Quiet amps

[DC-Choppah]

OP don't neglect to check if the noise you hear from the amp is actually generated by guitar!

The instrument or cables can be the source of the noise and that is not the amps fault.

Also, when recording or playing at home, you can find a gain structure where the amp is set to a reasonably low level, and the guitar is buffered with a pedal to bring the signal up. You can find a combination where the noise is very low.

[ef37a]

There is always the noise gate to fall back on. I had a Behringer BCA2000 many years ago and one of its several good features* was an excellent noise gate on the HZ channel. Maybe someone can suggest a software option? I am sure there will be one in Reaper?

*and many bad like dreadful reliability and crap drivers. I got fed up of fixing it and Bherries were no help so it is still relegated to the loft!

Dave.

[Matt Houghton]

For recording (as opposed to on stage), I'd avoid gates — there are better denoising tools now that you can use after the fact, but the gate would limit their success since you need some exposed noise to train them. (Obvs still best to prevent the noise at source wherever possible...)

[Matt Houghton]

P.s. since you ask about Reaper, ReaGate is an excellent gate/expander, and ReaFIR in Subtract mode is a capable denoiser.

[ef37a]

P.s. since you ask about Reaper, ReaGate is an excellent gate/expander, and ReaFIR in Subtract mode is a capable denoiser.

Thanks Matt. I understand there are noise gates that have an adjustment for the attenuation and don't simply smash everything to -80dB?
The amp/guitar combination may be noisy but we can usually live with a bit of hiss?

Dave.