Placement of a noise gate?

[itbepopples]

Hey guys I'm wondering where one would place a noise gate in his/her signal path? This would be for both clean and distorted/overdrive with one or two effects in the loop of the amp.

[DeadSkinSlayer3]

Depends on where the noise is comming from. Personally, I can live with a bit of high gain hiss from the preamp, as long as I don't get hum and feedback from the guitar. Thus, my gate is infront of the amp. If I wanted to get rid of all that preamp hiss, then I'd stick it in the loop. Ideally, I'd have one in each spot, which is why I'm looking into rack gates.

[kmcguitars]

You Really shoudn't need one in your FX loop. That's the idea of a FX loop is to place your time based FX after the preamp to cut down on noise. You want your gate last inline B4 your signal hits the front of the amp.

[itbepopples]

I didn't mean that I was going to put it in the effects loop...sorry for not clarifying and thanks for the answers you guys.

[some_dude]

Hey guys I'm wondering where one would place a noise gate in his/her signal path? This would be for both clean and distorted/overdrive with one or two effects in the loop of the amp.

You'll find many different opinions on this....


....but, if you're looking for clean and distorted gating, I'd recommend putting it right before whatever you're using for gain.....otherwise you'll have problems setting the threshold for the gate to close.

IE, if you put it in the loop and set the threshold to match your clean tone, it'll never close when you turn the gain on.

and if you set it to match your distorted tone, it'll chop off the sustain on your clean tone.

But putting it before the gain source (preamp or pedal) you'll ensure that it's always recieving a clean signal, thus the threshold will always be matched correctly.

[That90'sGuy]

I've never really thought about it much; if I have an FX Loop, I throw it through there, but with my newer amps, I just throw it at the very end of my pedal chain. Works like a charm

[Zerberus]

Hey guys I'm wondering where one would place a noise gate in his/her signal path? This would be for both clean and distorted/overdrive with one or two effects in the loop of the amp.

I always place the noice gate as the very last item, right before the reverb..... that way the reverb "masks" the closing of the gate.

In my setup that means Axe -> preamp -> Gate -> Verb -> power amp, reagrrdless of whether I´m using the rack or the V-twin / JCM

[lex666]

You'll find many different opinions on this....


....but, if you're looking for clean and distorted gating, I'd recommend putting it right before whatever you're using for gain.....otherwise you'll have problems setting the threshold for the gate to close.


But putting it before the gain source (preamp or pedal) you'll ensure that it's always recieving a clean signal, thus the threshold will always be matched correctly.

Exactly what I wuz gonna say...