Rocktron Guitar Silencer

The Rocktron Guitar Silencer is a noise gate and noise reduction stomp box from Rocktron, part of the company's Boutique Series of pedals. It combines two kinds of noise control in one box: a hard noise gate that clamps to silence below a threshold you set, and Rocktron's patented HUSH single-ended noise reduction, which the company says wipes out hiss and silences noise changes without changing your tone¹.

Rocktron describes the practical result plainly: the pedal lets you go from heavy all-out distortion to silence simply by muting your guitar strings¹. The circuit is based on the same HUSH technology the company first used in the original rack mounted Guitar Silencer, a unit Dimebag Darrell of Pantera recorded with in metal¹.

Key facts

The controls and jacks

The pedal keeps its control set simple. Two knobs and one LED cover the noise reduction, and the jacks let it sit in a loop with your other effects¹³.

The INPUT and RETURN jacks are what make the pedal work as a loop device rather than a simple in-line gate. You feed the original audio source into INPUT and take the output of your effects into RETURN, so the Silencer can act on the noise your gain pedals generate. Rocktron also points out a side benefit of this arrangement: because the pedal is true bypass, adding it to a setup can add true bypass to a favorite distortion pedal that is not true bypass on its own¹.

GATE versus HUSH

The two knobs do different jobs, and the split is the core of the pedal's design¹.

• GATE is the hard gate. Set the threshold and anything below it clamps to silence. This is the control for players who want a clean cut between notes and noise, the effect Rocktron describes as going from heavy distortion to silence by muting the strings¹.
• HUSH is the softer half. Rocktron describes single-ended noise reduction as the gentler version of noise elimination, and the HUSH knob sets the threshold of the noise floor you want that portion of the effect to reduce. The company says it does this without changing your tone¹.

Rocktron has built HUSH noise reduction into a wide range of products over the years, including the HUSH Super C and other units in the line⁴.

Where it came from

The pedal's circuit is based on Rocktron's patented HUSH noise reduction technology, which the company first used in the original rack mounted Guitar Silencer¹. That rack unit found its way onto records: Rocktron reported in 1996 that Chris Leuzinger used his Guitar Silencer with HUSH on Garth Brooks' "Fresh Horses" album and on Hal Ketchum's Greatest Hits CD⁵.

The stomp box version carries the Boutique Series treatment: a rugged metal chassis with retro custom design laser etched artwork¹.

How it compares

The obvious comparison is Electro-Harmonix The Silencer, another gate pedal with a similar name and a similar loop-based approach, with 1/4 inch Input, Output, Send and Return jacks and a 9V battery included. Other loop-style gates in this lane include the Boss NS-2 Noise Suppressor, the MXR Noise Clamp and the ISP Technologies Decimator II G-String. Within Rocktron's own range, the company also offers the Reaction HUSH and MicroHUSH pedals alongside the rack units.

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