Gated drums: yay, or nay?

[IELMusic94]

Alright, so I'm currently working on a project that makes heavy use of gating effects on the drum buss. Now, I like how it sounds, but I'm curious to hear the general consensus on gating effects. Not to decide whether or not to keep them, just to whet my curiosity. So, how do you feel about the use of gating effects on drums?

[lloydy]

How do you mean stutter effect or just using a it for normal gating techniques?

[Genevieve]

Yeah sure, I'll do it if I like it? I mostly do it by synching and automating an LFO to a volume control and play around with that.

[lloydy]

Yeah sure, I'll do it if I like it? I mostly do it by synching and automating an LFO to a volume control and play around with that.

Isn't that what transient shapers are for?I literally thought other than stutter effects gating was for cutting unwanted noise like bleeding form other drum mic's.I know you can use them to make drums punchier and what not but agian isn't that really all a transient shaper is for?

[Fbac]

Use them on Live drums ive recorded and mixed. I see it as a Tool , to be used when neccersairy,

[Genevieve]

Yeah sure, I'll do it if I like it? I mostly do it by synching and automating an LFO to a volume control and play around with that.

Isn't that what transient shapers are for?I literally thought other than stutter effects gating was for cutting unwanted noise like bleeding form other drum mic's.I know you can use them to make drums punchier and what not but agian isn't that really all a transient shaper is for?

When I put an LFO on the volume control I do it as a creative effect. Like the 'stutter effect' but with more variety and control. Transient shapers change the envelopes of the sound itself.

[lloydy]

I get you sorry i miss read your post.I run logic so have to do most of my stutter effects with a gate or by cutting.I find i prefer gating as you get better control with the attack and release settings.

[syrup]

Gates on breaks - Win

[Artie_Fufkin]

^^ I find it makes stuff sound faster and punchier at high bpms, so if you do breakcore, it can help make things crazier sounding.

[Wrigzilla]

I usually prefer transient shaping or compression/expansion over gating for making drums snappier but gating can sound great. I am however a huge fan of gated reverbs.

[deadly_habit]

all i gotta say is how does it sound

[Today]

how do you feel about the use of gating effects on drums?

really gonna have to post the example you're using to get any kind of useful response to such a broad question

Anyway... a gate is a gate, it's meant to mute unwanted line noise or the natural decay of a drum or reverberation after it falls below your threshold.
It's a terrific tool for vocals and any other analog audio recording (piano, guitar etc) . But for samples of drum hits, it's pretty much useless. You can get everything you want from samples and midi with ADSR, compression, transient shapers, etc. Really even just with ADSR.

A pattern gate is like an LFO-modded or step sequenced gate that opens and closes based on a control sequence. So if you're talking about putting a pattern gate on your drum bus, i don't get it. If your drums are quantized and you played the beat the way you wanted, there would not be any reason to do this. I could see gated reverb, or maybe pattern gate on a delay/verb send so the sustained reverberated signal is getting rhythmically chopped by the pattern gate. But to just put that over your drums, would either do nothing, or just fuck up your beat. imho, of course.

[Artie_Fufkin]

^Alternatively, you can shape your samples in an audio editor if you want even more control than the ASDR. For example, you could load a snare into audacity and use the Envelope Tool, do fades, individually amplify individual cycles of the waveform, or manually adjust every sample in the file with the draw tool. Hell, you could make a drum from scratch with the draw tool.

I took the audio from this and put a gate on it and thought it sounded neat, even though it was probably recorded with one crappy microphone. It makes it sound more focused and not so boomy.

[Samuel_L_Damnson]

yay