Noise Gates for a live setting?

[sajs]

I think I need a noise gate for a live situation. When my band practices, the Vocal mics are picking up a lot of the drums and guitar amps while sitting idle.
Would a noise gate help? I believe when the vocalist sings, the gate will open and still allow the drums and guitars through. Is there still a benefit of having one hooked up to the PA?

 

[Sloan]

Are you talking about live recording or performance?

If recording, you could add the gate later on the individual tracks - easy!

If performace, it would work but may not be worth the time and effort to setup before each gig. If a gate's setup wrong, it'll sound like ass.

One solution is to get your singer to "eat the mic" and sing louder - allowing you to turn the mic's gain down and it'll pick up less unwanted stuff. If that's not an option, move the mic further away from unwanted sound sources.

 

[xstatic]

Realistically, it will porbably not work, but cause even more problems. Most likely the other instruments are so loud that the necessary threshold to shut the gate off would also cut a lot of vocals. Not to mention the constant change in the PA.

 

[sajs]

Thanks, that makes a lot of sense.

 

[joel77]

I use gates on mics in live gigs all the time. It's not that hard to get them set, just takes a bit of time and expermintation.

If you understand how a gate works and specifically, the controls on your own gate, they can be set to work perfectly.

Joel

 

[Freudian Slip]

I use gates on mics in live gigs all the time. It's not that hard to get them set, just takes a bit of time and expermintation.

If you understand how a gate works and specifically, the controls on your own gate, they can be set to work perfectly.

Joel

Never have had the slightes need to use a gate on a vocal mic. I can see it working in limited genres, but throw a gate on a soul singer that would actually eleminate a problem like sajs is describing and you'll know it.

I think your best bet is to look at you’re stage arrangement, the mic you’re using and as mentioned before, see if the singers can get closer to the mic's so you can bring the gain down a bit.
Try to utilize any rejection properties the mic’s may have the best you can.
You may also have out of control stage volume (like that ever happens ).


Just my opinion.


F.S.

 

[xstatic]

I use gates on mics in live gigs all the time. It's not that hard to get them set, just takes a bit of time and expermintation.

If you understand how a gate works and specifically, the controls on your own gate, they can be set to work perfectly.

Joel

If you have ever done any sort of loud rock on any sort of medium to smaller sized stage you would know how futile gating a vocal mic can be. There is often so much bleed that any kind of gating you run will actually make the FOH mix MUCH harder to tighten up. Definately in the right circumstances a gate on a vocal mic can work, but from what the original poster said, it sounds to me like a gate will not help. It is important to remember that gates work on signal. It is not that rare for a vocal mic to see as much signal (and sometimes even more) from the band than from the singer. I see it all the time in rock music. The vocal comp is starting to go off during certain passages with no vocals, just the band. In these situations the mix almost always sounds better when you turn the vocal mic off. However, in the long run the show sounds MUCH worse if the mic keeps coming and going making the whole main mix change with every gate movement. In those situations it is best to leave the mic wide open or only attenuate with the gate by about 5db and work the rest of your mix around it. This is all assuming of course that reducing the stage volume instead is not practical or possible.