If you put this in the effects loop of your amp (if your amp is so equipped), it will not only reduce the amount of noise coming from your guitar and "front of rig" pedals, but will also cut down the level of "hiss" that your preamp generates on its own. I use this pedal in the effects loop of my B-52 AT-100 head, along with a Danelectro Fish-N-Chips EQ pedal, placing the Hush last in the chain. This setup is wonderous and never fails. If you put this pedal in chain with your guitar, the result is much less apparent. Overall, I'm very satsified with both the build quality and features of this pedal. It is very simple in that it only has one knob to adjust the desired amount of noise reduction, but, it's very easy to "dial in" that perfect amount. Highly recommended, great value!

My Fender Jazz bass with one pickup soloed can be very noisy in certain venues. I needed something to reduce the noise when playing (i.e., not just a gate). When combined with some modest EQ changes on the amp, the Rocktron dramatically reduces -- but not eliminate -- the noise. As far as coloring the effected tone goes, it's fairly minimal -- I expect it would be really hard to hear in a live playing situation. Overall, an impressive product.

I like this pedal. I haven't owned expensive noise reduction units or even used any. I needed a good cheap one. this does the job for my mesa boogie which gets a lot of feedback wen using the Ibanez tube screamer. This pedal does the job while affection my tone very little. When using it I can tell it compresses my tone a little bit but its a trade off. It just makes my sound a little tighter. That's ok with me. Good for its price I would say. I recommend it if your on a budget like me. I'm sure there far better pedals or racks but I have no complaints.

I just got an old dual channel Hush pedal. I think it's better than Gate pedals. The Hush pedal sucks the noise out even while you're playing, which gave my tone a nice boost. Gate pedals only take out the noise while you're not playing plus they mess up your sustain and cut notes out early. I run a Schecter Damien through a Digitech Hot Rod, Digitech Metal Master, DOD FX40 EQ, and I put the Hush pedal last in the chain. My EMG pickups and Dimarzio cables are quiet, so putting the Hush first in the chain didn't really do anything. I use it at the end to get rid of the massive noise created by my high gain distortion pedals. It did affect my tone a bit, but nothing my EQ pedal couldn't fix.

I see a lot of people knocking not just this noise suppressor/gate, but a lot of them...mostly based on poor knowledge of how to use one. I tried on of these out and based on my experience with it, I'm ordering one. Previously, I have been a long-time Boss NS-2 user.

The way to use one of these with a high gain rig is to make it the first thing in your signal chain. This allows you to set it with the least amount of suppression/gating to just kill hum, hiss, and unwanted string noise from finger sliding for example. Next in your chain, run your compressor, then into a preamp or whatever else. Most people complaining about this pedal probably run it last in their chain, after they have increased the gain and signal degradation with other effects and made the noises and hiss and hum harder to eliminate. If your hiss is run through a distortion or fuzz, now your gate must work harder to remove the actual hum or hiss because it has been increased in gain and the wave form is more distorted.

Put it first! You will be able to use lighter settings! Now, if your using incredibly high gain settings (I play industrial and love high gain, percussive tones/sounds myself), the way to tighten your sound is use a SECOND noise suppressor (again, with lighter settings) either at the end of your chain--or at least post distortion--just to tighten up sound decay really.

My chain goes noise gate, compressor, tube preamp, distortion pedal and into my amp...a digital modeling amp which has a built in noise gate and compressor of its own. My noise gate at the start of my chain does far less work than if it were at the end of the chain. Most of the time, I don't even need to use the one on my amp, just use its compressor to tighten things up.

The trick is to kill unwanted noise at the start so that the only noises that get to your distortion pedal and amp in the first place are the things you want heard...not the hum from lights or your fingers sliding on strings. Don't want to lose tone? Buy this pedal...and use it first in your chain. As soon as mine comes in, it will be the noise suppressor of choice in my pedal board! Works fantastic and it doesn't kill tone at all. Besides, if you need to, running your signal into an EQ or preamp from your gate will butter up your tone. Little tube home recording preamps work great for this even on your pedal board.