Can I use two noise gates?

[357mag]

I'm playing a Strat with a fairly powerful single coil in both the bridge and the neck and at the moment am just using one noise gate at the start of my signal chain threshold currently set at 60%. Would like to make it a little quieter but instead of raising the threshold more to reduce the hum I was wondering if it would be a better idea or is it more effective to use two noise gates. Perhaps putting the second one right before the amp head?

[NBell]

Hey 365mag,

 

Try adding the noise gate after the amp, before any delays and reverbs to prevent the reverbs and delays from doing their job. For a quick cut off set the decay to zero and the Db to your preference.

[357mag]

Just tried putting second noise gate right after the amp head (but before the mixer). Not very good there. Noisy. Also tried putting noise gate after the amp head (and after the mixer). No good there either. Noisy.

 

Seems to work the best right before the amp head. Guess I will keep it there.

[jandrio]

quoting from http://foobazaar.com/podhd/toneGuide/ampTone#noiseGates

Dual Gates

Using two gates is useful when you're using strong compression or distortion, and you need to go from punchy chords to dead silence very quickly. I like to place the first gate as the first thing in the chain. I dial it in as described above, but it may not kick on fast enough, and those snippets of noise occurring as I'm muting are being amplified and are obvious when listening to the tone.

 

I add another gate after the compressor/distortion stage that is adding most of the compression. For many people, this is the end of the chain. For me, it's usually before the amp, but after a compressor or distortion effect with a little drive. I dial this one in exactly like the first one, and I turn the first one off while I'm doing so.Once I've got them both tuned, I try the patch out with them both on. Sometimes it'll end up gating a little too much. I tend to back off the first gate a bit, while keeping the final gate firm

[sinistralx]

357mag....  try isolate the noise to find the culprit... if the gate at the beginning of your signal chain is 'closed' it should clean up any noise from your strat. If you are still getting some noise either from drive pedals or high gain amps (when not playing anything) try moving the NG up the signal chain one unit at a time. I have generally found that adding in additional NG's kills tone and playability but experimenting with where it sits yields good results.

[Brazzy]

One thing I've noticed is that if I have my guitar volume at wide open as opposed to under or up to 1/3 open I will get more noise from the guitar. So most of the time I make my settings with the guitar volume at a low setting then while playing if I need more drive I just turn the the G volume up and of course I set my patches accordingly.

[BlueViolince]

Generally, you want a gate before any increase in gain, i.e., before the amp or drives, and maybe before any time-based effects, so echoes and trails don't get cut off.