Shitty Noise Gate Pedal Recommendations?

[themeanreds]

I love the gate/boost function (well, the gate part, anyway) on my Fuzzrocious Demon, so much so that it's become a foundation sound for many of my band's songs. It's a kinda sloppy squelch on hard stops, and when left to ring out, the signal sustains until it crumbles. For reference: "Hyena Moan," "The Woke," "Diminuendo," and "Funeral Song" are tunes that I could play without that specific kind of gating, but would rather not:

www.haan-nyc.com

My only issues with it are the boost (it's not a huge kick, but it's noticeable, and I would prefer that the level stayed more er, level), and that it is inextricably tied to the Demon itself. I love the Demon, but I would be stoked if
I could apply a similar kind of gate to other dirt pedals without always having the Demon's sonic personality in the mix.

Has anyone tried a gate pedal that yields a similarly mushy effect? Maybe you were looking for something clean and smooth, and found something that was gross and rough instead?

[BoatRich]

The Zvex Box Of Metal does this really well and I think that’s the gate from the LoopGate? I haven’t tried the Loop Gate to know though. Either way, you could put all of your dirt in there and call it a day? The Decimator and the older Boss noise gate also do weird sputtery decay if you get the release set just right? I’ve been trying to find a gate to do weirder shit with, but I think a big part of it is placement in the chain.

[frodog]

I have the Loop Gate but rarely use it as a gate. It's good at it though, either with dirt placed in the loop or after, which of course you'd do if you wanted to preserve a certain type of fuzz decay. There's also a gate sensitivity trimpot inside. And selectable buffer and CHOP mode, which I do use way more than the gate. All that plus the mix function (which is a weird one) is what sets it apart from similar pedals I guess.

[qersty]

I think it would be difficult to achieve as a standalone gate as it is not really a noise gate in the usual sense; It is tied to the distortion circuit and I suspect it is achieved by rectifying the signal into heavy crossover distortion. Doing so is a trick used to reduce noise in high-gain designs such as the HM-2, it doesn't let signal below a certain voltage through so background noise is killed but with heavy artifacts (the crumbly sound you want). I think it would be totally doable "clean" though if you took a clean boost and just added a rectifier and maybe a second recovery stage afterwards. I'm just pulling this out of my ass but I think this is how it would work:

Untitled.png (10.95 KiB) Viewed 1837 times

Also have you tried asking Ryan about a clean version of the Demon gate? He usually is helpful with these kind of things. Also I think the SS/BS Fuck/Mini also does the kind of crumbly crossover thing. The Lockhart Tripple Fuzz (project that the Z. Vex Machine is based on) also does some crossover stuff, it may be worth looking at too:

[themeanreds]

Thanks for the suggestions, y'all!

Box of Metal gate does get weird with the guitar volume down, but I don't recall it going *squish* as the gate close when guitar volume is up. I'll look into the Loop Gate, though.

I had a Fuck, and the crackle mode is fantastic. i tried to get it in the ballpark of the Demon's gate, but it's doesn't do it.

Qerty, thank you for the info. I thought that the Demon's specific gate/boost was unique to that circuit (I did ask Ryan a while back if he could do the game with a C/Rat Tail, and he said no dice; that's hardly definitive, tho). I'll ask if a stand-alone(ish) thing is possible after Namm dust settles. Or maybe a Reclipse with a gate? Hmmmm. . .

[qersty]

Qerty, thank you for the info. I thought that the Demon's specific gate/boost was unique to that circuit (I did ask Ryan a while back if he could do the game with a C/Rat Tail, and he said no dice; that's hardly definitive, tho). I'll ask if a stand-alone(ish) thing is possible after Namm dust settles. Or maybe a Reclipse with a gate? Hmmmm. . .

Yeah, I checked mine and my guesses were wrong, it seems to be changing a limiting resistor at the non-inverting input of the first op amp (this is a thing on muffs too http://www.kitrae.net/music/Big_Muff_Mo ... _Page.html) so that's why it is unique for this circuit. I'm not knowledgeable in how TL072 behave so I can't telly you why this happens. One idea may be a Demon without clippers and the tone shaping in the gain stage feedback loops removed or reduced to basically flat. You could even remove half the circuit and have a TL071 distortion+ without clippers made

[themeanreds]

Right on; thanks! Interesting possibilities for sure.

[qersty]

Update, its not the resistor I thought it was, I checked. It may be more difficult to achieve as a standalone effect

[alexsga]

Zoom's Dirty Gate effect is great for this. It can be found on the Zoom G3, MS100, probably others too

[duffmcshark]

Zoom's Dirty Gate effect is great for this. It can be found on the Zoom G3, MS100, probably others too

I have that on the MS70CDR and love it so much that I found myself searching for which pedal or rack effect it was based on. Here they just made it up.

[alexsga]

yep! their "dirty gate" is just a really great (intentionally) shitty noise gate!

[themeanreds]

All this in a pedal that I can likely try out in real life before buying! Thank you for the suggestion; I'll seek out one of the smaller Zooms to see if its gate sucks in the right way.

[neonblack]

I don't know if anyone will agree with this but there are settings on the Unpleasant Surprise that don't add too much flavor to your signal but have a really nasty cruddy crumbly gate. It's not squishy but it fizzles and crackles and pops and sounds awesome

[moid]

This isn't exactly what you're afterbut if you feed a guitar into a fuzz then a Boss BF2 Flanger (probably any old flanger with clock noise issues will do) into an EHX Silencer and get the threshold just set exactly right, as your notes decay the flanger confuses the hell out of the silencer and (if you set the gate to maximum volume reduction) it stutters the crap out of the decaying notes as the flanger rises / falls. I've not really managed to do anything with that yet that made sense to me musically, but it might be a fun sound if anyone wants to try it.