable gain stage, and I always leave the gain cranked to about 9 when I play. To clean up when I play soft, I roll the volume knob down on my Paul Reed Smith Custom 22. When I do this, the hum from the amp is extremely bad, and much much worse when I'm at full volume from the guitar (but the tone was always exactly what i wanted). I would get bad feedback when not playing, loud amp hum, and a lot of other nuances that you hear when you're not playing. As you all know, this all becomes a huge problem when recording or playing live and being mic'd to a PA. (I guess I'll throw in that I play heavy metal. Sort of a Slayer meets Iron Maiden meets Opeth type)

When I got this, I added a Monster power conditioner as well. Now when I play, all of my nightmare problems are gone. It's absolutely SILENT. When I'm playing at rehearsal or stage volume, it scares me every time I play the first note! Super quiet, to BAM, in your FACE!! All you're hearing is pure tone... YOUR tone!!

I don't use any effects, just my guitar straight into the ISP ProRackG, and into my head... and I'm very suprised at how much my signal is cleaned up even at that point. I didn't think my guitar was really adding that much noise to the mix, but oh boy was I wrong! I was really amazed my this. I have a really hot Seumour Duncan SH-15 (Alternative 8) in the bridge, and a pretty mellow S.D. SH-1 in the neck. When I tap the pickups to use them as single coils, there's still no hum!! It's like you have single coil humbuckers, haha.

In the FX loop, I send into a Korg 2000 Tuner, out into the ProRackG, then back to the FX return. There's not much to really say about this part of it, except that the Decimator does it's job and gets rid of all the hum from the high gain amp. It's absolutely silent. Like I said earlier, it scares me everytime I pick up my guitar and play the first note.

As for the supressor itself, it hasn't changed my tone a bit, except that it tightened the attack of my guitar, in which I'll gladly accept for playing agressive metal. At first you may hear the downward expander kick in when you stop playing, but with a little tweaking, you can quickly get rid of it. You can still control wanted feedback, and you can swell your volume up without realizing there is a gate in your signal chain. I've tried the Boss NS-2 and the MXR Smart Gate, and they just don't compare to the Decimator. I got rid of the other ones quick because they altered my tone and you could hear them kick in and out. They were also only in my amp's FX loop... with the ISP, it's like a double whammy when you get a supressor for your amp AND your guitar. Totally worth the money!!!

It's made of metal and sits in a rack road case so I don't think I'll ever have any problems with it breaking from abuse. You don't step on it and you don't really ever mess with the knobs (if you accidentily hit them), so the only threat to it is smoke or a thief. You can see that ISP as a company that takes pride in their products and doesn't skimp on the manufacturing - they use all quality components inside and out. It's an expensive piece compared to the competition, but you're really getting what you pay for... good quality, good sound, and an exceptional job.

Never had to deal with them yet. This thing it to easy and hasn't malfunctioned yet.

Overall, it does it's job. All the noise is gone. This unit is amazing. It gives you the gift of your tone in a pure fashion.

Relatively easy to use. I would like to have seen the instruction manual go into a little more detail.

I'm using my Decimator Prorack G with various guitars from Fender, Gibson, PRS and Steinberger, running through a Marshall Triple Super Lead 100 head with a 1960A cabinet. My guitar signal goes through 12 effects pedals, so there is ample opportunity for lots of noise generation. I use all 3 channels of the Mashall, with the lead channel really cranked. I was somewhat skeptical of the reviews I had read here on Harmony Central and even of the sound clips I heard on the ISP website, but I thought "what the hell, why not give it a try"?

When I hooked it up and twiddled the knobs and buttons per the instructions I got a nice quiet sound out of the guitar on my clean channel. Yes! However, when I kicked in the high gain, there was all my noise again. I re-checked all connections, twiddled the knobs some more and still had the noise. Finally, it dawned on me (hey, I'm 51) that I had the FX loop blend turned to about 50/50. When I set this to 100% loop my amp became deathly quiet. Holy crap! This thing is AWESOME! I can't believe it. The ISP Decimator Prorack G lives up to every one of it's claims. I can't wait to show this to my bandmates. I had long ago given up playing my single coil Strat through the high gain channel because of all of the squeals between notes. Not anymore.

My tone is still there, no changes (which is good)! What is gone is ALL of the annoying high gain hiss. Just dead silence till I slam a chord.

No idea how reliable this will be over the long run, I just got it yesterday. I do know if something happens to it I'll run right out and buy a replacement with no second thoughts, it's that good!

ISP's customer service was very good prior to the sale. I called up and asked for some technical guidance and they were quite helpful to me. I haven't needed them since (keeping fingers crossed).

Overall I give this a "9". If it were $305 I'd give it a "10".

I've been playing guitar for 43 years and play everything from 60's psychodellic, to heavy metal, pop, grunge and arena rock. I play gigs mostly in bars and halls. This unit lets me get my tone, at high volumes, without any distracting, amateurish noise.

Pretty easy to setup, run channel 1 into your amp input and channel 2 through your effects loop. Turn the knobs on the front untill your sound is quiet.

My setup is a Gibson les paul into a Boss TU-2 tuner, morely power wah, to a GCX guitar audio switcher with a few effects in each loop than into a Voodoo Amps modified mesa/boogie triple rectifier. I've had ZERO loss in tone. Hasn't altered it a bit. When i've been ringing out for a little it cuts my sustain a little bit but not enough to impact my sound. I've used a few different noise gates in the past including a rocktron Hush super C and a Boss NS-2. The rocktron sucked my tone! i hated it and returned it. The Boss just never had a happy median between killing noise and loss of sustain. The decimator is by far the best. I'm completely satisfied with this noise supressor!

I've had no problems what so ever! Worked great since day one!

Never dealt with them. Their product has been great, i've never need to get a hold of them for anything!

I play a lot of hard rock/metal with high gain tones. This thing kills any excess noise i had from overdriving my amp. I couldn't be happier with this product!

Took out of the box plugged in according to very clear instructions and fired it up


Manual was very good and explained unit functions but the pro rack is so straight forward you could figure it out `without it

Using with a Peavey 6505 head and randall 4x12 cab various effects

I bought the unit based on claims and other reviews on harmony central and it did everythin i needed it too

Only had it a day so heres hoping

Emailed Buck direct to enquire about settings got a response witihn 15 mins of sending

Play metal so use a high gain setting and the pro rack g just takes care of the noise and leaves me a great sound with no squeals or hums

Would definatly reccomend the unit and if needed would buy another

Got it out of the box, and hooked up Guitar through all preamps then into decimator and from there into Head. Hook up channel 2 in effects loop. Once it was all hooked up took abotu 5 minutes to adjust settings. Stupid Easy.

Absolutly unreal. I'd been fighting with my Boss Supressor for about a year....turn it up, no feed back, but loose crunch, turn it down, great cruch, nasty feed back. Plus I always had a hum from the head. After 5 minutes of tweeking, its dead silent, and brutally heavy as soon as I touch the strings. Amazing.

Dunno yet, just gog it.

Haven't used 'em yet.

I play metal, triple rec head - this was an absolute addition to the rig. Best 400 bucks I spent.

Despite the very technically-oriented manual, the device is actually quite easy to setup so that it eliminates unwanted noise without tampering with your guitar tone. Don't worry about CRT monitors, flourescent lights or other obnoxious, unwanted hum travelling through your system when you don't want any noise produced - this thing takes care of it all.

I've been playing very heavy distorted music for 14 years; I've searched long and hard for a half decent noise supression unit that didn't chop off the tail end of notes, or mess with volume swells that I was intentionally executing. I use this in the serial effects loop of a Randall RM100C (mainly using the 1086, aka Disturbed, module). You can get a hell of a distortion out of that module, but you can also hear some mad hum kicking from the amp as well. After some tweaking, the Decimator eliminated all unwanted noise, and allowed for all intentional sounds to be produced - absolutely amazing. I can have my amp set at 2o'clock with some crazy distortion on and you don't hear a damn thing until I want you to. I can't begin to describe how amazing this product is. Expensive? Yes. Worth it? HELL YES! If you like playing with moderate to very distorted sounds, this is definitely a worthy investment in your sound quality.


One thing to mention - I had to special order this thing from a local guitar center in Austin, and they had to have it shipped from Arlington. When the GC rep was talkin' to the guy in Arlington about it, the guy on the other end of the phone couldn't say enough good things about ISP Technologies or the Decimator - he literally wouldn't shut up about it; my GC rep said the other guy practically sounded like a friggn' ISP technologies salesman.

Only had it about a week. For the price, it better hold up for quite some time, though.

Haven't had to deal with them, and hopefully I won't.

I mainly play with a lot of thick n' chunky distortion, and this item is a MUST if you want to produce the most noise-free sound possible. I've been playing for 14 years, and I've tried a variety of other noise gates (typically built into other multi-effects processors), and my search for a good noise supression unit has ended. I like the fact that you plug your guitar directly into this divice, AND you can feed it through your effects loop of your amp to capture unwanted noise in the two most prevalent areas. Forget the Rocktron Hush equipment, and don't waste your time with BOSS or Digitech stuff - the Decimator is where it's at.

Very straight forward with some basic knowledge of guitar rigs. The manual is thorough and very well written. The only suggestion I would have is to perhaps include some default starting points for the thresholds for standard setups.

I am using this in the series effects loop of my new Rivera Knucklehead Tre with Gibson Les Pauls with EMG pickups. It is not noisy whatsoever and has effectively killed 95%+ of amp hum and guitar feedback. I am also using a bunch of floor pedals with it (dunlop wah and univibe, mxr zw od, damage control demonizer and EB volume), as well as a rack delay unit with no issues.

These guys seem to really know what they are doing. The unit seems very well engineered, and very well built. I am keeping my boss NS2 in my pedal board for now just in case (and for rehearsals/sessions where I don't take my rack), but I highly doubt I will need to use it.

I have called them twice, once to get further tech details before purchase, and once after purchase with some setup questions. Excellent and prompt responses. As someone else mentioned, these guys should serve as an example to other companies, (hint...line 6).

I play all kinds of music but got this unit specifically for the heavy stuff. I have been playing for about 9 years and have used a few different noise gates/suppresors in the past. None compare to this unit. It is absolutely perfect for heavy music or anything with high gain.

If I were to lose this unit, I would get another one without question.

I believe this unit will certainly help me make music as I do not have to concern myself with feedback or amp hum. Makes the whole experience much more enjoyable.

The setup for the stereo version of the decimator is extremely simple. Plug the guitar into the input jack and run a cord from input to the amp. Then run a cord to and from your effects loop for each amp. Turn on amp and adjust the two knowbs until the noise and hiss go away. Done, it's that easy. Once set, you never have to worry about it again.

I called up ISP this summer and ordered the stereo mod because I had just bought a triple rectifier to compliment my 6505+. I wrote the first review of the 6505+ and kind of slammed the rectifier at the end of my review. I never had a chance to crank the recto until this summer and it kicked my ass. That's also why I've waited this long to review this product, I wanted to make sure that it lived up to the hype it recieves on the HC boards everyday. It does. I run a gibson les paul classic (tuned to C) and ltd ec-400 (emg 81/60) with a shure ULX wireless unit into a maxon od808 overdrive into the decimator. The line out of the decimator runs into a whirlwind splitter box and then into the recto and 6505+ each with their respective straight front cabinets. Believe me when I tell you that running these two high gain heads at the same time created horrible feedback and an incredibly loud hum that made playing clean passages an exercise in futility. The decimator eliminated practically all of my hum and there is not a hint of noise even when the gain and volume is cranked on both amps. My playing sounds cleaner now because of the eliminated noise. I don't have to adjust the decimator when playing clean passages, it somehow doesn't affect the tone when switching from high gain to clean. Most impressively, it never cuts off any notes or resonating like all the other noise gates do. I can chug a palm mute and it will continue to resonate until my string stops. Amazing. As you can probably tell, I play metal/hardcore (Slayer, Pantera, As I Lay Dying, Killswitch, and the first four metallica albums) and needed something that would allow my tone to stay as tight and clean as possible with a heavy dose of gain. This was my answer.

Going strong for over five months and never a problem.

I spoke with Bill on the phone several times when I had an issue with wiring my setup. He not only helped me wire my rig over the phone but talked to me for over an hour about guitars, amps, and music. He also told me the backstory of Rocktron and ISP Technologies, while telling me about vector processing. It takes a stand up guy to be willing to spend his time helping a snot-nosed college kid get his rig setup, and that's what Bill is. I wish they had a much higher score on this one, I didn't feel like I was being sold something or pushed like other companies always seemed to do but I felt like I was talking to a friend or neighbor. That says worlds about ISP.

I don't believe there is a better noise gate out there for guitar rig applications. My playing and tone have both increased with the addition of this to my rig. I hope that any serious musician who plays with high gain amplifiers seriously picks up either a rack mount or pedal version of the decimator. I used to have a mxr smart gate which worked fine for the price, but still chopped off the sound when the gate was activated. The decimator is worth the money and the people at ISP have the utmost knowledge of musical technology. I know this sounds like a love letter (and it kind of is) but ISP has solved one of the greatest problems plagueing metal guitar.

I have also owned the pedal version which is amazingly simple to use. This unit takes a bit more patience. It will immediately clean up your sound, but it takes a bit of tweaking to make it decimate noise at 100% transparency.

I play a 5150 with a very hot preamp, and not having a noise suppressor/gate is out of the question. I bought the MXR Smart Gate and it didn't cut it so I decided to give the Decimator pedal version a shot, but it could only either kill feed back or hum depending if it was before my amp or in the effects loop, but not both. So when I saw that ISP made a two channel rack unit that is specifically designed to kill both sounds I knew I found my unit. This things is amazing: 99% of my amp hum (which was very loud) is gone, and so are my feedback issues. I can turn the lead channel past 8 and it sounds like my amp is off (although i'd never play at that volume) and when i turn it back to 4 and play 100% of my tone is there. The other great thing about this that the smart gate or decimator pedal couldn't do is it does not effect my clean channel, and if I turn down my amp I don't have to adjust the decimator. This unit gets beyond a 10.

Seems to be well built, and it comes with a 3 year warranty.

Haven't dealt with them, but I hear they are very helpful.

I play metal/hardcore and this is a perfect match. I've been playing for 8 years, and if it were lost or stolen I'd definately get another one. Their are only 2 negative things I can say about it. The first is the price. It is a lot more that I was looking to spend on a noise suppressor, but you get what you pay for. This is a professional unit. The second is that is actually a blessing: I can no longer hide sloppy guitar playing behind feedback and hum. Every note is crystal clear, including my mistakes!

This is a 2-stage N.R. unit. The manual suggests plugging the guitar directly in to channel 1, and running the out from channel 1 in to your amp's input. Channel 2 is designed to be inserted in to a series effects loop on the amp.

I have a Boogie Dual Recto head with a parallel effects loop, and I also use a DigiTech 2112 preamp so I had to route things a bit differently than outlined in the manual. I run my guitar directly in to channel 1, out from channel 1 in to a 10-band EQ, out of the EQ and in to the 2112. Then I run the output of the 2112 in to channel 2 of the Decimator, out of the Decimator in to the front end of the Dual Recto. I use an EMG-81 in a Strat and I prefer a moderate amount of crunch. I only use the 2112 for the pre-amp (no time-based effects at all) and it's a rather noisy unit. The first thing I did was set the Filter Tracking adjustment to 0, bypassed the Decimator's channel 2, and dialed in my usual clean sound. I used the Decimator's channel 1 Threshold to dial out the very slight buzz that I got from my guitar (about -32db). Works great, no chopped notes and no tonal artifacts. Next, I brought up a patch with max crunch and popped in the Decimator's channel 2. Obviously, a much bigger challenge. I set the channel 2 threshold to about -18db and was able to effectly eliminate the noise without any alerations to my tone. You can't use this as a signal chopper like a typical noise gate, you actually have to control the guitar yourself (imagine that!) Sloppy players are not going to be able to use the Decimator as a crutch. It's a very dynamic unit. I can go from shimmery clean to hairy crunch using the same threshold settings. Sustain and decay is much more natural, but it's not perfect. If you hit a power chord and hold it, it will sustain into feedback like it's supposed to. However, if it doesn't feed back you will eventually get a slight amount of noise while the downward expander kicks in. For me, this was way beynd the point that I would ever hold a chord so it wasn't an issue. Palm mutes sound great, but if you chunk a chord and let it ring for a couple seconds, you will still get a little bit of noise as the expander takes over. Still, much better than any other unit I've tried.

Seems reliable.

Never dealt with them.

This is the best, most transparent N.R. I've tried. It replaces the 2112's built-in gate and a Behringer DeNoiser. It blows away any HUSH I've ever used...

Extremely easy to use. The designer definately had simplicity in mind for the end user. It would be extremely hard to NOT be able to set it up. It's as easy as it gets. You simply set it up once and you are done. The manual is efficiently written in plain English so that even a child could operate this unit.
Simply an amazing unit.....

I won't go into my guitars, but I've used the unit with every possible pickup and guitar configuration.
I have one of those refrigerator sized racks which contains the following:
2 x Furman voltage regulators
VHT GP3 Tube Preamp
Engl E570SE Tube Preamp
Marshall JMP1 Tube Preamp
Eventide GTR 4000
TC Electronic G Force
Line 6 Filter Pro
Digital Music Corp GCX Switching System,
Digital Music Corp System Mix
4 TC Electronic Pedals-Phaser, Chorus, Booster+, Parametric EQ/Sustainer
MI Audio Prototype OD pedal
2 x VHT 2/90/2 Power amps
ISP Decimator ProrackG
The system is set up in tri-stereo/parallel going to two VHT 4x12's and two VHT 2x12's
The unit is by far the most transparent noise reduction unit I have ever used. I have compared it to all the Hush models including the Guitar Silencer, Super C, and even some professional studio noise gates.
This unit puts all others to complete shame.
It is THE ONLY noise reduction unit that I have ever used that in no way alters your original signal.
With this unit you can switch from bone crushing high gain settings to extremely low volume clean sounds without the Decimator skipping a beat. There is NO cut off of notes when you let them ring out, even when having the volume on your guitar rolled almost off. This just blew me away. I've never seen another unit do this.
THIS IS THE WAY A NOISE REDUCTION UNIT SHOULD BE!!!!!!!
All other units that I mentioned fall very very short in this department.
But if you enjoy the sound of a door slamming your signal off and on, the Decimator is not for you. Only tone purests need apply.
I couldn't say enough good things about this unit, and it's very hard to impress me with a single unit. But the people at ISP Technologies have far exceeded my expectations in every possible way.
Bottom line is that IT WORKS, and does a hell of a job at it.
I've been playing for over 24 years and have never seen anything that comes close.
And for those people that like pedals, do yourself a favor and buy the pedal version if you don't use rack gear. You will thank me for it. The best damn pedal noise reduction on the market.
I am no engineer, but these guys know what they are doing with the Time Vector Processing and have created the greatest unit on the market.
My hat is off to all the people at ISP Technologies.

The unit has not failed me at all and I've never had to re-set anything. The unit is built to the highest standards.
And it looks cool to boot.

What can I say....
Top of the line and genuine customer support.
I've called ISP a few times prior to purchasing and after purchasing. Both Buck and Jon are a true class act. They will spend all the time that you need to have questions answered and offer suggestions.
These guys are the model for what customer support is supposed to be.
They are extremely polite, very intelligent, and genuinly care about their customers. And this is very hard to find with many companies.
If you have a question, they are always there to answer. And if they don't have the answer they will find it for you.
They have definately created a customer for life out of me. I will endorse their products to everyone I can.
If there was a rating scale of 1-10, these guys would get a 100000000000000000000000
Thank you guys for everything, especially your products.

Well I think I kind of answered this in the above subject lines.
I plan on buying a few more of these just to have for other systems I build. This unit has permanent real estate in all my setups.
They are worth their weight in gold.