what do u have and how do u run it in your chain? is it natural sounding or does it cut u off? share your thoughts.








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"in search of the ultimate tone"

For cover shows, I often help the mixer out (as he's the bass player) and go out the front to have a listen and make sure everything's cool.

To do this, I run an ol samsung wireless unit which creates a nasty hum only apperant when on a drive channel. To combat this, I bought a cheap as chips Behringer Noise Gate.

I sit it on top of the amp and it's the last point of contact before my signal enters the amp. I've set this just right to cut out the buzz from the wireless but still be pretty natural when playing.

It's also pretty cool for changing guitars as when you press the pedal it mutes the sound all together.

The Bad, I find when trying to sustain a chord at the end of a song, sometimes I need to feed the guitar volume up as the sustain is running out at it keeps the noise gate from cutting in and forcing me to finish the song prior to when I should. You can get used to this and although painfull, isn't a big deal if you're switched on to what's happening.

The Real prob, feedback. My amp's DI'd so the only volume I need is for myself. When aiming the Amp at myself I don't really need a lot of volume for a show. This also helps the out front mix as it's not affected by the stage volume too much. This also makes it hard to get feedback off the guitar when needed in some situations because it's so low in volume. Just this weekend I came to a bridge in a song where i normally get some feedback leading into the next part of the song. I stuck the note strongly and clearly, and waited for it to ring into some tastey feedback. Unfortunately the note become just quiet enough the gate kicked in and faded my signal out. That sucked! I shifted the note up an octave and kept playing it for the part.

So there you have a good example of where I've needed to change my playing to suit the pedal.

I've used many niose gates over the years with different setups I've had. Usually only in situations where you create enough gain or have a tone configuration that creates un-wanted noise.

I've found the best gates to use are ones with a fade cut off feature. This helps make you guitar sound more natural when fading in or our as it doesn't sound like a switch cutting in.

Be prepared though that you may need to modify your playing (slightly) to cope with the little bugger.

Lastely, out of all pedals / FX / Amps / Guitars, this is the one item that I've most been aware of while playing when using one. Meaning it has required my attention when using as it does affect how your system reacts, responds and even how you play your songs.








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Waycool
www.azazel.com.au

Before using a noise gate, first reduce the noise as much as you can manually:
1) Check your cables, bad cables hum
2) Move electronics from music stuff and cables and so on. Use a longer cable on the wireless receiver and distance it from the amp if you need to. If you keep your transmitter in your back pocket, try attaching it to your strap along your back. Just play around with it.

Remember that pickups are designed to pick up magnetic fields (these are created by vibrating strings which contain iron). But also running electricity through wires generates magnetic fields, so your pickups will also pick up any stray magnetic field from random wires.

3) Try and use grounded outlets, and have the same ground. Bring your own surge protector/power strip everywhere you bring your amp. It will reduce noise and you will be your bands hero (everyones always looking for a place to plug in).
4) Everything I said about avoiding electronics can apply to mixing board, your amp, and any wires that contain music signals.

But yeah, noise gates can be cool too, but they'll probably cut out some of the frequencies that give the tone its character, if they are on too high.

I have the best noise gate in the world. The ISP Decimator!! Doesn't suck up or color your tone like the other shitty ones.

benitosuave wrote:

3) Try and use grounded outlets, and have the same ground. Bring your own surge protector/power strip everywhere you bring your amp. It will reduce noise and you will be your bands hero (everyones always looking for a place to plug in).

Things to remember about AC current:
Bring an outlet tester with you to every gig.


These babys can save you from having the shit shocked out of you. They only cost as much as a two sets of super slinky's.

An often overlooked source of 60z hum comes from the Neutral line being too small. As far as Natinal Electrical Code goes ( I have the 93', 96', 99', 02', and 05' copies of the NEC book at my day job) there isn't much you can do. So long as the Neutral is sized to the breaker on the Hot leg, it's 'Code'.

What that means for us guitar players is that the harmonics from the transformers in all beer signs, dimmer switches, dimmer packs, refridgeration motors, the transformers in the power amps of our P.A. racks and all those lovley wall-warts will make their way to our guitar amps.
Over-sizing the wire from the panel helps, but that is something that has to be done while the place is still under construction.


If/when you test an outlet and it comes up as 'bad', don't use it. Run an extension cord 50' to the back of the room if you have to. It may seem weird, but at least you will live to tell about it.
Under the right conditions 7 1/2 watts is all it takes to leave you brain-dead. Lesser amounts can stop your heart, cause you to fill your pants and/or give you a pulled muscle or two. In the USA that outlet you plug into is rated at 1875 watts.





Club owners are notorious for having hung-over wino's wire the stage to work off their bar-tab, so don't even dream about offering to fix it.
You have no idea what lies behind that recepticle.
You could be opening a pandoras box of even greater problems!
If you 'fix' it and somebody gets hurt, or your 'fix' fucks-up something else you could end up in court.
It just ain't worth it.

I have a friend who ran sound at a local club call me to 'look' at their situation once.
People were getting shocked on a regular basis when they sang, when the dimmers were SWITCHED off, the lights would glow.
Some moron wired the 'stinger leg' from the 3-phase to half of the stage outletls. This problem went clear back to the breaker panel.

The only way I could convince the owner to act responsibly was to remind him that he could get his ass $ued if somebody went to a hospital because of his neglegence.








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Play what you want, play what you feel and don't look so suprised when the people you play for don't get it.

i used to have one of those circut testers...i lost it and replaced it with a huge "smoke machine box" aka a circut tripper box..every place i play i plug it in to make sure outlets are safe, if not, i find another outlet...electricty hurts, iv been in the hospital intensive care unit for 78 hours since my friend decided to pass guitars with me, it knock me out fucking good and since then i havent made a visit to the doc since. bad conections and bad wires can make for huge buzzing