Smooth tone dying, how?

  • As I said - conventional wisdom and most guidance you can find says put the gate after the offending source.


    Its somewhat apples and oranges...but you don't pre-gate a snare drum or cymbals, do you? Why would you pre-gate a dirt pedal or amp where the sound is *heavily* influenced by the signal it sees?

    “Without music, life would be a mistake.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

  • As I said - conventional wisdom and most guidance you can find says put the gate after the offending source.


    Its somewhat apples and oranges...but you don't pre-gate a snare drum or cymbals, do you? Why would you pre-gate a dirt pedal or amp where the sound is *heavily* influenced by the signal it sees?

    You gate a a snare as soon as possible if you want it to sound natural. many gate after the reverb for the Phil Collins sound.


    So yes it should be mic -> pre -> gate -> compressor

  • had the same issue yesterday ,twisted the noise gate a few times seemed to help a bit

    turned everything on following day and everything seems perfect now :)

  • You gate a a snare as soon as possible if you want it to sound natural. many gate after the reverb for the Phil Collins sound.


    So yes it should be mic -> pre -> gate -> compressor

    I might be being a but stupid but sounds like you are both saying the same thing.


    After the offending item, the noise can either be amplified or compressed. In both cases the best place is immediately after the offending item. The question really is to identify the offending item as it could be the guitar or the pre amp or an effect. This can be confusing as you may not hear he noise until more gain is added.


    Bearing in mind most things generate some noise, tracking this down may not be immediately obvious and hence trying stuff is the best way forward.


    Also bearing in mind you could take my approach and live with any note tail off for the benefit of high-volume silence by just wacking a 4:1 stomp on.


    Finally, bearing in mind I have no knowledge on this and could be totally barking!

  • the best place is immediately after the offending item

    Maybe I am a bit naive. But to my experience, regarding the source of the noise, it is (in my configuration) the distortion effect, a little bit also the booster effect. Switching them off, I hear no noise when the input noise gate is down. Switching them on, results in heavy disturbing noise. Now turning the level of the input noise up, there is a point, where the noise goes away. Then, tell me what is the source of the noise? The guitar picks? Maybe the distortion effects is amplifying the guitars noise; I do not know. This is true whether I use a Strat or a Gibson (I am not a metal guy and I do not use high gain profiles). BTW: putting a noise gate AFTER the distortion effect is no option for me, because I need this stomp for another effect.


    This reminds me of the old days when I had some distortion or boost pedal before the real amp: after all what they produces, they made unwanted noise.

  • After the offending item, the noise can either be amplified or compressed. In both cases the best place is immediately after the offending item. The question really is to identify the offending item as it could be the guitar or the pre amp or an effect. This can be confusing as you may not hear he noise until more gain is added.


    Bearing in mind most things generate some noise, tracking this down may not be immediately obvious and hence trying stuff is the best way forward.

    I am saying the noise gate should always be the very first thing for digital profilers/modelers..


    If you plug into the Kemper and do not use any external loops, your first stomp should be a Noise Gate. This is the place where Kemper puts there built in noise gate. Its also where EVERY digital modeler puts their noise gate.


    Once you are in the digital realm no Over Drive, Comp, Amp, or Distortion stomp will add noise. These things seem to make noise, but all they are doing is amplifying the original noise from the guitar. They also decrease the overall loudness of the guitar signal. So they increase the noise and decrease the guitar signal which = A SHITE TON OF NOISE.


    If you gate before these stages, there is NO NOISE to be amplified. It all gets gated out.


    If you look at the drawings I did you can see the guitar notes are compressed down to the same level as the noise. Where you used to have a huge difference between the noise and the guitar, you now have almost no difference.


    The greater difference between noise and guitar means the guitar notes can fade out for a while before the gate kicks in. So for the best sustain you want the gate first.


    CAVEATS

    Now if you are running external loops you will pick up some noise. And in the real world, your amplifiers, pedals, etc can create their own noise as well as amplify the guitars noise. But these noise makers do not exist in the digital world.


    EQ

    Smart noise gates will also roll off high frequencies, not just turn down the volume. The math formula for noise includes bandwidth. So the less frequencies you let thru, the less noise you will have. The Kemper input gate has some magic it does like this to make it better than a typical 4:1 stomp, etc.


    Because of this I will sometimes use an EQ before the gate. By setting a HI CUT around 2.5-4.0 kHz, you can reduce the noise bandwidth before the gate. This way the gate has even more range to work with. It is a very small improvement, but an improvement none the less. If you are not doing high pinch harmonics you can set it even lower for less noise.

  • Once you are in the digital realm no Over Drive, Comp, Amp, or Distortion stomp will add noise. These things seem to make noise, but all they are doing is amplifying the original noise from the guitar. They also decrease the overall loudness of the guitar signal. So they increase the noise and decrease the guitar signal which = A SHITE TON OF NOISE.


    If you gate before these stages, there is NO NOISE to be amplified. It all gets gated out.

    This is exactly what ckemper has said in previous posts about noise.

  • I had to test yesterday :)

    I tried a crunch stack gain at 6.

    I added a drive stomp and an important amount of noise came out.

    So i added a noise gate stomp and tried it at the first slot, after the stack and between my drive and the stack.

    The most important reduction noise was the last one ; between the drive stomp and the stack.

    I presume it's case by case.

    It was easy to try different possibilities by drag and drop NG stomp with Ipad Rig Manager..... ;)

  • Not sure how much gain you're using, but most of the reverbs on the kemper have a bright harsh resonance thing happening... I always have to cut the highs (..roll off within the reverb) anything over 7000 Hz. Boom, harshness gone.... Isn't as prominant for cleans... : )

  • I guess I'm old school, but this discussion reflects why I don't like or use noise gates. Yes, some gates are better than others. Many times, the side effect is worse than the problem the gate is trying to solve. I am the noise gate in my system. Ride the volume knob and switch of the offending devices when necessary.

  • The most important reduction noise was the last one ; between the drive stomp and the stack.

    I presume it's case by case.

    As I have stated several times, before anything is best. The only argument one could make that would support your statement is what effect the gate has on the guitars tone.


    If you are running a really high gate first and it is lowering your volume enough that it starts pulling your signal into a lower gain area. It may sound weird and honky. In this case having the gate after a distortion stage may give better results. Since the gain and frequency response of the gain stage will be what you are expecting. You will just sacrifice a little sustain and ease of use.


    As you said, "case by case" and to your taste is always what is best for you.

  • I guess I'm old school, but this discussion reflects why I don't like or use noise gates. Yes, some gates are better than others. Many times, the side effect is worse than the problem the gate is trying to solve. I am the noise gate in my system. Ride the volume knob and switch of the offending devices when necessary.

    For high gain this is near impossible...the buzz/hum can be high at high volume and extremely noticable. Hum for me has been a real problem and hum doesn't always go away with backing the volume off.


    I guess it depends on what is important. I don't often let notes tail off. I do a lot of "on/off" playing a la highway to hell intro. Seen so many people play songs like that with noise in between and its horrible.

  • For high gain this is near impossible...the buzz/hum can be high at high volume and extremely noticable. Hum for me has been a real problem and hum doesn't always go away with backing the volume off.

    My current Kemper setup has a thing where rolling off the volume knob increases the noise. I do not play rolled off much so I have not bothered to figure out why yet :/


    From 10 to about 4 the noise increases. Then 4 to 0 it decreases. So I am at 10 and use a noise gate 99% of the time.


    I just bought an expression pedal to do some morphing for a song where I want to roll back in parts. Will probably do the BayouTexan trick of morphing the gain and gate at the same time. Have not hooked it up yet though.

  • My current Kemper setup has a thing where rolling off the volume knob increases the noise. I do not play rolled off much so I have not bothered to figure out why yet :/


    From 10 to about 4 the noise increases. Then 4 to 0 it decreases. So I am at 10 and use a noise gate 99% of the time.

    are you using a lot of compression? It could be the the compressor is trying to raise the level as you turn down the input signal.

  • For high gain this is near impossible...the buzz/hum can be high at high volume and extremely noticable. Hum for me has been a real problem and hum doesn't always go away with backing the volume off.


    I guess it depends on what is important. I don't often let notes tail off. I do a lot of "on/off" playing a la highway to hell intro. Seen so many people play songs like that with noise in between and its horrible.

    It it always enlightening to hear how differently we use amplifiers and effects. I never find high gain desirable. Especially gain so high that hum dominates. How a note decays is a significant factor on how I decide if a tone is good. Long smooth decay that reflects how the guitar reacts unplugged is paramount to me. Noise dominating decay is a non-starter. In short, the signal chain must support my playing, not the other way around. Always good to understand other viewpoints.

  • It it always enlightening to hear how differently we use amplifiers and effects. I never find high gain desirable. Especially gain so high that hum dominates. How a note decays is a significant factor on how I decide if a tone is good. Long smooth decay that reflects how the guitar reacts unplugged is paramount to me. Noise dominating decay is a non-starter. In short, the signal chain must support my playing, not the other way around. Always good to understand other viewpoints.

    Totally, we all have different use cases which is why there is rarely a "right" answer :)