About noise gates

[MonkeyShock]

I'm recording a miked acoustic. I downloaded some noise gate plugins to evaluate. Munoise, and Analogx. Is anybody here using one of these? If so,maybe you could give me some tips on how I should have my settings for the miked acoustic. My main question though, is do I use the gate on each track as I record, or just gate the whole thing when I'm finished with a song?...usually I have 4 to 6 tracks. Thanks a lot

 

[ChristopherDawn]

You usually want to save processing until after you record the track dry, that way if you make a mistake while tracking you're not screwed.

 

[TexRoadkill]

The purpose of a noise gate is to shut off a track when the instrument isn't playing. They aren't always needed and they are most commonly used on drums to isolate the individual drum mikes. They are never used on an entire mix because it's better to manually fade the beginning and endings.