Recently I've been investigating getting a couple of pedals to perfect my sound, after a couple of weeks of indecision I've settled on these three:

-ISP Decimator
-MXR M-108 ten band eq
-Tech21 Boost R.V.B.

Problem is when I added up their respective costs I'm looking at nearly £300, especially as all of them are fairly hard to come by on eBay. Anyone else had the same, you know thinking 'well just a couple of pedals to tweak my sound' and then you end up having to spend equal to buying another guitar....... The only other thing I might do is change the MXR for a Danelectro Fish and Chips EQ, but I really like the durability and added sculpting potential of the MXR. Any suggestions on places to get these from a bit cheaper?

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Why not just get a Boss NS2 instead of the ISP? It's great too and far more common + cheaper.

I buy all my shit from Thomann.de

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i've never tried the dan electro eq thing, but i do have the MXR and it's great i'd definatly wait to find it on ebay

I think the ISP shits all over the Boss. I have an ISP and the other gutiarist in my band uses a Boss. The boss can hardly take much of the hiss out of a Laney VH 100 on OD with the gain boost ... while the ISP keeps it whisper quiet.

Could be because the Boss is a few years old, but I just don't like it as much as I do the ISP.

In all fairness to the Boss, the Laney VH100R is an EXTREMELY noisy amp. My other guitar player uses one and wee need to do something about the hiss...

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Or he could just be setting up the threshold and decay controls wrong. Or he's not using it in the FX loop, where it works best. My Boss never had any problems killing any and all signal with the amps I've played it through... always in the FX loop.

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I have spend ages looking through reviews and threads on Harmony Central and the ISP just seems to be the better option. I have a real thing about clarity and sharpness of tone, and the Boss always seems to have problems with tone suck or gain suck. Yeah and I'd be getting some stuff from Thomann.de too, good price on the MXR and Tech 21. I'd rather do it all right first time...

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Tone suck my ass. An extra 50$ is gonna make any substantial difference with the noisegate, unless you get the Decimator Pro. Ask dislexic, he has both. Boss NS2's are the standard and the most commonly used gates out there.

Noise gates have absolutely NO effect on tone, and Boss pedals by far do not, unless you're talking about modulation effects. All they do is cut off the signal when it drops below a certain strength(the Threshold knob) just before any humming/feedback kicks in, it is not an effect pedal, it's a gate so it leaves your tone untouched.

Always always use high quality cables, they're the biggest contribution to tone suck.

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Hmm ok, maybe I should go read some more about them, not that I don't trust your opinion but I guess depending on amp/ guitar etc the results may vary. It would be a lot cheaper to get the NS-2! I'm looking at £85 minimum for the ISP before shipping.

EDIT: Hmm just by looking at the first page of the NS-2 reviews (HC) there are a lot of negative things being said about tone sucking and gain loss. It may be that these people aren't dialing it in right, but I have no way of knowing. I've already been through a load of pedals recently and I can't be assed to do more buying and selling just to test it out.

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im guna have to disagree with you on this one bud. I can hear a noticable difference through pretty much every boss pedal i've tried when its disengaged. The worst tone suck i've found was in the pedal tuner and my hm-2... and then next on the list is my dd6, the megadistortion, and after that the mt-2. They use spdt switching, so the effect is always in the circuit which lowers the input impedance like mad... the tone is quite readily eaten. Im a huge fan of tr00 bypass... my buddy's big muff pi sounds like its not even there when its off... its like a dream.

But then again, you can compensate for any tone suck by increasing your volume pot impedance. Just imagine each effect as if its another 2' of cable or so. My guitar sounds lovely through 12 footer cable with its 250k pots, but since i upgraded to a 20 footer, im upgrading the pots too.

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Ok, but those are modulation/distortion effect pedals, those are digital and can make the tone suffer with that AD conversion, I'm talking about the noisegate(and the EQ would also fall into this category). No noisegate will make any difference to sound, less you're using a cheap unit that's prone to hiss and stuff. And I believe the NS2 has true bypass, but the rest of my effect pedals don't, I don't notice any degradation in tone with any of em disengaged even with my cheapo EQ pedal in the loop.

And btw, my DD-3 kicks monstrous ass and leaves my tone unscathed, it's transparent as any effect can ever be, I have no clue what you're talking about. And I hear NO difference when it's disengaged in my loop or not even in it, if you do, then you should take a look at the quality of your patch cables(and guitar cables too).

Keep in mind that a lot of reviewers at HC are total fatheads. There is * no * alteration * of * tone with a noisegate. You don't lose any "gain", just a bit of sustain if you dial it in improperly(but not enough to actually care about) because it cuts off too soon.

Edit:

Btw, if you DO have the money then buying the ISP isn't a BAD decision per se, I'm sure they're great but I'm not sure if they're worth the extra cash... except for the cool chrome metal casing. I just figured you'd rather save a bit on something that won't influence your tone at all(NS2), and use the remainder to spend on a better EQ pedal(MXR 10-band). Btw MXR's all have true bypass I think, my EVH Phase 90 does..

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