Improved Use of Gates - Musical Creativity 27

Alan — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 12:24:41 +0000

I've taken a detour from writing about timing for a few articles and there are a couple of points still to say about that (but for another article). I'm also planning some articles on creative uses of processors and effectsbut that's a short while away, while I prepare the audio samples so I can explain it better.

In the meantime, I saw a post over at thestereobus.com about using gates for enhancing the sound of kickdrum.

It's a good article and I like it. I especially like the reminder about mixing the gated sound with the original signal. Parallel routing is something I use often to blend in processed and unprocessed sound.

"At 0ms this sounds pretty ridiculous and unnatural"

That's good advice if you want to ensure fidelity to the original sound or at most enhance it. If you're using the gate more creatively, it's at least worth trying the ridiculous settings. Sometimes they just work.

Part of a series by Award Sounds offering a selection of creative ideas to kick-start or rejuvenate a composition.