dialing in noise gates

[sleewell]

i know theres probably a ton of vids out there on this topic but what are you currently doing?

in my helix i dont use the input gate. i use the gate in my horizon boost and then another horizon gate after my amp too.

i get rolling back the threshold until the noise stops but what sort of things are you looking for if you run two gates in terms of the one before the amp and the one after?

if you use pedals do you use like the X pattern or no?

do you have your decay set pretty low or ?


i think its one of those things that if you set them wrong they can mess with your tone (obvious statement is obvious) so i was just curious how you approach this these days. thanks!!!!

 

[jaxadam]

I had the most success with a compressor in front of everything then noise gate at the end. But I’m a pickup volume knob user. I can check my gate setting later.

 

[GunpointMetal]

I mostly use the Horizon gate out front of everything in the Helix at pretty low settings (like 2 on the sensitivity) and that’s it. Haven’t really felt like I need one after the amp/pedals. I use to run a boss gate in the x pattern on my board.

 

[Baelzebeard]

I set my gate fairly aggressively in regards to threshold, but enough to open with any intentional playing.

I set the decay fairly slow so that the ramp down sounds natural.

I use gates with a loop exclusively so they trigger from the guitar signal and not noisy overdrives etc.

 

[PuckishGuitar]

In VSTs I use a very mild input gate, like -70dB to keep stray noise out when I’m not playing, unless it’s really djenty and then I’ll use a Zuul from NDSP plugins. Same mild gate settings with my old PodXT since the noise would come from the amp itself, either in front or in the loop. Maybe if you have noisy pickups or dirt pedals but I find good pickups through digital to be pretty quiet, you have to make it noisy. I play with pretty clean power with no weird RF at home so may not apply live.

On my board I have a NS-2 in x-pattern at the front after the tuner, threshold at noon with long decay. Honestly don’t usually mind noise while playing, even during rests since it’s mostly high gain, but like to keep things quiet when I’m changing settings. Turn it off when I want sustain. The gate colors my tone a little bright and I’ve compensated for it in the rest of the chain, I really only notice it on A/B testing it’s so mild.

 

[PuckishGuitar]

Double post

 

[c7spheres]

I use an NS-2 up front (no x-pattern), basically hit open low string and dial to the decay/release I want. On the back it's the Hush in a Replifex set about the same. This way the decay is there if I want it to ring out on a clean sustained note but if chuggin heavy stuff it don't gate as quickly on that NS-2, but because they're both set weaker and is in front, the one in back don't work as hard to clamp it either so the chug cut off can esentially be controlled in your hands dynamically.
- If I want ultra fast choping of the gate on a chug to total immediate and absolute silence I can increase the strength of the back end Hush, but it's really not needed unless trying to capture it to a recording in a specific way, because in practice the noise floor of just about anything is higher than the guitar upon a chug stopping to almost silence at that point. I dial the back end gate (the Hush) around the heavy chug and the front end NS-2 around the open low decay of a clean channel. Both are always on. People tend to forget that cleans often are more powerful than disortion signals. Also if an NS-2 isn't cuttin it for the chugs then a SmartGate works perfect in it's place. I use to use one of those in my switcher jsut for heavy channel but no longer needed it with my current setup. The SmartGate is awesome but it lacks in the smooth natural decay of a clean or sustained note. It's for chugs.

 

[TheWarAgainstTime]

For high gain rhythm stuff, I usually use two or three stages of noise reduction, all set pretty moderately. One pretty close to the guitar to catch feedback, one after all of my gain-based pedals to take away any noise they add, and one in the FX loop for the preamp noise. Same deal with modelers and plugins, except I can typically skip the third gate. I'll usually turn off the first gate for leads and both front-end ones for cleans.