Gearslutz.com - View Single Post - ARE ANY OF YOU (STILL) USING NOISE-GATES ?

AnthonyRochester · 22nd November 2008

If you think real time gates during mixing in a DAW have a sound, or sound bad because you don't get the full attack transient, then I can share a secret technique I use all the time. I'm surprised no one has already said this, but it is really effective. Are you ready?

I do this for kick and snare drums all the time, in ProTools LE, but should work in any program.
Duplicate the track, and shift it back in time 10ms (so it plays 10ms earlier than the original track). Use this track as the sidechain input for your gate (I do that with a pre-fade bus send, with the track output on 'no output), and set the attack time for about 5ms. There you go, you have the full transient of the drum, because the gate is fully open 5ms before the transient.

22nd November 2008	#41
AnthonyRochester Lives for gear Joined: Jun 2007 Location: somewhere in Tasmania Posts: 1,259	If you think real time gates during mixing in a DAW have a sound, or sound bad because you don't get the full attack transient, then I can share a secret technique I use all the time. I'm surprised no one has already said this, but it is really effective. Are you ready? I do this for kick and snare drums all the time, in ProTools LE, but should work in any program. Duplicate the track, and shift it back in time 10ms (so it plays 10ms earlier than the original track). Use this track as the sidechain input for your gate (I do that with a pre-fade bus send, with the track output on 'no output), and set the attack time for about 5ms. There you go, you have the full transient of the drum, because the gate is fully open 5ms before the transient.