Behringer Noise Reducer NR300 Effects Pedal

I bought the Behringer NR300 Noise Reducer and the Behringer CS400 Compressor Sustainer at the same time. (My comments are identical for both pedals.) For me, this pedal does a great job at 1/4 the price of the popular competing brand. My official rating is 4.5. I'm docking 0.5 point for the difficulty in replacing the battery (details later in this review). By all means, check the other reviews for their impressions of this effects pedal.I'd like to address some things I haven't seen in other reviews. Based on my experience, you MUST power this pedal with a FRESH 9V battery. And remember, batteries don't last forever. As the battery reaches the end of its useful life, you will begin to hear unpleasant distortions. That's the time to put in a new battery, or switch to a 9V adapter.Beware, though, that sound may be degraded if you power the pedal with a garden variety 9V adapter. I tried a random adapter that was lying around, and I got the same gravely sound as I did from a dying battery. My theory is that cheaper adapters may have significant amounts of AC coming through on top of the DC, and that AC can leak into the signal processing circuitry and affect the sound. Some AC on the DC is okay if you are a powering a lamp, but not if you want unadulterated sound coming from your guitar. So use only a high quality adapter. I use the Visual Sound One Spot Adapter, available here on Amazon. I can't detect any of the distortion I heard when using a dying battery or cheap adapter. Yes, the One Spot is more expensive than other adapters, but it's designed specifically to power effects pedals. While you're ordering the One Spot Adapter, get a Visual Sound One Spot Multi-Plug Cable so the adapter can power multiple effects pedals.There's another reason not to use batteries. You must remove the pedal from the base to get to the battery compartment. The pedal is very difficult to remove and replace. The pedal pivots on two spring-loaded pins that are an exact fit into the holes in the pedal. Removing the pedal is awkward, at best. When replacing the pedal, it's difficult to get the pins lined up with the holes. If I were regularly using batteries, I would chamfer the inside corners of the holes, or carefully drill out the holes to make them a few thousandths larger.One surprise was the battery connector. It's a hefty plastic unit, unlike the cheesy 9V connectors found on most products—you know, the kind that are wrapped in vinyl and feel like they will break when you are trying to pry them off the battery. Frankly, this is the first product I've encountered with a high quality 9V battery connector.

First time using a noise gate. Heavy distortion and being close to my amp squeals were becoming unbearable. This pedal calms them down, with no need to spend big dollars for a pedal. If I was giggling, I may want a metal body, but for me at home, it works great. Buy it!

Does it’s job well in between playing. It would work best probably on stage in between songs while the band is getting ready to play the next song. If that makes sense. It also serves as a killswitch on the ”Mute” setting, which is a nice addition. So, here’s the deal. I mainly play hard rock and metal, for other styles I play doesn’t need a noise gate (cleans mainly, whether it’s some jazzy licks or funky chords). The metal has lots of percussive licks with frequent pauses. It does a good job of gating fast enough during these immediate stops, but I find with the decay set far enough to minimum for it to eliminate noise as soon as I stop playing, it does suck some tone. However, not everyone will be using this pedal for those purposes and it otherwise works nicely with other styles of music. Another thing to consider is, I have not used many noise gates in my 10-15 years of playing guitar, so this one may work just like the rest of most of the gates available today. I have however found a little sweet spot that is right where it needs to be to not cut my notes off too soon and not suck too much tone. You just have to play with it a little and have some patience. I started with both knobs right in the middle, turned one all the way up and then both all the way up and down, just to get a feel for exactly what both controls do. I ended up with the threshold around 2 o’clock and the decay around 9 or 10 o’clock. I am pretty satisfied with those settings. I have not used the send/return jacks as I have pedals already in my amps fx loop. My chain consists of: Guitar > tuner > noise gate > overdrive > Amp, FX Loop Send10 Band EQ > Delay > Chorus > Fx Loop Return. The quality of the pedal seems as if it will be fine, even though it’s plastic. It’s fairly hard plastic and has a silent switch, like a Boss does. I don’t think it could endure years on the road like a Boss, considering it has a metal enclosure. You get a nice trade off with the Behringer though, I would much rather spend 25 bucks on one of these and get the value. I’ve also used the compressor and it works great. It’s just a great time for guitarist and bassist to purchase pedals. I say the value is there for these pedals. I originally really wanted the TCE Sentry or the EHX Silencer, but I thought I must test this first since it’s far cheaper. For now, I will be keeping this pedal as my main noise gate, but I plan on getting the Sentry sometime down the road as it caters more to the needs of a metal guitarist. If money isn’t an issue for you and you play similar styles of music, take a look at the TCE Sentry, ISP Decimator & G Strong, MXR Smartgate and EHX Silencer, to name a few. All of the other Behringer pedals are worth a look, IMO and provide tremendous value. If this pedal was more than 50 bucks, I’d go 3 stars. For 25, you can’t beat what any of the Behringer line has to offer. 4 stars. I hope this review was helpful to some.Thanks