Inverted Gate?

[FirstLoveStudio]

I wanted to share my new found technique - maybe everyone does this but I hadn't worked it out until recently... Its a bit like just side chaining a compressor but the results are much quicker and 'stronger'

Basically, within DAW I've been duplicating a track - e.g. a snare track, then inverting the phase on the copy. Silence... :

Then I put a gate with lowest attack (best with look ahead) and fast release on one of the tracks. Now, everything that the gate normally keeps, is actually removed. You can than reduce this effect but turning down the inverted channel. You can get some effects very similar to a Transient Designer.

Another application is to use a key for the gate. This has been amazing for removing bleed between drums - so, for example, removing kick drum from snare bottom mic, or removing snare from overheads

Then, I started messing with the eq, so that I was only removing certain frequencies when keyed. For example, keying the guitars to the vocal but only removing the midrange when the vocal is in, or only removing low frequencies from the overheads when the kick is playing to stop phase issues. I found when keying, I could shunt the key track forward a little for 'look ahead'.

You can also get some bonkers compression type somes across mixes for 'crazy' effects

[Adib]

Nice technique innit? I recently read about in in SOS (couple of months ago) and have been experimenting with it too....I find it more versatile than sidechain compression thumbsup

[FirstLoveStudio]

Originally Posted by dibble

Nice technique innit? I recently read about in in SOS (couple of months ago) and have been experimenting with it too....I find it more versatile than sidechain compression thumbsup

Ha! SOS. There's me thinking I'm clever...

[Kiwi]

Lot's of similar uses too ... e.g. use it with a de-esser so that you only hear what the deesser is taking out ... maybe just temporarily for setting it up ...

At one time I experimented with using this trick with a plugin compressor - to just hear what the compressor was compressing. I found there can be too much phase shift to be useful, especially in the better sounding 'analog modeled' compressors. But a useful trick is to use a compressor or limiter in this way to just see the peaks that get chopped off ... and then use those peaks as a visual guide for quickly setting up fader automation nodes. You can speed up the process of drawing in an automation track, and then by looping the sections around the identified peaks, you can edit the automation track to bring down the peaks without using a compressor at all.

It's also worth considering this trick even if phase issues destroy the sound. Even a bad sound can be used for side-chaining another gate or plugin, as long as the basic envelope is right. Pitch-to-midi is also another method that can be slightly more useful if you are familiar with shifting midi notes around.

[AnthonyRochester]

hmm interesting ideas!