Gating, Compression... which first?

[Uladine]

Should I gate first or compress first? I would think gating first would make more sense since, compressing could bring up unwanted noise, but what if the level of certain things isnt consistant enough to gate what you dont want and keep what you do want?

 

[MONTE]

If you gate after you compress, it will be much more difficult to suppress noise. Your peaks will be lowered through the compression process effectively giving you more noise. This would make it more diffucult to have a gate point that is closed for noise and open for wanted signals. Therefore it makes much more sense to gate first.

 

[fenix]

i always gate last. absolutely last. Let me explain.

If you gate then compress, you are going to have the noise level of the compressor coming through. This may not be a problem for a good compressor, but with a lot of tracks that are compressed, it could add up.

If you compress then gate, you are going to be leveling out your signal so that you will be less likely to have false gates.

If you gate, compress, then EQ...you might have some problems. for example if I were adding a lot of high end to a kick drum that was gated, the hiss of the high end of my EQ will come through because I am not gating last.

this is why I always gate last. It does the best with keeping the noise in check and more.

 

[crosstudio]

the problem that i see with your gate last chain is as follows:

when you compress, you normally add makeup gain. this makeup gain raises the level of your noise floor and any subsequent processing will process this raised noise floor.

so after you've processed all of this unwanted noise, then you gate it?

i'd rather gate first, so that i don't bother to process any signal that i don't want to hear. if i don't want to hear them, why process them?

of course, i'm not saying that you are wrong to do it, i'm just saying that gating last is not my preference.

gate > eq cut > compress > fx

or

gate > compress > eq boost > fx

i also did the following once for a lead vocal where i wanted to cut the low end but boost 4K:

gate > eq cut (low cut) > compress > eq boost (4khz notch) > delay > reverb

 

[fenix]

what about if you gate then eq? won't you have the noise of your EQ if you are making significant boosts especially in the highs coming through?

 

[crosstudio]

if you are boosting the EQ on a noisy signal, you should think about re-recording the signal with less inherent noise.

if you have gated the incoming source signal such that the sections where you are laying out are not recorded, then your high end boost will only be heard when the track is actually playing a signal.

i guess it also matters whether you are talking about an analog EQ or a digital EQ. when a digital gate reduces a wave to 0 (i'm talking bit values not DB), and a digital EQ is next in the chain, the digital EQ is not going to EQ a 0 bit value; however, an analog EQ is going to EQ the inherent noise coming from the gate itself in addition to the EQ's own inherent noise. if your analog EQ is that noisy, you need a new EQ.