Some Love for the Noise Gate (Expander) - with Preset

[Anderton]

It sure seems like the Noise Gate is more like an expander than a standard hard gate. I did some tests and found that below the threshold, the output became less than the input, but didn't go away until you were way below the threshold. So with low thresholds, the Noise Gate is good for getting rid of some low-level crud in a gentler way than the Hard Gate. BUT there's more to the story...

 

With a high Threshold (even as high as 0.0 if the input level is strong), the Noise Gate accents only the peaks of your playing. I inserted the Noise Gate in parallel, followed by the 10-Band Graphic EQ in the same parallel path. The EQ's  2 kHz slider is at 0, all lower-frequency sliders are at -15.0, and all higher-frequency sliders are at +15.0. With a dry electric guitar, the sound gets brighter, but only on peaks, when you're hitting the strings hard. Use the Mixer to adjust the level of the brightened sound compared to the dry sound.

 

I've attached an HX Stomp-compatible preset, but note that both the input level going into the Noise Gate, and the Threshold setting, are crucial. When using Helix Native, I normalize the level of the guitar track feeding it. But when you dial in the right settings, the effect kind of recalls acoustic guitars, which get brighter when you hit them harder. This also gives humbuckers some extra spank. Cool stuff!

 

 

DynamicBrighten.hlx