Question about effects pedals ?
 

I`m not that knowledgeable about effects pedals, the effects I can make come what what little talent I don`t possess, so I was wondering why certain pedals (distortion, big muffs, metal distortion, some overdrive, some fuzz) have this snowy, squelchy loud noise coming from them when they are just on and are just not quiet and clean sounding like chorus, flangers and tremolo pedals. I`m not talking about when you pluck or strike a sting, I`m talking about when your not playing and they are just on. Some are just so loud with noise. Is this just the way they are ? What causes this and are there pedal brands out there that are not like that(they all seem to do it) ? If so which ones ? Thanks

Pedals that create distortion compress and amplify your signal by a significant degree. If there is noise in the line, that noise will get amplified. Most other common types of pedals manipulate the signal in other ways, so they don't create the kind of noise a distortion pedal will.

The two best ways to quiet your distortion pedals are to eliminate sources of noise that it could be amplifying (shielding cables and instruments, isolating noisy power supplies, eliminating ground loops, etc.) or getting a noise gate. The most praised noise gate I've seen around here is an ISP Decimator.

Some also work really well at gating the non note noise, like line noise and other pedals. The Iron Ether Oxide is a gated fuzz, you can dial in how much of the gating effect you want; the greater the gate, the more 'chopped up' the signal gets.