Frustration with Gates

[Kiwburger]

No - not Bill Gates this time. I need a good noise gate/ducker to replace Ultrafunk Sonitus Gate. Unfortunately i've just discovered that the Ultrafunk Gate has latency/phase issues when lookahead is used. This gate sounds better with some lookahead - but lookahead introduces latency. It obvious doesn't lookahead at all - it just delays the audio, and this delay is not compensated for by the host PDC. Fckng unuseable when doing parallel compression with dynamics plugins that don't have a Mix control (like the bloody Kjaerhus stuff).

Sooo - I was hoping Kjaerhus GAG-1 was going to be a good gate, but i'm sadly disappointed. What is the point of a "Gate" that never completely closes??? The maximum attenuation possible with GAG-1 is only 80dB, best case scenario. A true Gate offers infinite attenuation - in other words it completely silences the audio. 80dB is not good enough - it means that the gate is never truely closed, and if you crank up the gain after this plugin, you hear sound leaking through. Unnacceptable.

Even worse - I was testing the midi gate function, and sound leaks through even when there are no midi notes. These Dynamics settings affect the leakage. So although 80dB is bad - it gets worse depending on the dynamics control settings. Ugh!

It might have a use as a ducker, but I can't get External Sidechain working in Cubase SX3. There is nothing in the manual to help - not impressed. I'm also not impressed at the way the 3 different versions are designed. The version without sidechain still has the same knob that allows you to select external sidechain. It doesn't work of course, but for some reason it makes the above leakage worse ... wtf?? This inattention to detail makes me think these products are thrown together cheaply by somebody who no longer values loyal customers. Registered owners can't unlock the latest downloadable demo??? Not to mention the promise of sidechain for GCO-1 that has never happened, even though publicly promised.

Loyal customer's don't stay loyal if they get pissed on continually.

So who makes a good gate? I don't care what price - I just won't tolerate iLock.

[AdmiralQuality]

If I could lookahead, I'd write a program to determine tomorrow's lottery numbers.

[The Chase]

[fgimian]

Sidenote: I just checked out the link in your sig and your music is AWESOME !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Carry on
Fots

[The Chase]

Cheers, soundpalace

No - not Bill Gates this time. I need a good noise gate/ducker to replace Ultrafunk Sonitus Gate. Unfortunately i've just discovered that the Ultrafunk Gate has latency/phase issues when lookahead is used. This gate sounds better with some lookahead - but lookahead introduces latency. It obvious doesn't lookahead at all - it just delays the audio, and this delay is not compensated for by the host PDC. Fckng unuseable when doing parallel compression with dynamics plugins that don't have a Mix control (like the bloody Kjaerhus stuff).

Sooo - I was hoping Kjaerhus GAG-1 was going to be a good gate, but i'm sadly disappointed. What is the point of a "Gate" that never completely closes??? The maximum attenuation possible with GAG-1 is only 80dB, best case scenario. A true Gate offers infinite attenuation - in other words it completely silences the audio. 80dB is not good enough - it means that the gate is never truely closed, and if you crank up the gain after this plugin, you hear sound leaking through. Unnacceptable.

Even worse - I was testing the midi gate function, and sound leaks through even when there are no midi notes. These Dynamics settings affect the leakage. So although 80dB is bad - it gets worse depending on the dynamics control settings. Ugh!

It might have a use as a ducker, but I can't get External Sidechain working in Cubase SX3. There is nothing in the manual to help - not impressed. I'm also not impressed at the way the 3 different versions are designed. The version without sidechain still has the same knob that allows you to select external sidechain. It doesn't work of course, but for some reason it makes the above leakage worse ... wtf?? This inattention to detail makes me think these products are thrown together cheaply by somebody who no longer values loyal customers. Registered owners can't unlock the latest downloadable demo??? Not to mention the promise of sidechain for GCO-1 that has never happened, even though publicly promised.

Loyal customer's don't stay loyal if they get pissed on continually.

So who makes a good gate? I don't care what price - I just won't tolerate iLock.

hmmm have you tried accidose free xhip gate? it pretty much wipes out all over gates I've tried (pretty sure there's no latency)

[Kiwburger]

Thanks - the xhip gate works well (and with no phase issues).

Look-ahead doesn't require time travel. Not on previously recorded tracks, at least.

Sorry to be an asshole. I'm just frustrated because I had high expectations of buying the GAG-1, and it doesn't deliver.

I consider any studio equipment that has a dynamic range of less than 90dB to be noisy equipment. I couldn't believe that anyone would make a "noise gate" that can't actually close completely ... 80dB attenuation is not infinite attenuation. My purpose of using a gate is to achieve digital black - complete attenuation. I suppose 80dB is musically usefull enough, but why go so close and screw up at the last hurdle?

[Vonbrucken]

lol thanks to this thread i type bill gates + sexy on google and
what have i found




ULTRAKILL
maybe i will find some pictures with hot panties
http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~cfarivar/b ... 00364.html
ooh sexy beast

[aciddose]

the point of lookahead in a gate is that the gating signal is held at usual time, but the input signal through the gate is delayed so that it actually has the effect of moving the gate signal forward

when you are gating a kick for example, you'll usually miss the inital noise/etc before the main part of the kick, or you'll miss the part of the waveform moving from 0 until the threshold is reached, resulting in a strong click when the gate turns on, or resulting in the need to lower the attack speed, meaning you lose the attack portion of the kick/etc.

i could implement lookahead into my gate and give that information to the host, but it depends upon the host really to use that information, the plugin is at the host's whim.

it is also useful to have lookahead for an inverted gate, so you dont get the inital part of the kick, instead it gets muted entirely. lookahead functions the same way on compressors, expanders, etc.

i'll be adding the feature in the next release of my effects pack, but i dont know when that will be. whenever it is, the delay will always equal the lookahead time, so disabling lookahead (as it is currently) will result in zero latency.

[akisd28]

AFAIK, you have to turn the Sonitus Gate Off/On after you adjust the lookahead parameter, in order for the host to compensate for the latency. Maybe that's the answer to your problem?

[Kiwburger]

Thanks - i'll try that with Sonitus. If the additional latency was compensated for, I would be happy. Yes - I get clicks if I don't have any lookahead - but I don't want the phase relationship of the signal to move, as it is doing now.

What i'm trying to do is to layer the original, uncompressed, kick track with a cloned but highly compressed track. If the phase relationship changes, the result is a nasty comb filter.

I have compressors and limiters with lookahead, and they don't cause any phase shift. Kjaerhus MPL-1 with the lookahead enabled is completely compensated for and exhibits no phase shifting in this situation. GAG-1 works with no phase shifting - but the lack of total digital black is annoying me. I like to do my gating before the extreme compression, because it seems to work better that way. But it's not much good if the gate doesn't shut fully.

Does anyone make a really professional gate? I'm going to try the Sinus Golden Gate next - it seems to have a good system of side chaining. Twisted Lemon Sidekick looks very interesting too.

[Torben]

Sooo - I was hoping Kjaerhus GAG-1 was going to be a good gate, but i'm sadly disappointed. What is the point of a "Gate" that never completely closes??? The maximum attenuation possible with GAG-1 is only 80dB, best case scenario.

That is very common on hardware gates as well. Even cross-talk on the finest analog equipment is not better than this, so I hardly can see the real problem here. Could you show one actual application where this is a problem?

Torben

[Kingston]

Could you show one actual application where this is a problem?

was about to say.. this isn't a problem in the real world, more an academic need for "a feature".

about the lookahead, yes the initial glance at GAG-1 was a disappointment of not seeing it, quickly replaced by the realisation that there's simply no need for it. There isn't a gate available (in existance, hardware or otherwise) that has a faster attack and better transient preservance than GAG-1.

Having played with GAG-1 extensively, I would be inclined to say lookahead is for those developers who can't get the main algorithm performance adequately fast, and thus "cheat" their way in.

[Kingston]

I can't get External Sidechain working in Cubase SX3. There is nothing in the manual to help - not impressed. I'm also not impressed at the way the 3 different versions are designed. The version without sidechain still has the same knob that allows you to select external sidechain. It doesn't work of course, but for some reason it makes the above leakage worse ... wtf??

A bad hair day, huh?

Anyway, I used 4 different types of sidechaining in one of the GAG-1 demos, all done in Cubase SX3. It works as intended (like a charm). The usage was covered in recent GAG-1 release threads, and there are actually *several* ways to do it.

This inattention to detail makes me think these products are thrown together cheaply by somebody who no longer values loyal customers.

With the undying words by AOL: "You've got mail!"

[aciddose]

you will generally get 80db noise floor in most analog equipment, but even a cheap analog gate/vca can get 100-120 db floor for the input signal.

"I would be inclined to say lookahead is for those developers who can't get the main algorithm performance adequately fast, and thus "cheat" their way in."

kingston, see what i said about the whole point of lookahead. those behaviours are simply not possible without it. fast is a very bad thing in some cases, which is why you need lookahead.

[Kingston]

kingston, see what i said about the whole point of lookahead. those behaviours are simply not possible without it. fast is a very bad thing in some cases, which is why you need lookahead.

I read it all before posting and should've elaborated on your points from my rather practical view point. I've never actually heard a better sounding gate attack behaviour on any gate, lookahead or not. So I see it as absolutely pointless feature from now on (no, I didn't always think this way). It's also impractical in live use, and adding the feature to GAG-1 would likely yield only academic improvements.

There's no clicking, but there's a similar distortion to 1176 when the attack set too fast on bass heavy material, as it digs in on the waveform. I can live with that as it can be taken advantage of, and with correct settings you will never hear the gate "flamming" if the attack is too fast.

As for the rest of the developers looking into getting to the gate game, y'all need to have a serious look at attack shapes and performance. Gates can obviously be made brilliant without lookaheads. The feature seems a bit nineties in retrospect.