STOMP BOX STEALS: NOISE GATES

THE NOISE GATE

HOW THEY WORK....AND WHY THEY DON'T

The first thing to clear up right away is that a noise gate does not remove noise.

The second thing is if you are only trying to get rid of hiss from your guitar or pedals...it will be easy.

If how ever you are setting a pedal up to overload the front end of your amp...worse yet...more then one pedal even crazier .... have them boosting at different levels. LOOK OUT!!!

What they do is really quite simple. The noise from a pedal is often just a simple annoying hum. So on a very simple Gate with one knob you turn the knob until the hum stops. You have now instructed the gate to turn off anything that is of the same amplitude or even quieter then the hum. Unfortunately a bit of the guitar signal when fading away is that loud too. Some pedals give you a second knob to tell the gate not to shut the signal off for a moment..or 2 or 3. This lets the note or chord fade away more naturally. With Metal...part of the style includes dramatic rests or stops where clipping off a bit of the note is acceptable as part of the drama....full volume to dead quiet.

It would also be nice to set the gate and just leave it on. Unfortunately an credibility noisy Fuzz can be gated nicely to behave. BUT....switch off the Fuzz and go to a quieter pedal and the gate may refuse to open or start turning off quiet notes....or turn on and off at random during a soft passage.
This on and off is called chattering.
Trying to balance all this out can drive you nuts.

Setting all your pedals at unity gain can help. Unity gain means all pedals are set to the same volume as your clean sound. Obviously an overdrive set to excess gain is going to make more overt noise then the hum of another pedal. In short getting all the pedals set at the same volume will make a big difference.

If you like a boost by setting your volume on a pedal high...get a booster (see overdrives) or an EQ.
Then place this pedal at the end of the PEDAL chain... just before going to your amp.

This will give the amp a rich signal...and solve some of the gate problems.

Some companies have made SMART GATES ...with an in and out to loop the noisy pedals...and the quieter ones go thru the regular in and out. This allows for the Gate to read the two signals to differentiate what is signal and what is just noise. In other words if your guitar strings are still ringing the gate is told not to shut until they stop.
Or to put it anther way...lets say your fuzz ...between a number of 1 to 10....start making noise at 8...so it gets gated at 8. The guitar is quiet but starts to die and hiss at 9. So the smart gate tells the fuzz sound to wait until 9. The result is the signal doesn't sound chopped off.

Myself I use 3 separate gates in 3 separate loops...so to put a lower demand on the gates.
I also use a noise suppressor at the beginning of the chain to keep the guitar pickups quiet.

So..why bother? Well many do not. BUT once you "Don't hear the difference" there is no going back. LOL

Gates can cost $30.00 for a basic cheapie to nearly $ 200.00 for the best of the smart gates.

Noise gates can be used either at the output of a single or a chain of noisy pedals or in the effects loop of an amp.

LET'S BUY ONE!

JOYO JF-31
NOISE GATE

It works great for Metal as is. The fade out is short but fixed so a tiny bit of the signal can be snipped. So for purists it will not do.
I quite like it. Like all Joyo pedals it is well made.

Current Price $35.00 USD

JOYO IRONMAN
GATE OF KAHN

This is their clever Nano jobbie...I bought cheap on ebay...
I guessed I would be the only one to bid. Bingo! I was right.

The fade on the decay time is a moment longer...otherwise except for size it is the same. Speaking of size...the price is not nano!

CURRENT PRICE $60.00 USD

TOM'S LINE

ANG-1 NOISE GATE

Nice built...the knobs move firmly but freely. The fade on the decay time is changeable from instant to very long. Of the 3 gates compared only this one gives you a 'hard' gate...which is a gate without any fade...and this can be very effective. It is not only dramatic...it makes stops on a delay pedal or reverb with predelay from echoing a nasty bit of noise.
BUT...beware if you move the Threshold just a hair length more then necessary It will kill another pedal when you switch to it. .... I really do not like it's unforgiving nature.

I can not get over trouble shooting a pedal or a chord that appears to be NFG when it is simply the gate was left turned on.
Even so the price and the hard gate effect are hard to ignore.
I am in the midst of updating my gates...yet this will be the last to go...if indeed it does go. So faults aside it is a winner...it does the job...and gets you back into buying the pedals that sound cool even if they make a bit of noise.

Current Price $24.00 USA

ROCKTRON MICRO HUSH

It kills the noise without using a gate. I have yet to find out how...but it is their own highly protected technology. It is simple to use... just one knob. The bad news it was engineered long before a lot players had 3 killer overdrives and a METAL pedal. It was designed to transparently kill hiss especially when most pedals created some but few players used more then 2 or 3 pedals.

It is still loved by Strat players like me who love vintage single coil pick pickups but HATE the hiss. Nothing is so nice but to not get any noise out of your much loved guitar no matter what pickups you prefer. They make several models.

but the micro is all you need.

Current Price $100.00 USD

single coil heaven...

Current Price $135.00 USD

IPS DECIMATOR II NOISE GATE

This is the best single end noise gate out there. For many this will work great. It could not be simpler to use ...just turn the knob until the noise goes away. I have one at the end of my Fuzz loop. It works well there because the various fuzz boxes put out about the same level of noise so I can get a setting and just forget about it.
The problem with single end boxes is that you set them for a very noisy pedal...switch to different pedal that is not too noisy and the 'heavy' setting you have it on will chop off the end of your note..or even turn off the whole sound coming out that pedal.

I have smart gates on my OD and on my distortion loops
where these problems can be solved.

I was getting by nicely with the Fuzz pedals with a Tom'sline ANG-1...but thought I would move up if any of the
3 best single end gates like the MXR or a Boss or even a isp
IF one showed up used on the cheap.
Well one did!

I actually got the Decimator I...the only difference is the II has a side chain to use if you are putting it in the effects loop of an amp which is of no use to me. The entire gating system of both pedals is the same...part for part. So at $46.00 USD...getting it was a no brainer.

SMART GATES

As I mentioned in the intro. These pedals have an input and output to read your clean signal and a second in and out looping your noisy pedals. This way the pedal can gate the noise...while at the same time compare it to the ungated signal... the pedal can tell what is guitar signal and what is noise so it won't chop off the guitar if the guitar signal is quieter then the noise...this mainly applies to distortions...like fuzz..overdrives etc. because they can feed back easily...and make the noise much louder then the guitar.

NOTE: There are not as yet any cheap Smart Gates...so they meet the SBS rule of a pro pedal
that can not be had for less then $100.00.

Great Overview....watch it.

The ISP has the reputation as being the finest....and the most expensive.

The MXR is cheaper and a close second. If lint picked...the MXR lets a moment of faded noise go thru before turning completely off.

The TC Electonic is new...BUT they borrowed technology from their rack mount gate...so the New tag is only technically correct.
It works the same way as the others...BUT in addition it will divide the input into lows mids and highs When a signal fades away on a note or a chord... first the lows then the mids then lastly the highs naturally fade in that order....so they are gated in 3 separate stages. The result is a more natural sounding transition...from signal being on then off.

... Considering the extra features...and the stellar reputation of the company...without a hands on I would go for the Sentry.

I am at present deciding to get one...or not. . I have a unique problem of wanting to gate 29 of my pedals...at present they are in 3 separate loops with 3 separate conventional gates.
One is expensive but 3!!!

So I bought one! After using my gate for a few weeks I noticed that my guitar sounds on the Second tier of my board sound noticeably better then my third tier. The difference is the gate. When a pedal is going thru any pedal it has a 'buffer circuit' to keep the the signal clean and tight...the better the pedal the better the buffer.I like the difference so much that I bought another TC Electronic Sentry for my 3rd tier. I can not wait for the mini gate....I am however keeping my Tom'sline gate on the 4th tier...I will perhaps replace it if a new mini gate shows up.
My 4th tier has a envelope modifier. In short it fades in the signal like a swell pedal. The Sentry which reads at 2 points in the signal would gate this pedal right off. I can only use a 'single end 'noise gate. So for now I will stick with the Tom'sline. If TC Electronics bring out a mini gate...I suspect being small it will be single end. It should be much cheaper too. A new mini type gate was not announced June 1/16 yet 3 other types of pedals are now on offer...so it is unlikely to happen this year.

I have gone to an electronic switcher...and expanded to 5 loops. The last is just FX so they make very little noise. My single end Ironman works fine on such a low noise floor.

The Fuzz pedals have their own loop. I was able to pick up an ICP Decimator I ...a simple single end gate. before the smart gate this was the best gate possible to buy. I can see why..for a single end gate it does a great job.

A NICE SURPRISE

I learnt that the HUSH on my guitar input has very nice secondary function. I turn it up just a bit and the guitar hiss is gone. If I push it just tiny bit more it tightens up my overdrives...and it does not mess with the natural overall sound. It gets rid of some of resonance & woolliness. A few of the newer Distortions have a 'Tight' knob on them. This seems to do the same job.

ICP DECIMATOR II
G String
NOISE GATE
Current Price $170.00 USD