SUMMERY:

Okay, todays tip for ya is on how to use a gate. Or at least how I use a gate.

What a gate does is basically allow a signal to pass through when it's above a certain threshold and when it's under that threshold it gets cut off. Basically mutes it pretty much automatically.

Gates come with controls on them like most compressors do. Controls such as a threshold. On a gate, the threshold is the level at which the gate opens up and allows a signal to flow through.

Sometimes there will be an attack. On a gate the attack is how quickly you want it to close or how fast you want the gate to open.

The next control on most gates will be a release. Again on a gate the release controls how quickly or slowly the gate closes.

It's usually best to set this so it kind of slopes so it closes more naturally as opposed to just shutting off.

So let's look at a situation where we would use a gate or a noise gate.




In the screenshot I have put a gate on a snare track to try and get rid of hi hat bleed cymbal bleed and just a ton of crap that always spoils a nice snare sound.

The way to set it up is to insert a gate on the track. I like to use my waves C1 Gate. Pretty much all gates work the same but I like to stick with this one.

Now what you do in order to find your threshold is turn your release to a really fast setting (so it shuts/closes really fast) and then use your threshold setting to find the spot where ONLY the snare is triggering it. Nothing else. Now pull the release back out a bit to the point where it starts to have a nice natural decay. Should sound really clean now.

If you do this to your kick and tom tracks and any other tracks that need a gate, it will really start to clean up your mix.




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