Shhhh!

I'm kind of going through a BOSS renaissance moment. This is my second NS-2, the first one was a very frustrating episode that took place in the late 90s. I bought it in the hope of checking my then set up which consisted of an unearthed Fender Bullet amp, a Zoom 505 & a BOSS Metal Zone (MT-2). The background hum was terrible, the amp was largely to blame for that plus the fact that the aforementioned Zoom multi-effects pedal was powered by a 2-pin adaptor which extended the noise annoyance further. I enjoyed playing through this set up though, just that the extraneous noise needed to be tamed. 

Enter the NS-2 which, to my dismay, added to the noise factor. OK so it did kill the earth-related noise issue to a good degree but introduced another form of humming which was more tolerable but what the heck! The label said it's supposed to contain the noise altogether but there's a trace amount of humming still going on. I tried switching to battery power for a while but the noise was still there. The irony of buying something to address an issue which turned out to be an issue itself. So I got rid of my first NS-2, sold it to someone who is electronics-savvy & told me he could fix it & designated it for his personal use. I sold it for peanuts & moved away from the idea of having a noise gate unit of the pedal kind till the turn of the century where more choices were available in the stores & the fact that cyberspace information was there to school me in on signal-related noise management. 

So today, I have with me, my second NS-2 which I hope to be keeping for old time's sake. I have plans to acquire a few more BOSS pedals because these were the standard to beat in the stomp box realm for a long time & they still maintain this reputation of sounding great & lasting till the very end.