Tools for the Task: Noise Gate Pedals

Hiss, hum, or buzz getting you down? Rather than kicking in a speaker, add a noise-gate pedal to your rig and clean that unwanted sonic junk from your signal chain. Here are 10 boxes to consider.

BOSS

NS-2
This pedal’s circuit preserves the natural attack and envelope of an instrument’s sound, while its threshold and decay controls allow for shaping the elimination/suppression as desired.
$99 street
boss.info  

ISP TECHNOLOGIES

Decimator II This noise gate features the company’s Linearized Time Vector Processing, designed to provide smooth sustained-note decay that’s virtually free of any release ripple.
$134 street
isptechnologies.com  

DONNER

Noise Killer
Featuring both hard and soft modes of noise reduction, this mini-format pedal has a noise-reduction degree range of -70 dB to +10 dB.
$37 street
donnerdeal.com  

ELECTRO-HARMONIX

Silencer
Housing three controls for precise fine-tuning, this pedal delivers up to -70 dB of noise reduction and a release time of 8 ms to 4 seconds.
$69 street
ehx.com  

MXR

Noise Clamp
Promising to come down hard on the noisiest of signals, this pedal’s lone trigger dial allows players to set the volume threshold at which the pedal is active.
$89 street
jimdunlop.com

---

TC ELECTRONIC

Sentry
The multi-band technology in this TonePrint-enabled pedal focuses on very specific frequencies to reduce noise without compromising core tone.
$129 street
tcelectronic.com  

ROCKTRON

MicroHUSH
This true-bypass mini noise-gate pedal is designed to wipe out hiss, unwanted feedback, and pickup buzz by providing up to 65 dB of signal clean-up, while maintaining signal integrity.
$119 street
rocktron.com  

PIGTRONIX

Gate Keeper
This micro-format pedal uses high-speed JFET circuitry to eliminate non-musical sounds, allowing players to crank the volume without worry, even on most high-gain rigs.
$99 street
pigtronix.com  

RANDALL

Bloq
This stealthy noise-gate pedal houses a single control for threshold and switchable input sensitivity for loop or front-end application.
$129 street
randallamplifiers.com  

CARL MARTIN

Noise Terminator
Unlike conventional noise gates, this pedal allows a player to switch between two threshold settings: soft for less noisy equipment and hard for when more radical settings are needed.
$166 street
carlmartin.com

---