DIY Noise Suppressors

[EATyourGuitar]

don't take offense cause I speak the truth. 99% of guitar players would rather buy a pedal than open a book and read about proper shielding, impedance, proper grounding, grounding safety, low capacitance cables, non microphonic cables, signal to noise ratio, nominal level, etc... I saw one person that said anything to this affect. yes shield your strat, please. if your using a crappy guitar cable, and most guitar players do, get a good one. if its cheaper than $40 for a 15ft than its probably not what you want on a $800 guitar. I will kick it too you like this, a guitar with no noise problem and no noise supresser will always, always sound better than a noisy guitar with a couple noise supressors thrown in the chain. every electrical component adds noise. so for every step forward, you take a step back. although the gentlemen was right that high gain pedals raise your noise floor. so I can see why putting right after the guitar makes sense. also, the sidechaining question depends on what noise your trying to filter out. if you plan to only use the pedal in the usa you can target the 60hz band with a bandpass filter or notch filter. depending on how complicated you want it to be. like you can isolate your 60hz signal and invert it with an inverting opamp, then mix it into the guitar signal. the 180 degree out of phase 60hz signal cancels out the one your hearing. I would not buy a pedal but if you must, the ISP decimator has a setting for 60hz.

[anchovie]

Maybe having the addition of that extra filtering would help out for this kind of issue as a DIY project purchase.

If you have a player's need for this, save yourself a big headache.

[Steve Mavronis]

If you have a player's need for this, save yourself a big headache.

It's not a super big deal just an annoyance I'm living with. Except for the time and effort to make a DIY pedal, I'd end up spending $50 instead of $110 for a new one and there is a certain personal satisfaction ending up with a working DIY project you've built yourself. That's the real fun part that makes all the trouble worth it. I'm just curious and glad you guys are throwing in your ideas and suggestions to help understand the nature of the problem. Re-thinking an issue is always a good thing because you learn and gain experience.

Actually this is an idea for a possible future project. I need to finish my current compressor clone first and I probably should build myself a small pedalboard next anyways.

[Ben N]

FYI, Steve, what Boss refers to as an "Effects Loop" in its noise suppressor pedals is really something else: a side-chain controlled gate. The idea is that, as noted above, it can get tricky trying to set a threshold level for the gate that both stops hiss and lets low level signals pass, since the noise floor is often as high as your signal tails. If you set the threshold at the level of the noise floor, you lose the signal tails; if you set it lower, you accomplish nothing. What the Bosses do is track your signal before your fx add all that extra content (aka hiss). Assuming there is no hum and your pre-effects signal is pristine and noiseless (not a small assumption for single coils, to be sure), if you use the pre-effects signal to trigger the gate, you can set the gating threshold low enough to let (nearly) all of your signal through. However, you apply the gating effect after your noisy effects. You don't have to use it, but it does make the pedal a bit more effective, although it doesn't quite cure the ways in which noise suppressors endemically mess with your signal.
If you were to look at an NS-2 schematic, the "input" feeds a buffered splitter. Half of the splitter's output goes to the envelope follower, and the other half goes to the Send jack. All if the actual noise suppression takes place between the Return jack and the output.
If you wanted to use an NS-2 for hum suppression, you would do it without the fx loop. I don't know how well that would work, though. If you wanted to filter the envelope signal, you could use an external buffer-splitter to feed your filtered sidechain signal to the main input (which is really the sidechain) and your main signal to the Return jack.

[Steve Mavronis]

Thanks Ben. I do use the effects loop currently:



Let me experiment without the loop just in case. Actually Yngwie doesn't use the loop feature at least according to another video where he shows how it kills the hum.

I don't want to build a DIY pedal if I'd just end up with the same result or something worse.

[deadastronaut]

yeah! lets all have clean guitars instead...

[EATyourGuitar]

yeah! lets all have clean guitars instead...

do you know what white noise sounds like? do you know what it sounds like to have all your pick attack swallowed up by high capacitance cables? you always hear guitar players with nice equipment talk about "tone". well thats all it is. low capacitance, good frequency response, good signal to noise ratio. there is a big difference in adding even order harmonics or saturation to a signal and just flooding it with white noise. any distortion pedal can be broken down into simple science. its just a combination of EQ's, Compressors, more EQ's, wave shaping/wave folding.more EQ's. thats all it is. when you achieve that without the whitenoise and 60 cycle hum, you have your "tone". I'm not saying you have to play clean. thats just ignorant. famous people have paid guitar techs. if your not famous then maybe you should want to learn this stuff and do it your self the right way.

[deadastronaut]

yeah! lets all have clean guitars instead...

do you know what white noise sounds like? do you know what it sounds like to have all your pick attack swallowed up by high capacitance cables? you always hear guitar players with nice equipment talk about "tone". well thats all it is. low capacitance, good frequency response, good signal to noise ratio. there is a big difference in adding even order harmonics or saturation to a signal and just flooding it with white noise. any distortion pedal can be broken down into simple science. its just a combination of EQ's, Compressors, more EQ's, wave shaping/wave folding.more EQ's. thats all it is. when you achieve that without the whitenoise and 60 cycle hum, you have your "tone". I'm not saying you have to play clean. thats just ignorant. famous people have paid guitar techs. if your not famous then maybe you should want to learn this stuff and do it your self the right way.

whooaah..back up there!.before you call me ignorant... maybe you should read the thread again ... that wasn't aimed at you...steve said it ok.......
now take your time and learn to read/aim.before you fire ok...or do you have to be famous to read as well?...........

[deadastronaut]

Yes they are noisey in that they gain amplify everything going through them, your guitar signal and any 60 cycle hum and pickups or anything else before them, etc. The point is the noise "fades" back into the signal from the NS2 with a sizzle effect. Before that, for a moment, it's a nice "noise reduced" 741 overdrive sound. The 741 is amplifying the noise not being filtered out going into it. I know there are many who say the 741 has been around too long and there are better modern op amps. So why clone vintage pedals at all? Because with all its issues the modern stuff just doesn't capture the so-called grail tone based on days of old that we are after. Do you know any distortion pedal (or amp?) that doesn't amplify noise as you increase the gain? I get the same noise suppressor annoyance with other dirt pedals like the DOD YJM308, Boss DS1, and the old Ross R50 Distortion - none of them use a 741 op amp. So it's not purely a "741 issue" or let's all play clean amp tones or acoustic guitar and not use any noise suppressor at all. I find it interesting though that even the 70's/80's MXR Noise Gate used two 741's in it's circuit.

ok?....

[Mark Hammer]

FYI, Steve, what Boss refers to as an "Effects Loop" in its noise suppressor pedals is really something else: a side-chain controlled gate. The idea is that, as noted above, it can get tricky trying to set a threshold level for the gate that both stops hiss and lets low level signals pass, since the noise floor is often as high as your signal tails. If you set the threshold at the level of the noise floor, you lose the signal tails; if you set it lower, you accomplish nothing. What the Bosses do is track your signal before your fx add all that extra content (aka hiss). Assuming there is no hum and your pre-effects signal is pristine and noiseless (not a small assumption for single coils, to be sure), if you use the pre-effects signal to trigger the gate, you can set the gating threshold low enough to let (nearly) all of your signal through. However, you apply the gating effect after your noisy effects. You don't have to use it, but it does make the pedal a bit more effective, although it doesn't quite cure the ways in which noise suppressors endemically mess with your signal.
If you were to look at an NS-2 schematic, the "input" feeds a buffered splitter. Half of the splitter's output goes to the envelope follower, and the other half goes to the Send jack. All if the actual noise suppression takes place between the Return jack and the output.
If you wanted to use an NS-2 for hum suppression, you would do it without the fx loop. I don't know how well that would work, though. If you wanted to filter the envelope signal, you could use an external buffer-splitter to feed your filtered sidechain signal to the main input (which is really the sidechain) and your main signal to the Return jack.

Just to clarify, ALL noise gates have a "sidechain", with differences in their complexity, and how the envelope information is extracted and applied.  Where they often differ is in where that sidechain ends up doing the detecting, and where it is being applied.

The nice thing about the NS-2 and similar kinds of pedals with a send/return loop is that the envelope information can be extacted from one place, and applied at another.

Why is this good?  Well, for one thing, since all such devices use the amplitude information to differentiate between wanted and unwanted signal, it helps immensely, with respect to precision and reliability, if that amplitude information is obtained at the junction where the difference between guitar signal and noise is greatest.  As the signal passes through subsequent pedals, these will often impose some compression and restriction of dynamic range.  Meanwhile, the noise level gradually gets added to, and the difference between the noise and the signal (particularly the decay phase where the difference between those last few breaths of the string and the noise is small) gets smaller.  It becomes harder to dial in the "right" threshold point where the gate needs to kick in.

By situating the detection part of the pedal (the sidechain) at the start where distinguishing signal from noise is easiest, and applying that sidechain information later in the chain (where theaccumulated noise poses greater risk), the noise-reduction action can be made more effective.

At least more effective from the perspective of using one pedal.

[Fuzz Aldryn]

[...] if its cheaper than $40 for a 15ft than its probably not what you want on a $800 guitar. I will kick it too you like this, a guitar with no

Nonesense! If somebody offers you a good quality cable for more than 40 bucks he's probably a thief! I totally agree with the fact of using good quality cables but not with the prices you mention here. That's something you can probably propagate on the gear page forum where most of the people can't  handle a solderiron but not here!

[Steve Mavronis]

Do you know any distortion pedal (or amp?) that doesn't amplify noise as you increase the gain? I get the same noise suppressor annoyance with other dirt pedals like the DOD YJM308, Boss DS1, and the old Ross R50 Distortion - none of them use a 741 op amp. So it's not purely a "741 issue" or let's all play clean amp tones or acoustic guitar and not use any noise suppressor at all.

ok?....

That "bolded" phrase, but also including the beginning of the sentence it is in, was meant as sarcasm response to your slamming a 741 based dirt pedal as the main cause of the white noise hiss or hum that I'm getting. I was thinking like I might as well give up rock guitar and go acoustic if that were really true!

Cable-wise I'm using Ibanez Series DS Low Noise Cables and a Fender low noise cable long enough for the effects loop return. Half my issue is probably the stock standard strat single coil pickups. I can cut the noise by using the in-between 2 and 4 pickup selection with the switch. Positions 1, 3, and 5 are noisey.

[EATyourGuitar]

ok?....

my apolagies, I thought you were mocking me since it was right under my post.

and yes you can make your own neutrik + mogami or neutrik + evidence. but who wants to go through all that for one cable. I paid $18 for a $55 mogami and it still has the lifetime guarantee. only because I worked at that horrible horrible place that starts with a G and a C. I agree that the cables aren't worth it at a retail store but there isn't much alternative if you want that exact mogami cable.

[Gordo]

Steve, I think you may find it's a combination of all the above answers.  Because I'm hopelessly addicted to building pedals I tend to tailor my board to the tunes I'm playing or the amp rig.  The one consistent pedal that's helped though is the single knob Decimator.  I'd be the last one to tell you to BUY a pedal rather than MAKE one but I think the ISP technology is beyond our scope.  Shielding your strat will help, but marginally.  I use a few single coil guitars and I get used to riding the volume or kicking out a noisy pedal between tunes.  Once the band is playing it's a moot point unless the noise is REALLY loud.  The decimator doesn't seem to bugger up my tone (I do a pretty good job of that myself), and you don't get the noticeable fluttering decay that most gates have.  I seem to recall the MXR original white one was the worst.  I gave up on my Tonepad version.

[Steve Mavronis]

Thanks all and sorry for any misunderstandings. I'm going to re-evaluate my setup because maybe I'm nitpicking over nothing to be concerned about. I'm not in a band and I just practice at home so maybe I'm noticing too much by listening to every nuiance.

[deadastronaut]

Do you know any distortion pedal (or amp?) that doesn't amplify noise as you increase the gain? I get the same noise suppressor annoyance with other dirt pedals like the DOD YJM308, Boss DS1, and the old Ross R50 Distortion - none of them use a 741 op amp. So it's not purely a "741 issue" or let's all play clean amp tones or acoustic guitar and not use any noise suppressor at all.

ok?....

That "bolded" phrase, but also including the beginning of the sentence it is in, was meant as sarcasm response to your slamming a 741 based dirt pedal as the main cause of the white noise hiss or hum that I'm getting. I was thinking like I might as well give up rock guitar and go acoustic if that were really true!

Cable-wise I'm using Ibanez Series DS Low Noise Cables and a Fender low noise cable long enough for the effects loop return. Half my issue is probably the stock standard strat single coil pickups. I can cut the noise by using the in-between 2 and 4 pickup selection with the switch. Positions 1, 3, and 5 are noisey.

@eatyourguitar..no worries dude!.

@steve, hold on , so was mine..thats why i had a wink/laugh on it ok.....
im not bent on slamming anything, i was just saying that's what ive read, and there is plenty of info to confirm this
obviously your very precious about it, which is understandable,considering the amount of precise work you put in to copy/improve
it, .
i didnt design the 741....or the noise suppressor...im not hear to criticise any pedal, just thought id throw my 2p worth in...
(which is obviously not welcome)..
good luck and hope you get the answers you need/want ok. 
all the best. rob.........

[Steve Mavronis]

No problem, your comments are always welcome. Lots of winkies today but all in fun

[deadastronaut]

ok  heres one more then for ya ok...

[merlinb]

Most commercial pedals -and practically all DIY pedals- are atrociously noisy. Real audio engineers would faint (or laugh) if they saw the circuits. No one seems to notice though, until you start string 5-10 of them in series, at which point you end up needing a noise gate.
If people designed pedals properly to have less series resistance throughout the circuit, high input impedance, low output impedance, FET opamps etc. then noise reduction would rarely be required.

[Mark Hammer]

"Noise" = everything that is not my guitar signal the way I want it.

In that sense, it is a bit like "foreigners", and subsumes many different forms and origins.  Expecting "noise" to be tamed in total at one locus makes as much sense as having a translator for one single language at all airport immigration sites and all courts and other public services.

Yes, decent shielding, hum-rejecting pickups, "better" components, and such are all part of it, but so are other things (e.g., BBD clock noise, digital heterodyning, charge pump whine, ground loops, etc.) .  I will maintain to my dying day that, if we are working in the analog domain, NOTHING inserted at one point in the signal path is going to be able to tackle everything that counts as "noise", and any claims of single solutions are sheer folly.