Noise Gate
A noise gate is an automatic mute: when the signal drops below a threshold it closes and silences the channel; when you speak (or play) again it opens. It's how you stop a microphone from broadcasting fan hum, keyboard clatter and room tone between words.
The gate lives in the left panel of the config screen (alongside the compressor) — it's always visible while an input channel is selected, not a separate tab. Switch it in or out with GATE ON.
Great for a talking microphone in a noisy room. Less useful on music or anything with a continuous quiet tail you want to keep (a gate can chop reverb or sustained notes).
Controls
| Knob | Range | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| THRESH | −80…0 dB | −40 | The level the signal must exceed to open the gate. Set it just above your background noise. |
| DAMPING | −80…0 dB | −60 | How much the gate attenuates when closed. Very low = full silence; nearer 0 = a gentle duck instead of a hard cut. |
| ATTACK | 0.1…200 ms | 1 | How fast it opens. Keep short so word beginnings aren't clipped. |
| HOLD | 0…500 ms | 50 | How long it stays open after the signal drops — bridges short gaps between words. |
| RELEASE | 10…2000 ms | 100 | How fast it closes once hold expires. Too fast sounds choppy; too slow leaks noise. |
| HYST | 0…20 dB | 6 | Hysteresis — the gap between the open and close levels. Stops the gate "chattering" on signals hovering near the threshold. |
A live graph on the right shows the gate working: the input level and how much it's reducing.
BP Sidechain
A band-pass sidechain makes the gate listen to a filtered version of the signal instead of the whole thing — so it opens only for sounds in a chosen frequency band. Toggle it ON, then set:
- Frequency (80–8,000 Hz) — the band to listen to.
- Q (0.3–10) — how narrow that band is.
Handy to make a gate trigger on, say, a voice's body while ignoring low rumble.
Tuning recipe (talking mic)
- GATE ON. Stay quiet and watch the graph: note where your background noise sits.
- Set THRESH a few dB above that noise — silence should clamp shut, speech should open it cleanly.
- ATTACK ~1 ms, HOLD ~50 ms, RELEASE ~100–200 ms.
- If the gate flickers on quiet tails, raise HYST or HOLD. If cuts feel abrupt, raise DAMPING toward −30 dB for a softer duck.
Presets: the PRESET ▾ menu stores and recalls gate setups; RESET returns to defaults (asks to confirm). The same settings can also ride inside a pack.