How to quiet those pedals?

[Radioboy950]

This may sound goofy, but here goes...
I've never been much of a pedal player/collector. A T'screamer and/or Chorus for color always met most of my needs, without too much unwanted noise, hiss & general tone-sucking.
Some of you fretters have amassed an impressive collection of stompers in your pedal boards (I have pictures:D)
How do you configure these monsters so that you not being robbed of good clean tone?

[Tone2TheBone]

This may sound goofy, but here goes...
I've never been much of a pedal player/collector. A T'screamer and/or Chorus for color always met most of my needs, without too much unwanted noise, hiss & general tone-sucking.
Some of you fretters have amassed an impressive collection of stompers in your pedal boards (I have pictures:D)
How do you configure these monsters so that you not being robbed of good clean tone?


You live with it. J/K. Using good quality cables (6 inchers) between the pedals and for those hard to reach and bend inputs and outputs use the shortest possible...again good quality. Experiementing with the placement of your pedals helps too and finally using a noise reduction system such as the Boss NS-2 Noise Suppressor or MXR Smart Gate will silent all the hum and buzz and hiss your pedals and guitar pick up. You can also get yourself a true bypass loop switcher which you can put all your tone sucking pedals through that loop alone...and then be able to bypass those pedals when you don't want them on. I built me one just for that purpose.

[Dreadman]

I'll second the recommendation of the Boss NS-2. Great noise suppressor.

[sunvalleylaw]

I'll second the recommendation of the Boss NS-2. Great noise suppressor.


+1 Works for this non-technical newb.

[just strum]

From another newb, what sort of sound/noise are you guys referring to?

[sunvalleylaw]

For me, it is single coil hiss and hum that generally is more present as I add more distortion/fuzz/overdrive effects.

[just strum]

Hmm, I wonder if that would work for my looper? Although I have found that turning the output down to about 20 to 25w reduces it dramatically.

[sunvalleylaw]

I have not used my Boss looper in the NS-2 loop yet. I will see if I can remember to try it this weekend.

[Skittles]

I heard if you use rechargeable battery's instead of adapters for power it helps quell the noise. But that seems like too much hassle. Boss pedals burn through 9v's. I had one in my super octave, and it lasted about a hour. I don't even know why they give you the option:D Noise gate will help. One of my amps has it built in.

[Skittles]

Ok I found my guitar world that tells you how to do this.

In order
Effects pedals <--> compressors/sustain pedals,<--> then drive (gain)pedals

BTW what is a synh pedal considered, Anybody know:confused:

[ZMAN]

I fought this problem for years. I absolutely hate any kind of humm or noise. After a lot of research I came up with the following solution. Buy a pedal board with a conditioned power supply. A lot of the noise comes from 9 dollar wall warts, and power bars. I plug directly into the wall and then into the Furman board. That is only half of the solution. The other is to buy good quality true bypass pedals. I found the Fulltone pedals to be rock solid and absolutley dead quiet whether on or off. I also buy fully shielded guitars. I have a Mini Deja vibe, OCD, Fulldrive II, Fatboost. The noisiest pedal on my board is the SD1 but I use that for a little dirt, and I will be replacing my Original Cry Baby Wah with a Clyde deluxe this summer.
I know I will hear a lot of people who say they can't afford these pedals but I am firm believer in "buy the best you can afford and buy it ONCE" I have a cupboard full of BD2, Zoom, Tubescreamer, Dod blues, Danelctro. When I plugged them it the noise just gets louder and louder when I turn each on individually. I get none of that with my current set up. If you take the total you spend on trying every 75 dollar pedal out there and just buy a really good quality one it will be about the same price in the long run. Hell I have a couple of hundred bucks worth of wall warts!