# The Ultimate Noise Gate



## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

I still run my gear through my Rockman Smart Gate. Does the job perfectly. Anyone using any noise gates and what are they?


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## hollowbody (Jan 15, 2008)

I had a Boss NS-2 for a while and really didn't like it. I'm going to be picking up an ISP Decimator this weekend to use for a gig. If I like it, I may keep it.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

I used one of these for a while, until I loaned it to a neighbour and never saw it again. I believe it used an Aphex 1537 VCA chip ( http://www.gyraf.dk/schematics/Aphex_1537A_VCA.pdf ). Nice unit. Annoying neighbour.








It's stereo in/out so you could feed your guitar into it, run it through a bunch of pedals, and then run it through the other side again. That lets you keep the turn-on threshold very low.

Presently, I just use the downward expansion feature on my SSM2166-based compressor.

I've seen the patent document on the Rockman gate, with much of the circuit revealed, and it IS pretty smart. A very "adaptive" unit.

I still maintain that noise reduction is ideally something you do at the start and end of your signal/pedal chain. You take any hum or initial noise out at the start, and then you remove any cumulative residual noise at the end. Both devices can then be set with very low turn-on thresholds and relatively non-invasive action. The frustration most people have with gates and gating is that they stick 'em at the end of the pedal chain and expect it to take care of all the "audio sins". Used in that fashion, they WILL remove the stuff you don't want, but do so at the cost of a lot of stuff you DO want. Part of the problem lies in the many gain stages along the way. If you feed your compressor a less-than-pristine signal, it will boost the crap out of it when you stop playing. If you have one or more distortions of boosters along the way, they will boost the crap out of whatever they see, and amplify any hiss on the input by however many 100 times. If you "divide and conquer", by first presenting your pedal chain with a hum-free and hiss-free signal, there is nothing much to boost, and so there is very little noise accumulated over the pedal chain to be removed at the end, and the gates can be much less obtrusive in their action.


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## Morkolo (Dec 9, 2010)

mhammer said:


> I used one of these for a while, until I loaned it to a neighbour and never saw it again. I believe it used an Aphex 1537 VCA chip ( http://www.gyraf.dk/schematics/Aphex_1537A_VCA.pdf ). Nice unit. Annoying neighbour.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I've never thought of it that way before, what you explained there is exactly why I stopped using my Digitech Bass Squeeze compressor with my bass rig. I'm going to have to pick up a noise gate and try it out. Thanks.


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## hollowbody (Jan 15, 2008)

mhammer said:


> I've seen the patent document on the Rockman gate, with much of the circuit revealed, and it IS pretty smart. A very "adaptive" unit.


The MXR Smart Gate is supposed to be a Rockman rehoused into a stomp box (sorta). I wonder if it's any good. Anyone tried it?

I usually just use one with the guitar plugged right into it, and then into my tuner and delay. I only really use it with single coils and P90s and then just enough to reduce the hum when I'm NOT playing to an acceptable level.


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

hollowbody said:


> The MXR Smart Gate is supposed to be a Rockman rehoused into a stomp box (sorta). I wonder if it's any good. Anyone tried it?
> 
> I usually just use one with the guitar plugged right into it, and then into my tuner and delay. I only really use it with single coils and P90s and then just enough to reduce the hum when I'm NOT playing to an acceptable level.


I have heard that for the MXR as well. Dunlop did purchase the rights to all the Rockman gear and they did re-issue some of it under other names. None of it in the original half rack form as far as I know


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

mhammer said:


> I've seen the patent document on the Rockman gate, with much of the circuit revealed, and it IS pretty smart. A very "adaptive" unit.
> 
> I still maintain that noise reduction is ideally something you do at the start and end of your signal/pedal chain. You take any hum or initial noise out at the start, and then you remove any cumulative residual noise at the end. Both devices can then be set with very low turn-on thresholds and relatively non-invasive action. The frustration most people have with gates and gating is that they stick 'em at the end of the pedal chain and expect it to take care of all the "audio sins". Used in that fashion, they WILL remove the stuff you don't want, but do so at the cost of a lot of stuff you DO want. Part of the problem lies in the many gain stages along the way. If you feed your compressor a less-than-pristine signal, it will boost the crap out of it when you stop playing. If you have one or more distortions of boosters along the way, they will boost the crap out of whatever they see, and amplify any hiss on the input by however many 100 times. If you "divide and conquer", by first presenting your pedal chain with a hum-free and hiss-free signal, there is nothing much to boost, and so there is very little noise accumulated over the pedal chain to be removed at the end, and the gates can be much less obtrusive in their action.


So if I have the one Smart Gate (which I presently have at the end) and put it at the start of the chain instead, would I be better off? All I use is a Danno OD and an Ibanez TS9 and thats it.


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## Metal#J# (Jan 1, 2007)

I'm just using the on-board gate on my ENGL. Most people will say they suck but honestly I don't mind it at all. I had a ISP G String and I found that the signal sort of popped/snapped when coming back in........it's hard to explain but the signal seemed to be much louder for that breif moment. As well the G String version if the Decimator requires you to use 4 cables, signal thru the front and the loop at the same time, you can't just use one or the other. So on top of the way over priced pedal, you have to spend a bunch of coin on more cables. I've heard lots of good stuff about the normal Decimator but I still think it's over priced for what it is and what it does. There's a reason they come up for sale so often (there's 2 on sevenstring.org right now for $80each), it's because the hype leads everyone to believe it's a miracle pedal. Really the only difference I find is the the Decimator doesn't change your tone at all where as I found the the NS-2 can.....slightly.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

GuitarsCanada said:


> So if I have the one Smart Gate (which I presently have at the end) and put it at the start of the chain instead, would I be better off? All I use is a Danno OD and an Ibanez TS9 and thats it.


You might be, but there's no guarantee. Thing is, even if you have absolutely nothing going into either of those pedals, they will produce a small amount of hiss....because that's what high-gain does.

So, sticking a gate ahead of such pedals would certain prevent them from further amplifying any hiss/hum coming down the guitar cord (especially if you have SC pickups and/or poor shielding), but obviously it would do nothing regarding the hiss accumulated over pedals that *comes from *the pedals themselves. 

That's why I've been an advocate of a two-pronged approach to noise reduction: a little bit before, and a little bit after.

Note as well that all gates, no matter how "smart" or dumb, rely on signal level to differentiate between noise and signal. The threshold control simply tells the circuit "I'm going to declare anything below THIS level to be noise, and anything above it to be signal". Of course, once the various pedals start to impose their various types of compression to the signal (and ALL overdrives compress), it becomes that much harder to find, and dial in, a threshold level which is undeniably JUST noise without a shred of signal to it.

The compromise is to use any of the noise suppressors that have a send/receive loop. These pedals can differentiate between signal and noise more accurately, by using the signal at the start of your pedal chain, but apply the gate at the end of the pedal chain. Not perfect, by any stretch, but better than plnking a gate at the end of a pedal chain and declaring "There, YOU figure it out".


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

For the technically inclined. Donald Scholz's 1989 patent for the gating circuitry can be found here: http://www.pat2pdf.org/patents/pat4809337.pdf


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

mhammer said:


> For the technically inclined. Donald Scholz's 1989 patent for the gating circuitry can be found here: http://www.pat2pdf.org/patents/pat4809337.pdf


AKA Tom Scholz of Boston


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Boy, is my face red. I just wrote out the name at the top of the patent, ignoring the T after Donald, and thought to myself "Geez....that doesn't sound _quite_ right. I don't have the recollection of ever thinking 'Wow, *Don* Scholz's solos on those Boston tunes really rock.' But if _that's_ what it says, then _that's_ what it says."

The red welt on my forehead, from smacking it, is just starting to subside.


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

mhammer said:


> You might be, but there's no guarantee. Thing is, even if you have absolutely nothing going into either of those pedals, they will produce a small amount of hiss....because that's what high-gain does.
> 
> So, sticking a gate ahead of such pedals would certain prevent them from further amplifying any hiss/hum coming down the guitar cord (especially if you have SC pickups and/or poor shielding), but obviously it would do nothing regarding the hiss accumulated over pedals that *comes from *the pedals themselves.
> 
> ...


I might give that a try, it would take 5 minutes to re-route the cables. The ultimate of course would be to pick up another one and run them at the start and end as you mentioned. I keep my eyes open for them but they are rare and the prices are getting up there now. I would much prefer to get another Rockman Smart Gate instead of using the current one and another type at the end. I will hold out until I can score another one at a reasonable price.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Personally, I think someone should make a unit with two independent sidechains: one that detects hum, and another that detects overall amplitude. The pedal would have an input and output jack, and a loop. You plug your guitar straight into the input. On section of the circuit cuts the hum before feeding it to your pedal chain. After everything comes back from the pedal chain it cuts the hiss. Both detecting sections, of course, would be based on the original input signal, and you'd have separate threshold controls to fine tune the point at which it kicks in. The whole thing would have "normalized" jacks, such that if you simply wanted to use it as one or the other type of unit, in one spot, all you'd need to do is omit plugging anything into the loop.


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## Guest (Dec 19, 2010)

AxeFx has a gate on it and I've come to really appreciate it.


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

I really dislike noise gates. I do just fine using the volume knob on the guitar.

I have yet to hear a noise gate that didn't affect the sound.

I hate the lag you hear on the first note you play.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

If the only way a noise gate has of telling the difference between noise, and when you're playing, is the level. And if you stick the gate at the end of the chain where all the noise has gathered and become this huge.....thing, then the point/threshold at which you can be absolutely sure it's not "just noise" is that much higher. That means that the threshold has to be set higher than the level of the first 50 milliseconds or so of the signal. Yes, there IS a peak at the start, but if you look very closely, you'll see there is a short period of lesser energy prior to that peak, plus it also takes a moment to "assess" that energy level and turn the gate on. That's the lag you're talking about.

And that has essentially been my point all along. Most people stick the gate at the very end where it is expected to do too much, and where its performance can't help but be less than what people need it to be.

I have a noise-reduction feature in my compressor (downward expander), and I have to say that unless you set it for something outrageous, it is pretty unobtrusive, simply because it is acting at the point in the signal path where it doesn't have to do too much and can easily meet those expectations.

It is rarely the gate itself, but rather unrealistic expectations about what it can do in the conditions it is placed under.


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

I used to use an ISP Decimator, sold it once my last band broke up, thinking I'll pick up another one.


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## hollowbody (Jan 15, 2008)

Milkman said:


> I really dislike noise gates. I do just fine using the volume knob on the guitar.
> 
> I have yet to hear a noise gate that didn't affect the sound.
> 
> I hate the lag you hear on the first note you play.


I'm in the same camp. I had an NS-2 for a while and eventually got rid of it for the same reasons and figured I would just put up with the hum from single-coils. Recently, when I got my P90 LP, I noticed the hum was even more pronounced with them than with my Strat, so for the show I played this weekend, I rented an ISP G String. I

It's great for getting rid of hum, but yeah, the attack on the first note really started bothering me and the gate kept cutting of sustained notes, so after about 3 or 4 songs, I just turned it off and went back to riding the volume knob.


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## s2ledesma (Apr 18, 2011)

Anyone tried out the Rockton Hush? Ive been hearing a lot of stuff about it but I'm not really sure how good it is


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

The Hush uses downward expansion, which is a preferred technique to actual gating. You lose the attack and decay less than with gating.

Subject to the same problems as gates, though. Which is that if you expect it to do too much for you, you have to set its sensitivity such that it interferes with your playing.


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