Wire Grind has released Unagated 2, a major update to their VST gating plugin. Below is a selected list of new and notable features.
Selected Features:
- Special gating controls:
- Delay Attack.
- Force Release.
- Hold Closed.
- Skip Beats (probabilistic gating).
- Click suppression algorithm.
- Four envelope shapes for attack and release.
- Tempo-syncing for all time-based controls.
- Ducking.
Special Gating Controls
The parameters Delay Attack and Force Release change the timing of the gate's attack and release. They can impact musical characteristics including punchiness and note duration.
The parameters Hold Closed and Skip Beats have the affect of keeping the gate closed when it would otherwise open. Hold Closed is the opposite of Hold - It inserts silence after a note. Skip Beats is probabilistic. It generates random gating patterns that are repeated on each bar.
Click Suppression
A common problem with noise gates is that they can make clicking noises if either the attack or release time is very short. Unagated addresses this with its anti-clicking algorithm, which essentially functions as a real-time alternative to look ahead.
Four Envelope Shapes
Both the attack and the release have four volume envelope shapes:
- Linear.
- S-Curve.
- Arched.
- Scooped.
Tempo-Syncing
All time-based controls can be synchronized with the host DAW's tempo settings. The time-based controls are as follows: Attack, Release, Hold Open, Delay Attack, Force Release, Hold Closed, Look Ahead, and Scroll Time.
More Intuitive Ducking
The new version makes Ducking more intuitive. Ducking inverts the operation of the effect. However, even expert-level users have no way to know exactly what gets inverted. Unagated 2 addresses this by altering the user interface in two ways. First, some parameters are relabeled (e.g. Hold Open becomes Hold Duck, Delay Attack becomes Delay Release, etc). Second, some parameters are reversed in the interface to preserve left to right visual flow (e.g. gain envelope shapes).
Pricing
Unagated is currently on sale for $26/€22 until May 26, 2026 after an initial launch price of $55/€47. A free demo version is also available.
