Creative uses for hardware gates?

[Anonstop]

Hello mighty tape op (board)! -- long time listener, first time caller.

I have recently acquired a couple hardware gates. A Drawmer DS201 (a former studio standard as I understand it) and an Electrospace Strate Gate. Both were affordable and somewhat impulse ebay pick ups. The latter unit purchased based a good percentage on the rad-ness of the name alone. In person it's a beast and looks fun. Both are now racked and wired to the bay.

From what I have read so far, gates are a bit of a relic these days with most people finding plugs more effective for this otherwise straight forward job. But I am thinking there are still some cool tricks using the key inputs, when tracking, in an effects chain, etc.

For some background - I am relatively new to OTB, especially for mixing, having been mostly ITB up until now. Though very familiar with hardware synths, effects, etc. I am now running a hybrid setup with a DDA console and patchbay.

So... specific examples of creative and possible outlandish studio uses for hardware gates?

Thanks!
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[JohnDavisNYC]

sidechaining stuff is fun.

i prefer hardware gates. they sound better and seem to 'hear' better. setting a plugin gate is such a pain in the ass. they are always chattering, false openings, etc... hardware gates seem to be much better in that regard...

john
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[elbows]

[Randyman...]

Top Tip: You can also use the DS201's nice HP/LP filters for other sources if you flick the "Sidechain Listen" switch!


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Randy V.
Audio-Dude / Musician / PC Guru / Crazy Guy

[Tim A]

[Anonstop]

Awesome, thanks for the insight and tips.

It sounds like hardware gates are still in active use by people and not relics at all.

So far being able to use the filters on both the Electrospace and the Drawmer has been worth the price of admission alone! (thanks Randyman for the key listen switch tip!)
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[Anonstop]

[Nick Sevilla]

Creative uses for hardware gates?

Quantizing backing vocals, against a percussion.

Or hell, the Lead vocal. Why not?
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The Song. Nothing else really matters.

[jhharvest]

[telepathy]

it'll totally work, as long as you're only aiming for a little reduction. too much can sound odd.

Aphex gates for life, over here. I use them every day.

speaking of vocal phrasing stuff, my best recent gate trick was this: I was mixing a track with a bunch of background singers who hadn't glued their parts together as tighly as I would've liked. the song's arrangement consisted entirely of acoustic guitar, lead vocals, and four-part backing vocals, so slight variations in phrase lengths were really apparent. I bussed them all to a stereo buss with an Aphex 622 strapped across it. I found the singer who had the most exact phrasing and used a mult of her vocal track as the sidechain for the whole buss, so everyone followed her phrasing. this post-gate buss also fed the reverb send, so the closing of the gate, while subtle (range set to -30db or so) was further masked by the verb. super effective.

that's another thing, don't always set the range to *stun*. not everything needs sixty decibels of movement every time the gate engages. lesser range settings (and lower ratios, for that matter) diminish pumping/breathing. if you have the parallel-compression drum bus going on, put a gate on it that only pulls things back a little, somewhere between 6 and 12db. then set the attack & release to move in time with the song.

then again, blending in a heavily gated parallel kick/snare buss with a fast attack time is sometimes absolutely huge. gets the beat to snap harder
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[lightandmind]

I once sidechained a feedbacking guitar to a kick drum so that it would open and close only on the kick hits. It rawked!

[BavonWW]

You can also use it to duck vocal or guitar delay sends (or returns if individual FX ) thus ensuring that the delay is kept about 5 dB down during send and returned to normal level just after. This gives a clearer, less cluttered, effect.
Set it to expand and KEY it with your vocal or instrument.

The advantage in using the send as opposed to return is for you to work out.

Like all hardware outboard gear it is easily set-up and tends to have better reaction times as well as superior sonic quality.

[earth tones]

Immediately I recall John Vanderslice's song: "Dear, Sarah Shu". I believe it's an acoustic guitar keyed by the hi-hat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXJDwCr-y_E

[inasilentway]

if you have something that can generate a sine wave, key it off the kick, or white noise off the snare. Rad for beefing up drums sounds without having to get into samples, or for adding a slight "electronic" touch.

another neat one with the range knob: say you got a tambo or shaker track that's not grooving tightly with the drums. set the range to 6-10 do of reduction and key it off the snare.
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