importance of gating

[b born droid]

I had no idea anyone even considered using gates on electronic music. I only ever use them on band recordings.... and then it's just for drums. Used right, a gate on each drum makes so much difference with drum sounds....unless you're Steve Albini of course.

[Guest welcome to the machine]

I had no idea anyone even considered using gates on electronic music. I only ever use them on band recordings.... and then it's just for drums. Used right, a gate on each drum makes so much difference with drum sounds....unless you're Steve Albini of course.

 

yeah more often than not anything you could do with a gate you could do better with an envelope, or just cutting up the audio, in electronic music.

[Bubba69]

I'm suprised by the comments here. Nobody here uses a limiter on their master track or multi-band compressor or even eq?

 

None of those things are gates, Einstein.

 

I was just refferring to the comments about not using any master effects in general. Do people here send their stuff to mastering engineers? I mean, I understand that if you are but when I mix down I usually do some light stuff to make it more enjoyable for me.

[Bubba69]

I had no idea anyone even considered using gates on electronic music. I only ever use them on band recordings.... and then it's just for drums. Used right, a gate on each drum makes so much difference with drum sounds....unless you're Steve Albini of course.

 

yeah more often than not anything you could do with a gate you could do better with an envelope, or just cutting up the audio, in electronic music.

 

post reverb it can be kind of cool in electronic music. I sometimes like to let the machine do it for me, gives it a different feel. Sometimes I never use gates.

[Guest analogue wings]

I'm suprised by the comments here. Nobody here uses a limiter on their master track or multi-band compressor or even eq?

 

None of those things are gates, Einstein.

 

I was just refferring to the comments about not using any master effects in general. Do people here send their stuff to mastering engineers? I mean, I understand that if you are but when I mix down I usually do some light stuff to make it more enjoyable for me.

 

None of those things are effects, Einstein. People were saying they wouldn't put a reverb or a flanger over an entire mix.

[b born droid]

I'm pretty sure that multiband compression and EQ are effects.

[Guest welcome to the machine]

I had no idea anyone even considered using gates on electronic music. I only ever use them on band recordings.... and then it's just for drums. Used right, a gate on each drum makes so much difference with drum sounds....unless you're Steve Albini of course.

 

yeah more often than not anything you could do with a gate you could do better with an envelope, or just cutting up the audio, in electronic music.

 

post reverb it can be kind of cool in electronic music. I sometimes like to let the machine do it for me, gives it a different feel. Sometimes I never use gates.

 

yeah, as i say, more often than not, but you can use any tool to make interesting sounds that will work in your tune. I just dont think its necessary as such. more often than not I would bounce and resample my drum tracks individual hits, and add an envelope then so I can gate eq that way, either that or use the inbuilt gate function on my main verb.

 

either way, every audio effect has its use, but i would put a gate at the bottom of a list of important tools (for me, anyway)

 

as for your mastering question/point yeah, I do tend to put a bit on to test out what it will sound like mastered (just as a rough guide). that way i can listen to it in the car and on other stereos etc, make sure im happy with the mix etc. but then when its sent to the mastering house you need to give them an absolutely clean version of the track, as in NO master effects whatsoever.

 

the clearer the track you give them the more they can do with it, if you give them a mix that has already been eq'd compressed and/or limited they probably wont be able to do much with it.

 

if im doing it myself as the track isnt for release then i'll spend a bit of time on it, just for fun and learning, but as I say i'll always leave a clean mix around somewhere, in case i ever decide to get it done properly.

 

@ analogue wings, although you may differentiate between creative effects and dynamic tools, its a bit of a push to say eq's and compressors are not effects. I mean you could argue about it but you still find them on lists of effects processors or whatever.

 

edit- im talking mainly electronic music mind, when im recording bands I would use a gate quite a bit for a lot of uses both creative and problem-solving. theres been some good ideas in this post as regards using gates in creative ways

[Bubba69]

Okay sorry AW, difference in scope of teminology there.

[Guest analogue wings]

All processors can be used as effects

 

No effects can be used as processors