does the Boss Noise Suppressor NS-2 quiet the HM-2? 

END does this with their swollen pickles. They run those through a Zuul+ and they have another gate in the loop.

Do you have a Lone Wolf Audio Endless Blockade?

@@dq7860 I have it and the Deadweald Golem.. But I have so many priorities, I haven't even plugged them in yet. The gate in the Duality Dx works great though... The thing I personally hate about gates is that the buffers in them change your tone. I've tried a lot of gates, and this is pretty much a universal problem... Dofderent gates might also work with different pedals better or worse. I think the Dulity's gate is so good because it's part of the pedal itself. If you don't use 4cm with the loop, and just gate the pedal, it doesn't really mess with your tone because it's not using additional buffers. Also, it's probably been tuned to the pedal itself. Whatever the case, when the gate is built into the pedal, you either like the whole pedal or you don't. When you add a gate to other pedals, it changes your tone, even if just a bit, so it can be a drag. In digital land, this is not usually a problem.. In analog world, it is, because of the buffers, impedance changes, and the chips themselves. For people who like using buffers or active pickups, it might be less of an issue... With actives, there already is a buffer in the pickup itself. But if you use passive and hate buffers, more than likely, noise gate pedals will have the same effect. I'm not sure but with the HM-2, the NS-2 might not be a bad bet because at least the pedals and buffers in them are form the same company, so theoretically, they should play well together.

@@XChristianNoirX I can't remember whether the Endless Blockade was buffered or not but it doesn't seem to change my tone at all.

@@dq7860 The Endless Blockade is based on the same circuit as the Fortin ZUUL, because it uses the same exact chip, and their circuits are based on the design the chip manufacturer themselves supplied. That's not to say the pedals are identical, because some adjustments may have been made by Lone Wolf and Fortin, like certain values for attack /brelease etc, MD the components are probably different. There are also 2cm and 4cm versions of both of these gates. The ZUUL+ might use a different chip though... I'm not sure. I do know that the original chip everyone was using was discontinued and replaced, and maybe there is a third version, or multiple versions. Allegedly, GUP from Canada has their own chip, and their newer e designs are different, but I'm not entirely sure on the details, as I haven't kept up with gate manufacturer drama. 😂 All I can say is that the 2cm ZUUL changes my tone, but less if it is after distortion. In front, it does though, because the guitar signal hits the buffer and the chip, which alters the interaction between the guitar and the the pedal or amp that would normally be the first the thing in the chain. If it is 4cm, I think has at least one buffer in the pedal.. But more likely it has 2 or 3. Afaik, every 4cm gate out there uses buffered splitters, and the chip itself is probably a buffer, but I haven't studied this. In fact, the buffers nigh even all be in the chip. All I know is that they sound like there are buffers in there to me. Now, that's not to say it drastically alters the tone. If you already use actives, it's probably less of a change, because you're guitar is already buffered at the source. Alternately, even using passive pickups, the impedance might match what you were already using, such as an OD or something, so this could also lessen the Tone change. For example, precision drive has about a 1M impedance. The Maxon OD808 has about 500k. If the impedance in the buffers in the gate match the Precision drive, it might sound less tone changing with the Precision drive, but might make the OD808 sound brighter and more constricting in the low end feel. Whether that matters in practice is also up in the air. In my case, I use passive pickups and worked extremely hard to get the exact response and tone out of certain pedals, but adding a buffer or gate to the equation then changes the sound enough to make me mad. 😂 As another note, typically, when using passive pickups, the first pedal /buffer is the one that will determine the Tone the most, but others will as well. For the clearest tone, the final pedal's output impedance can have a big impact on tone as its usually driving a long cable. Usually the lower the output impedance, the better, unless you want the signal to degrade. The Mesa buffers are awesome for this... But I don't like them in the input. One o want to try on the output is the Suhr, because it has the same specs as the Mesa, but it's smaller, and I don't use all the other features on the Mesa buffer.. Just the output buffer.

@@XChristianNoirX My main guitar has EMGs in it so that might be why, real cool info.

Doesn’t work well. You need the HM2 in the NS2 send and return. The output of the pedal is too much for the NS2 to work properly.