So where do these go?

sted

Got a few new pedals en route and wondering about the best placement. First up is an NS2, it's git a loop on it for drives but I only use one or two OD with the EVH so in the amps FX loop? I'm also running a delay, vibe and flanger, normally I'd front end these but thinking they should go in the loop but would the NS2 affect these if that was in the loop?

John_P

I use a decimator as a gate and I'm not sure about how your mod and delay pedals will handle the levels of the evh fx loop...   but I would would all of them apart from the drive pedals in the loop -  gate, vibe, flanger then delay.  The ns2 will should clean up some noise before the effects.   Maybe the loop in the ns2 could have the evh preamp in it - more complicated wiring but might be more effective.

steamabacus

I've had an NS-2 for a few years. I'm using it in front of the amp with clean boost, 3 drive pedals and a phaser in the NS-2's loop. It handles the phaser fine so you should be ok with the vibe and flanger in its loop but the delay will have to go outside the NS-2's loop or it will interfere with the delay trails.

I can see two ways you could use it, depending on whether the delay is in the amp's fx loop or not.

A)  Gtr > NS-2(in) > NS-2(send) > Drives/Vibe/Flanger > NS-2(return) > NS-2(out) > Delay > Amp(in)

This is your basic 'in front of the amp' method and will not reduce the levels of noise from your amp's preamp/drive channel.

Alternatively, you could include the amp's preamp in the NS-2's loop if you have the Delay in the amp's fx loop.

  Gtr > NS-2(in) > NS-2(send) > Drives/Vibe/Flanger > Amp(in) > Amp(fx send) > NS-2(return) > NS-2(out) > Delay > Amp(fx return)

This will cut the noise from both your drive/modulation pedals and your amps preamp gain.

The only problems may be if your amp's effects send levels are too high, both for the delay (as @John_P said) and also for the NS-2 itself. On my board I have a clean boost in the NS-2's loop - if I crank this up full and hit the guitar hard (this does give a level about 10x louder than my highest gain sounds, though) there is some clipping in the NS-2 (probably overdriving the return buffer). That is a pretty high signal level, though - you may be ok with the amp's fx loop, especially if it's got a send level.

I've found the NS-2 to be excellent when used correctly with the noisy pedals in the NS-2 loop. It tracks the guitar dynamics really well and doesn't interfere noticeably with sustain. I have the 'decay' set at minimum and the 'threshhold' set at just below half way which opens the gate with the lightest touch of a string but closes when the guitar is gently muted. I noticed a very slight reduction in top end 'air' but this was outweighed by the vastly reduced noise fron my stacked overdrives and boosts. And no constant phaser 'swooshing' when not playing with the phaser switched on.

Hope this helps.

sted

Monster post that mate, cheers!

Dave_Mc

I found the ns2 did jack with my amp noise unless I ran it like that.

Slightly annoying that I didn't find out about that before I bought a decimator >:D< I still think the decimator is a little better, but yeah.

sted

Crikey, I was just going to put it in front of my pedals as well!

Dave_Mc

LOL

It's less complicated than it looks (though I'd always need the sheet in front of me to help me set it up as it's not exactly terribly intuitive).

But yeah as I said, I found it didn't work well at all for amp noise unless I ran it like that. The other big advantage of running it like that is that you can kill noise both in front of the amp (guitar and pedal noise) and preamp noise as well (high gain hiss) at the same time.

steamabacus

It does take a bit of head scratching to get a handle on it.   ~X(

The best way of thinking about it is ...
            it reduces the noise of anything that's in the NS-2 loop
but    it tracks whether a note is being played or not (and applies the noise gate/reduction) from the signal at the ns-2 input

If it was simply placed after the noise producing effects (like a conventional noise gate), it couldn't detect anything played quieter than the level of the noise (as it would be obscured by that noise).

I wouldn't like to set up method B above from scratch at every gig, though. It would save a load of time if you had a pedalboard set up with a pre-wired input/output box (Guitar in/ Send / Return / Board out) - basically a '4-cable' method with your effects board.

guitarfishbay

4cm isn't difficult if you visualise how the signal flow works. One good tip is to buy a multi pack of coloured tape and colour code mark things in a way you'll remember.