Stone Deaf Debuts the Noise Reaper

March 16, 2020 · 6 sources

Stone Deaf FX, the pedal maker based in Manchester, UK, released the Noise Reaper, a professional noise gate pedal designed to clean up hiss and hum in a player's signal chain¹. The company described it as a "Professional Noise Gate Pedal" built to "clean up your tone"².

A noise gate mutes the signal when you stop playing, so amp hum, pedal hiss and other unwanted noise disappear in the gaps between notes. The Noise Reaper centers around a single oversized threshold knob that controls how much the gate opens to allow dynamics through³. According to the manufacturer, it has "an incredibly fast and responsive gate function" that sustains notes or modulation repeats without choking or over-gating¹.

The pedal evolved from the gate circuits Stone Deaf FX had already used in its Warp Drive and Fig Fumb pedals³. Its published specifications included:

• THD: 0.03%³
• Dynamic range: 120dB³
• Output noise: 0% or -98dB³
• Power: 9V center negative¹

When active, the pedal's noise level was rated at -98dB⁴.

The Noise Reaper also offered a Double Up mode, which requires a second Noise Reaper. Chaining the two pedals together doubles the dynamic range of the gate, with each pedal operating in Pedal and Series FX Loop modes respectively⁴³.

The pedal was priced at $160 in the US, £150 in the UK and €162 in the EU⁵. No Treble reported that it would be available soon at a $160 street price³.

Guitar World noted that the company had unveiled the Noise Reaper as its professional noise gate, adding to a lineup that already included filter, distortion and delay pedals⁶.