All user reviews of 4/5 for the Boss NS-2 Noise Suppressor

Pedal noise gate
An input and an output
An effects loop with send and return
A knob threshold
A knob decay
Two modes: noise suppressor and mute

UTILIZATION

I had occas' so I downloaded a manual of various Boss pedals. Even reading it I did not quite understand what the purpose of the mute. When I enabled it, everything is silent ...
I did not quite understand what the purpose of the decay knob either. By using it I found that it reduces the threshold noise suppression, so I think there is a subtlety here to exploit.
Otherwise, it's pretty simple, just put amp and pedal in the effects loop, turn the knob to find happiness and then voila. For my part, I put the wha-wha outside the effects loop (between the guitar and NS2) have found that it was a strange noise in the loop. Then, matter of taste, but I put chorus and phaser between amp and noise gate. I put only the overdrive and preamp in the effects loop.

SOUND QUALITY

Turning the knob and presto, noise interference disappear. However, it must make a compromise between the light and saturated, but generally does not distort the sound. Only clear sound when the threshold is beyond 5 (but this is already enough for a good distortion).
Attention, it does not make miracles, do not believe we will be able to reproduce riffs cowboys from hell as dimebag darrell, but it does its job very well. Once we stop playing, no sound.

OVERALL OPINION

I hear a lot from it and then the boss NS2 is a bad pedal, the ISP decimator is much better blah. Anyway, luckily the ISP is much better given the price difference! So for the price / quality ratio, I suggest NS2 as boss noise gate economic. It does not work miracles, but does its job very well (which is more or less to remove noise) without distorting the sound, which is more than satisfactory for me.

For specifications, we note that the inner loop processes the effects more "talkative" such as overdrive and high-gain distortion. Mute mode in which the action of the pedal completely cut the signal. Those who have never changed guitar on stage can not understand the usefulness of such a device ...
I agree, I unplug my jack, I change my guitar and I rappuie ... not a crack devastating to baffles and ears! And I still mode Noise-Gate. The other mode is a classic on / off effect.
The case is in the classic boss, indestructible and easy to fit on a pedalboard. 9v battery or power adapter with output 9 v to chain another pedal.

UTILIZATION

For use, it is almost plug-n-play, provided that we understand that this "effect" is used to mitigate or remove noise much. By no means a miracle will happen! Basically, the threshold will adjust the threshold beyond which the effect will pass the signal from the instrument and destroy all the buzz résiduels.Le decay determines the time that must be put in effect acting: either a very brutal is progressive with a gradual rise in his.
On an amp with a clean sound with a guitar electronics correct, no need noise gate. With single coils and a little crunch to your amp, a very soft setting can improve things especially when we stop playing. On distortion free, it becomes essential at high volume on stage as the audience will take the buzz as much as music.

SOUND QUALITY

The noise gate is effective although I find its useful range relatively small and somewhat progressive. The best is obtained by passing the distos in the loop as recommended by Boss, the guitar is simply plugged into the "in" of the pedal.
The sound is consistent with what is found in almost all competitors, a slight loss of high frequencies, so a noticeable slowdown of the spectrum and dynamics attenuated. Nothing insurmountable, this corrects the EQ. In reality, only a little more Decimator preserves the signal from the instrument. It's subtle, perhaps too subtle to be really critical when using a huge distortion that compresses and kills the dynamic design.
I use it on my pedalboard NS2 to calm the ardor of my HTdual.Le NS.2 is permanently activated.
Nothing to say! its clear, without touching anything, my signal is preserved and my sustain. In overdrive, it is equally effective cost of a slight loss of sustain acceptable, but high volume is very comfortable for your ears. With the gain on the bottom Blackstar, we understand the usefulness of the device, the signal is preserved but the game must be sharp and precise.

OVERALL OPINION

I repeat, if your aim is to play at moderate volume on a Stratocaster plugged into a JC120 or Twinreverb, the NS2 is not for you. Archi useless as all his peers!
If you do the scene with a more muscular and chaining pedals important, I do not see how the impasse. Between models Rocktron Hush rack type, and very upscale mentioned above, this small Boss NS2 to its usefulness. So much so that since I got it, I had almost forgotten except to use his "Mute" function when I needed changes guitars on stage.
However, I find this product quite expensive. It is disturbing to drop 82 euros for a fact ... that is not one.

The BOSS NS-2 has been one of the standard "go to" noise gates or suppressors since the late eighties. It's pretty simple to use and very common to see in guitar rigs regardless of style or gear used, just to cut down on that ever present hum and buzz that many players are fighting in their rigs. It has a threshold control, as well as a rate control and a knob to select whether you want the pedal to reduce your noise or act as a mute, very cool feature for sure. Otherwise it's pretty standard BOSS as far as the features go and there isn't much to say about it. The construction is the standard stomp box fare and it really has a durable feel that will last for a long time.

UTILIZATION

The setup of this pedal is either easy or difficult depending on your angle. I'm a huge fan of the ISP Decimator gate, which has a more gradual sweep and doesn't cut your tone off so staccato. That's really the biggest thing I find with setting this up. It can be more difficult to get it so it doesn't completely choke off your sound with its gate, whereas the ISP unit is more about keeping the tone and just removing the noise and not cutting off your signal. That being said, each has its place and if you want that sort of very abrupt cutoff, the NS-2 is a great pedal for thaat.

SOUND QUALITY

This pedal is really best used in situations where either you're in a noisy place playing, or if your rig is high gain and has a lot of inherent noise issues. This particular noise gate would probably be of interest to a lot of thrash metal or death metal players where you can get those nice quick cutoffs and not be left with a wall of noise. Many players actually prefer the feel of the BOSS unit, but for me where I play more of a standard hard rock style and like having my tones sustain, I prefer a unit like the ISP which has that more gradual cutoff for the notes.

OVERALL OPINION

All in all I think the BOSS NS-2 is a decent noise gate for someone looking for a basic stomp box noise suppressor with a nice fast cutoff and more controls for adjustment. If you just want something to get rid of hum and don't need that fast attack, I would have a look at the ISP Technologies Decimator which does that job well and has served me quite nicely for a few years now. It really depends what you're looking for, but for most applications the NS-2 will do fine.

Noise is one of the things we higher gain players battle as we play on stage. One of the most annoying things out there is when your guitar starts to ring out and feedback, especially when you're in a metal band with fast start/stop riffs. Boss has been one of the go-to noise gate solutions for quite awhile now. The pedal features a decay, threshold and special selector knob to select between two different settings. You can also run this both in front of the amp AND in the loop at the same time.

UTILIZATION

The pedal itself is housed in one of the best housings out there. You won't have to worry about this thing breaking on you while you're on tour. The knobs are also laid out fairly decently, although I don't know why they spaced them the way they did. The manual is fairly clear as to what everything does, but I find that this pedal lacks versatility. I'll get to that later, but the pedal itself is simple enough to set up and go.

SOUND QUALITY

The pedal does what it should do. It cuts the feedback and lets you have silence while you're not playing. However, the issue is that this pedal sucks tone. It's one of the major things wrong with this pedal. Another one is that I seem to have issues with this when compared to the ISP Decimator. Where as the Decimator can do some great staccato gating, this seems to have some issues with the gating for whatever reason. The good thing is that this pedal can work in both the front and loop at the same time, but you'll want to be careful about ground loops. ISP now has a G-String which does the same thing, so I question whether this is really necessary today.

OVERALL OPINION

The pedal itself is solid, but there are better things on the market today. I vastly prefer the ISP stuff to the Boss stuff when it comes to noise gates. The Boss technology is just too outdated and doesn't sound as natural as the ISP does for the type of music I play. If you can get one of these cheap, get it. Otherwise, just get an ISP.

Boss while metal, tough as usual.

UTILIZATION

The concept of a loop is not necessarily very intuitive for a noise reducer, and the manual is not necessarily super clear on this point ...
Anyway, once you understand the principle, it is the ...

Attention stypule as the manual does not get in the loop of the NS-2 reverb, delay, looper ... So if your problems come from the background noise of one of these elements, it will not be the best solution.

SOUND QUALITY

In the effects loop of my 5150 (amp has a lot of background noise at the base, mainly in the loop), with 7-8 pedals in the loop of the NS-2, the result was not transcendent, and I was quite disappointed with this pedal: either the sound was too ate, or the background noise was not properly mitigated ... I never really found a compromise ...

I have since changed to a Vox AC30 amp, no effects loop. All of my things (a big couple of pedals) is placed between the guitar and amp, so I put most in the loop of the NS-2.
Already, the AC30, despite his great age, is significantly quieter than the other gas plant of base metal, but then I literally rediscovered the NS-2, which is simply very good job, especially fuzz on my (Jim Dunlop just cra-cra) or it does wonders.
Very good attenuation of background noise and the sound seems just ate ... and in any case, I have no coloration of sound.

OVERALL OPINION

So a good pedal if you have used a scraper and / or effects that buzz ...
on the other hand, there will be no miracle if the amp buzz that ...

I do not buy it back with closed eyes, a comparison with the reference, Hush, would seem to me indispensable ... and especially with his gear, otherwise it has no intérret, since the principle of this pedal is to make up the shortcomings of other elements, and therefore even more than any other pedal, there will be very different results in a config another.

JOperation the gate in multiple configurations but never for a guitar (electronic music, microphone, after routs in analog effects and lots of distortion or saturation)

for use other than dun guitarist, the parameters are somewhat inadequate: the threshold does not rise high enough to place the pedals just after a heavy distortion or signal too pramplifi the decay does not go always enough.

can be in the User SERIES in a chain effect (before distortion) or loop.
l it becomes very interesting: the input is between the sidechain whose dynamics is applied between the gate on the return!
the sound that comes through or not going to return as an output from the input or not.

one can imagine many applications.

UTILIZATION

Cest clear: the mute function is not nothing; p

when we know the principle of a dynamic effect everything is clear and easy to use.

SOUND QUALITY

Among other things I use it with a KAOSS pad (whose effects tend "delay" sounds) and saturation with feedback. Loop the ns-2 can cut the feedback, and eliminate the delay of the KAOSS PAD.

obviously also very practical to avoid noise and Feedback dun distorted microphone.

always the problem of decay which is not zero-down and rounded the corners always a bit of dynamics.

then its a good gate so I prfre refrain from criticizing the quality sound of silence

OVERALL OPINION

I had a small gate for my lives more or less electronic, but always noisy.
rack was too cumbersome.

the pedals very well fulfilled its function. However, it remains probably best fits a guitarist. Too few parameters (decay, attack) to apply a gate IDAL such a rhythm loop

The default is big for me that decay does not turn enough left.

This pedal is noise reduction, very convenient to remove background noise and other blasts.
Boss quality is the appointment is no problem it's sturdy and very reliable.

Two knobs and three LEDs, a threshold for noise reduction, a decay (which I still trying to use??) And a selector between the reduction mode and mute. The pedal has an effects loop whose use is still quite dark and I honestly have not yet fully understood.

UTILIZATION

Very simple, unwanted (except for the famous bouble effect ...)
Threshold knob very effective, but it must grow high enough to erase completely all breaths with a big distortion (to do depending on the configuration of each and saturation used ...).
The decay knob is useless (the guys at Boss themselves say in the manual it should practically in all cases remain at 0 !!!).
The manual is quite clear on the use (except for this .... put the effects loop!)

SOUND QUALITY

Ben this pedal is very good job and it falls well that's all you asked!

In my setup it is placed after the distortion in the effects loop of the amp and it is enabled in permanance quelquesois the channel of the amp used. I do not use the effects loop of the NS-2 (and anyway I do not know how it works in case you still would not have understood! Phew!)
Be careful not too push the knob to remove the threshold that could lower some répétitons Delay ...

Ben Zion is that good!

OVERALL OPINION

I use it for at least three years, and I am very satisfied! This pedal very well filled his office, but it may be appropriate to compare it with other noise gate in the same price range (Rocktron Hush ...). Just look at the effects pedals and fridges from the pros to see that this pedal is everywhere (Robb Flynn, John Petrucci ...) and finally to be convinced of its quality!
again that the good quality / price / satisfaction nice!

See below

UTILIZATION

See below

SOUND QUALITY

See below

OVERALL OPINION

Everything has been said, so I just wanted to add that this pedal is exelente when not playing on the volume knobs, for when you want to play against the saturation of light crunch and have more or less by decreasing the volume on the guitar, ns-2 signal food, we no longer anything at all clean, smooth.
Personnelemnt my threshold is set at 12, it can be much but if I bought this pedal because my noise problems were important.
The threshold BEYOND 15h and we get the same result as I mentioned above, but regardless of the settings of the knobs on the guitar, so unusable ...
but overall it is super efficient, I could not push my amp over 3 without connecting.

Boss has a pedal for every possible operation in music. They should be making a pedal that plays the guitar for you. Boss is like the iphone app store. When they say there's an app for that...well there is Boos pedal for that. They have effects pedals for just about anything and everything that you can think of and have done versions and new editions of a lot of those pedals. If you can't find something that you need I am almost sure Boss has a pedal for it.

This pedal is simply a noise gate. Not too much to talk about other than it limits the amount of noise one would experience in their guitar rig. The reason for a pedal like this is to give guitar players a limiter on how much noise they will experience in their signal chain. This pedal can be hooked up in two different ways. You can hook it up in your regular signal chain using the normal input and output and then you can hook it up in the effects loop of the pedal to act as if it is a kill switch.

UTILIZATION

Specifications

Controls: Threshold, Decay, 2-way Mode Switch
Connectors: Input, Output, Return, Send, 9V DC In, 9V DC Out
Current Draw: 20 mA (DC 9V)
Weight: 400 g (15 oz.)
Recommended AC Adaptor: PSA Series


SOUND QUALITY

This Boss pedal will limit the amount of noise you will have through your effects chain. This is for the guys who use a lot of distortion and possible some extra overdrive peals for high gain purposes. If you don't use high gain then you probably don't experience a lot of noise in your tone and signal chain. For those who do use a lot of gain and possibly some high output pickups would need something to tame all of that noise.If you play blues rock or a soft rock then you probably would never need a pedal like this.

I have found that a noise gate also helps when playing gigs in different places where they might not have good electrical outlets and you get some added noise. Possible the wiring is off and so extra noise is introduced into the line. A noise gate would help in that situation just to have in case you ever run into that problem.

This pedal can act like a kill switch. If you run all of your effect in the send and return of this pedal you can step on the foot pedal and shut off all the sound from your rig. You can also run it like its supposed to when it will shut down the noise form the rig. All you do is set the threshold and and decay to how much and how quickly it will shut off. You will need to switch that up as you see fit from room to room outlet to outlet.

OVERALL OPINION

At new you can find these pedals for right around $115, which isn't bad for this pedal. I would recommend everyone who regularly gigs to have one of these pedals because the noise from room to room will affect you rig each time and it can be needed if you have high gain in your tone.