supressing noise with a gate

notbradsohner

Compression Addict
can someone explain how to do this. My tracks just have an eventualy build up of noise, and I have seen people use a gate to get rid of some of this hiss?
 
you just insert the gate and set the threshold so the noise doesn't open it but the music does. You can do this on the offending channels or across the master buss. If you are using a daw, you can just edit out the parts that are supposed to be silent.
 
How much noise are you building up - like does the noise floor (during a silent moment) sit at -50dB or somethin crazy like that ? Maybe you want to 'shoot your recording signal chains if it's too much before it eats out the good musical passages...just a thought
 
I guess to expand on kylen's question, where is the noise coming from? Is it noise generated in your equipment or is it from the room? Move the mic around...does it change?
 
You can us a downward expander to help out.

Or get the new Behringer UB UltranoiseX2496Pro :)
Great for removing all of that unwanted noise form behringer gear. Make sure you buy a second to remove the noise generated from the first UltranoiseX2496Pro.
 
All a noise gate does is turn off the ENTIRE signal when it drops below a certain level, and then turns the signal back on when it goes back above the threshold, so it won't do anything with noise while there is music happening in the signal. Your best bet is to get rid of the noise at the source (turn off the air, tell the wife not to do laundry, etc...)
 
Gates do not necessarily cut the entire signal (to silence). Most decent gates have some sort of depth or ratio settings. This way rather than taking a signal and cutting it completely, you can cut just certain percentages of it when the gate closes. This allows a little more of a natural sound as opposed to an actaul "mute" in a sense. This can be a critical setting if you are attempting to gate guitars and other instruments with longer and more desired sustains.
 
notbradsohner said:
can someone explain how to do this. My tracks just have an eventualy build up of noise, and I have seen people use a gate to get rid of some of this hiss?

I think you're saying that your tracking, and tracking, and eventually all those tracks are adding up to a bunch of hiss and noise. It sounds like your mics or preamps could be the problem, or it's air noise etc. or both?

War
 
Most decent gates have some sort of depth or ratio settings.

Most manufacturers refer to a gate as cutting the signal completely off below the threshold. When the ratio setting comes into play its commonly reffered to as an Expander or Expansion.
 
well, I shouldnt really say noise, just tape hiss. Im using a reel to reel, but it doesnt have NR in it. I guess ill just get an outboard unit.
 
Another thing to remember is that gates are also used to "clip" the unwanted "tail-end" of a signal or effect ('Verbs,delays etc.). Gates are also useful for containing that annoying "hissssss" commonly found in most drum machines & git efx boxes and controlling the "leakage" of 1 particular mic'd source (for example cymbals) from being picked up by another source (such as toms,snare etc.).
Gates would not be the answer if the signal tracked by your R-2-R is accompanied by noise artifacts such as hiss.
Perform a maintenance check of your R-2-R by checking to see if the heads,capstan & take-up reel/path needs cleaning. Also, trace and test the signal path from the signal source to the R2R to determine what is causing the noise (instrument,cables,effect(s), mixer,etc.).
As others have stated, it is of the utmost importance to focus on capturing the best perf possible as well as paying heed to the overall dynamics of the track being recorded so as to minimize the need for signal-dynamic processing. Your case resembles more of a need to perform an equip'mt check.

Good luck.
 
notbradsohner said:
well, I shouldnt really say noise, just tape hiss. Im using a reel to reel, but it doesnt have NR in it. I guess ill just get an outboard unit.
Are you doing sound-on-sound on a 4trk reel? Are you recording individual tracks on an 8trk or 16trk? Are you bouncing between 2 multi-track decks ?

If you are doing SOS cumulative noise is going to be tough to get rid of. If you are doing something else then I assume you've already try to record hotter like at +2dB to +4dB depending on the kind of deck you have.

If all else fails and you have to perform restoration in the DAW Voxengo Redunoise VST is the best multi-band denoiser I've used to transparantly kill tape hiss. Sometimes you just gotta do it that way...
http://voxengo.com/redunoise/
 
notbradsohner said:
well, I shouldnt really say noise, just tape hiss. Im using a reel to reel, but it doesnt have NR in it. I guess ill just get an outboard unit.

Compress while recording, then expand or gate during playback. You can get older dbx units for dirt cheap that will do this for you (all you have to do is switch between "Record" and "Play" mode on the units). That's what noise reduction is. Look for "companders" if you want an all-in-one unit.

As Wireneck and Deepwater suggest -- and this is something that is easy to overlook when choosing gear -- an expander is MUCH more "natural" sounding than a gate.
 
the difference between a gate and an expander is just ratio, an expander is from 1:1 to 6:1 and a gate is 6:1 to infinity to 1., biggest difference between a compressor and a limiter is ratio too.
gates sound good on kicks with a short attack and release and on toms with a longer release.
also fun to run a direct out of a kick or bass channel into the key input (sidechain) of a gate and run a tone generator or oscillator low freq. sine wave thru the input of the gate so the kick or bass triggers the low freq. sine wave.anyone into that hiphop deep subbass,this is the trick they use.
 
gates are great for expanding yer dynamic range,keep in mind that for every additional microphone ya open up it increases the noise floor by 3db.
so with a lot of mics,drums for instance,all that noise adds up.
 
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