ARE ANY OF YOU (STILL) USING NOISE-GATES ?

[manthe]

Originally Posted by ssaudio

that is, of course, providing Duende actually works...

That hits a little close to home this week!!

[ssaudio]

you gotta laugh

[chucks]

Originally Posted by jbjoubaud

nice... could you tell me a little more about the "strip silence", I've never heard of that (or maybe I did but not in english terms). Is it an option you have in Logic and PT, cause I use DP5 so...
Anyways, thank you all for the enlightening about the use(s) of Gates !!

In DP 5.12, select/highlight audio then menu Audio --> Strip Silence

Next menu item after Dither.

[greatgreatriver]

I like to put a gate/comp after the spring reverb to get a cool slap on the snare or guitar etc - and control the fade out and attack -

[Alphatone]

Originally Posted by psycho_monkey

you're TRACKING drums with gates?

That's got to be playing with fire...not only is it fairly pointless but you risk wrecking a great take if the gate doesn't trigger at any point.

the 2nd part makes more sense - it's the same sort of thing I descibred above.

I've worked with more than one engineer that would do this during tracking.

Best method I ever saw involved a contact trigger taped to the drum shell feeding the sidechain input to trigger the gate. The output of these devices seems to be fairly compressed in comparison to the actual drum, so you get to set a lower threshold on the gate the pick up softer hits. You avoid false triggers from other drums due to the physical isolation of the trigger. Best of both worlds.

Probably not the most practical technique for jazz or an extremely dynamic drummer, but there are definitely applications where it works great.

[peter_mavro]

the transient designer is good for gate-like effects, plus you never clip the transient. in fact, you can emphasize the transient if you like.

[jbjoubaud]

Originally Posted by chucks

In DP 5.12, select/highlight audio then menu Audio --> Strip Silence

Next menu item after Dither.

How did I missed that ??!!!!

[recky]

Sorry for getting slightly OT:

Does anyone know when in the 70s they started using gates? Gates are the one thing I haven't tried yet in my sick, eccentric quest for the "original" early 1970s drum sound...

Thanks!

Recky

[vernier]

I first saw 'em in the 60's.

[Steffmo]

The first gates I ever used were the Kepexes.....the original. Roger Mayer made gates as well, the studio I bought had a rack of them.

DBX had them for the 900 rack early on. then Drawner won the war with the DS201 with built in filters to side chain.

A really pro drummer can track with gates, depending on the song. It also helps if he KNOWs you are using gates. I remember Joe Franco, one of the best, ASKING for gates on the toms.

But yes, gates are a nono on inconsistant drummers.

Strip silence. I don't use it a lot, but sometimes it can be handy, especially in conjunction with a gate. Use the front and back pads to make sure you are getting the whole note and use the strip silence to truly just get the stuff in between. It makes the gates job much easier, and therefore it is easier to set.

BUT...bleed is your friend. More often than not i find that the best use for gating is on the FX send. Gate the send instead of the audio itself. Way more natural/

[AnthonyRochester]

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.

[plexisys]

+1 Drawmer DS201. I also still have and use my DBX 904s.

Same as others, started with the Kepex then DBX in mid/late 70s. I used them on tour for many years for FOH. When I moved to the studio not to many guys were using them.

There are some really nice things you can do with them including get a real nasty gritty sound if you work the gain structure right. Let the grit on a guitar with sustain linger for awhile then bang, clamp it down.

BUT...bleed is your friend. More often than not i find that the best use for gating is on the FX send. Gate the send instead of the audio itself. Way more natural/

+1 on this.

[mattsplace]

yeah i using sonalksis gate for kick and snare but only with sidechain!

[Bassmankr]

Who here has used the Aphex 9611 Expander/Gate modules and what did you think about them?

[Karloff70]

Originally Posted by ssaudio

If you understand how to use a real gate, like a DS201, then you can have as much or as little bleed as you like; the functionality is there, it's not all open or closed - you really shouldn't boast about your naivety you know

That aside, they are one of the most creative boxes in the studio with a countless number of other uses

....the favourite one being as an eq just using the filters ......shave your top and bottom off with these and then show me the plugin that can do it sounding that nice........

[larry b]

+1 on the Kepex gates
good stuff