Frustration with Gates

[AdmiralQuality]

It's an academically discussion that has no relevance in real life. It is just like when people complain they can not set a filter to 1.00kHz, but it will settle at 1.01kHz. It is not of any importance sound vice but some people hate to look at it.

Torben

Unless you want to duck something that's loud. Yes.

[Torben]

It's an academically discussion that has no relevance in real life. It is just like when people complain they can not set a filter to 1.00kHz, but it will settle at 1.01kHz. It is not of any importance sound vice but some people hate to look at it.

Torben

Unless you want to duck something that's loud. Yes.

Show me a real life application where 80dB is not enough. Everything else is just an academically discussion.

Torben

[AdmiralQuality]

I just noticed it was defaulting to -40 dB. So that's why I could hear it. When I turn it to -80 it's quiet enough (though I can see why some people would want "digital black")

Anyway, I'm happy as long as I can't hear it.

Though in further testing, its still hard to get it to gate. Say I'm gating relatively loud material (like for gated drums... my threshold is way up at -6 dB or so...) It wants to always have a ratio, rather than activate the gate env completely (normally on a gate the envelope rules, but your envelope is controlling the expansion ratio, which is never better than 1:10). Do the Drawmers do that too? Checked... Nope... no ratio control, they're actual gates.

So, just a suggestion, but for a couple hours worth of work you could make it attenuate to -infinity (just because you're emulating analog devices, doesn't mean you have to duplicate ALL their limitations) and maybe also provide an option to turn off the expander, or provide an infinite ratio.

Or don't. Just suggesting. I see the points of both camps here.

[IIRs]

Thats not a limitation, its a feature. Every proper gate I ever used has had a max attenuation of 80dB or so, and most of the time I set the range much lower than that. Even the B*hringer gates I sometimes use for live sound offer switchable 80/20 db attenuation, and I never have to switch them to 20 dB 'cos they always are already!

When recording I like gating toms as subtly as possible, like maybe just by 6 dB: the resonance of the tom heads in response to the other drums is a big part of a real kit sound, so it is often better to use the gate just to accentuate the attack transient of the tom close mics while subtly reducing the spill between hits, rather than attempting to completely isolate every hit.

I have no idea why anyone would require digital black from a gate. Why not automate some mutes, or edit the audio file, or use a strip-silence function?

I'm very happy with my GAG1 so far.

[Torben]

AdmiralQuality, 1:10 is considered gating just as 10:1 is considered limiting. The GAG-1 has some sonically advantages over bi-stage gates; we don't ruin a perfectly good gate just to introduce some academically features you can find in a hundred of mediocre gates. My suggestion is to judge the GAG-1 on the sound and performance instead of parameter range etc. It is a little like if a person from 1800 woke up in 2006 and started complaining that there were no horses in a car "this car can't run if it got no horses!"

Besides, this thread had nothing to do with GAG-1 features. If you read Kiwburgers threads you will notice that he is just hateful towards Kjaerhus these days for some unknown reason.

Torben

[xander]

It's an academically discussion that has no relevance in real life. It is just like when people complain they can not set a filter to 1.00kHz, but it will settle at 1.01kHz. It is not of any importance sound vice but some people hate to look at it.

Torben

Unless you want to duck something that's loud. Yes.

I think that's the key here - I mean, what are you recording? Dynamite explosions? Gunfire? And if, let's say, you were, wouldn't even -10db be enough compared to the ambients your dealing with?

For instance, if you are trying to gate hiss, ring, echo or other noise, you set the threshold just a hair above the residual noise. Compared to the amplitude of the main signal, the residual should be several db lower anyway, right? So anything that rises above the threshold level triggers the gate and you get an instant duck to -80db in the case of Gag. You can then adjust so that the gate 'fades' or 'cuts'. A severe cut results in choppy sounds that I don't want in any of my recordings so the gate is set to fade to -80db over several ms. This adds smoothness and ambience to the tracks.

If you are recording loud samples -- drum-by-drum -- and you really really need -inf db then you can, and in all the cases I know of, should use an editor and simply chop up the wav.

I'm really anxious to hear an example of a solo kick drum or other percussive device that needs more than a -80db duck in any practical application.

In my mobile I use an Alesis 3630 Compressor/Limiter/Gate which has a 'no gating to -10DBV' max threshold on the noise gate. Over ambience it is impossible to discern anything. Even when listening to a raw solo track, there is simply nothing much to hear.

[AdmiralQuality]

In my mobile I use an Alesis 3630 Compressor/Limiter/Gate which has a 'no gating to -10DBV' max threshold on the noise gate. Over ambience it is impossible to discern anything. Even when listening to a raw solo track, there is simply nothing much to hear.

I got one! And... under ratio... right after 10:1 is infinity:1. (Oh wait, sorry, that's the compressor section. The gate section says... well, it doesn't have a depth control, it's a GATE-GATE. Only 1 rate and 1 threshold control.)

(But yes, it's cheap crap. The DBX ain't though!)

Anyway, you're all right. I don't want to pick one side or the other on this one. Cheers.

[xander]

In my mobile I use an Alesis 3630 Compressor/Limiter/Gate which has a 'no gating to -10DBV' max threshold on the noise gate. Over ambience it is impossible to discern anything. Even when listening to a raw solo track, there is simply nothing much to hear.

I got one! And... under ratio... right after 10:1 is infinity:1.

(But yes, it's cheap crap. The DBX ain't though!)

Anyway, you're all right. I don't want to pick one side or the other on this one. Cheers.

You're not looking at the gate -- you're looking under 'ratio' in the compressor/limitor section! The gate only goes to -10db (look under 'Threshold' above the Gate controls).

Indeed -- cheap enough but not crap but it works as it should and is pretty quiet overall (but what's expensive for me may be cheap to everyone else -- probably is

Cheers,
Alex

[AdmiralQuality]

You're not looking at the gate -- you're looking under 'ratio' in the compressor/limitor section! The gate only goes to -10db (look under 'Threshold' above the Gate controls).

Indeed -- cheap enough but not crap but it works as it should and is pretty quiet overall (but what's expensive for me may be cheap to everyone else -- probably is

Cheers,
Alex

Yes I caught that in an edit but you caught me first.

And that's the gate THRESHOLD that only goes as HIGH as - 10 dB. The attenuation level is, presumably, infinity. (Maybe I'll test it later, I actually haven't used it yet... a friend gave it to me just the other day!)

[xander]

In my mobile I use an Alesis 3630 Compressor/Limiter/Gate which has a 'no gating to -10DBV' max threshold on the noise gate. Over ambience it is impossible to discern anything. Even when listening to a raw solo track, there is simply nothing much to hear.

I got one! And... under ratio... right after 10:1 is infinity:1. (Oh wait, sorry, that's the compressor section. The gate section says... well, it doesn't have a depth control, it's a GATE-GATE. Only 1 rate and 1 threshold control.)

(But yes, it's cheap crap. The DBX ain't though!)

Anyway, you're all right. I don't want to pick one side or the other on this one. Cheers.

Yep you're right -- it's just open/closed gate on the panel, but the specs say that 'closed state' is -10dbv.

BTW -- I have the pdf of the manual if you need it -- lost my original a long time ago.

Cheers,
Alex

[AdmiralQuality]

http://media.zzounds.com/media/3630_Man ... pressor%22

I don't see where it says closed state is -10 dbv. That wouldn't be very closed at all. Oh I see...page 8: "Threshold (no gating to -10dBV)" No, that's referring to the switch on the back that picks between pro and consumer audio levels. Not sure what they mean, maybe the gate feature doesn't even work when its in -10 mode???

[OMNIFEX]

AdmiralQuality,

You may be better off with a gate that
offers various frequency settings, to close the given signal, and leave the rest alone.

Hardware gates offer a side-chain feature enabling you to add an EQ, if it doesn't offer frequency controls on the console.

The clicking noise is based on high frequencies being closed abruptly. Tuning the frequency lower than 100 Hertz will remedy the problem.

Having the gate, almost closed is good when the noise needs to be reduced without the clicking, when gating High Frequencies.

To take full advantage of a gate, you need to know what frequencies you want closed.

It's all frequency driven.

I've never used any of the plug-in gates mentioned in this thread. However, the Hardware Gates are a different story.

Good Luck finding the one you need.

[IIRs]

That's very wrong I'm afraid. Gates 'close' all frequencies: its just a gain change basically, like a compressor. The sidechain filters tune it to respond only to certain frequencies, but the gate still affects all frequencies. Clicks arise from very fast attack times regardless of the frequency content of the program material.

[aciddose]

there is nothing acedemic about it, a gate is a gate, an expander is an expander. obviously, gag is an expander, not a gate. you're just calling it wrong.

and there is a huge difference, a gate performs entirely different than an expander, they are two completely different things.

do i REALLY need say it again? an expander is a dynamics processor, a compressor which applies 1/n, a gate is a boolean gate generator which drives an envelope and vca. when the gate shuts off, the envelope will return to zero, and the vca will then be passing zero, or the minimum leakage. in software, this is very close to zero if you're using any decent number of bits, and it is zero if you're using a combination of floating point and denormal elimination.

please dont make rediculous claims like "hardware will only cut to -80db", since it only makes it obvious you have no clue what you're talking about.

why are you attempting to call your software a gate while it is an expander, and then going so far as to claim what a gate should do while you're actually discribing an expander? sounds like you're a slightly cracked nut. no offense but you can end this whole discussion by defining your plugin like it is, an expander. after that, it's behaviour will make complete sence, since it works exactly as an expander should.

my only complaint would be, an expander should be part of a dynamics processor so you can perfectly apply 1/n and n modes, but that is only my point of view. i'm sure most people wouldnt need to have that feature, so i really have no real complaints.

[IIRs]

what a muppet. I take it you've never used a real analogue gate aciddose? I've used lots of them: I wish they were all as good as GAG1.