gates - useful or a hinderance?

general questions, comments and ideas about recording, audio, music, etc.
stinkpot
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Re: gates - useful or a hinderance?

Post by stinkpot » Tue Feb 15, 2005 11:02 am

Try it with pink or white noise instead of a sine wave on a snare.
ooooohhhh i'm all a twitter. that sounds too fun to even think about. (until i get home and can try it out. damn dayjob)

blunderfonics
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Re: gates - useful or a hinderance?

Post by blunderfonics » Tue Feb 15, 2005 11:29 am

Expander/Gates are very useful for reshaping the transients of drum sounds. Using slower attack times with a lower threshold will soften the attack of the drum making it apear to have more tone. Conversely if you use an expander with a fast attack and release, the attack of the drum will be proportionally louder than the rest of the track, making it seem sharper when you bring the overall level back up to an appropriate mix level.

I'll do this on Kick drums all the time and will occasionally even treat the inside and outside mics with seperate gates using different settings. I'll make my adjustments by listening to the way the attack and release settings change the sound in the mix, only soloing the track when I hear a problem (usually clicks from too-fast attack times or mis-triggers from a threshold level set too low).

The main problem with using gates in this way is that if there is a lot of bleed on the track you are gating it can cause the cymbals and hi hat to pulse with the gated track.

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