MIDI keyed MW gate - cool feature!

[crduval]

I'm a little hesitant to post this, since most of the experienced forum users probably already know about this, but for those of you (like me) who are still in the discovery process...

The MasterWorks Gate has a fantastic MIDI keying feature that I used to great effect on a recent mix. For those of you who have not experimented with keying - it is a technique that allows a signal (a key) to control whether an effect is active or not. One common use of keying is for live broadcasting of sports events, where the sound of the crowd is run through a comp/limiter with a key (side chain) input - when the game announcers talk, their mic audio signals are used to key the limiter and apply gain reduction to the crowd noise so they can be easily heard.

The application that prompted me to experiment was that I wanted to apply a long delay on a lead vocal track that only delayed certain words / phrases. One way to do this is to use mix automation to mute/unmute a delay aux track, but I wasn't ready to start automating my mix.

Enter the MW gate. I created an aux track in my project's V rack and inserted a long delay followed by an instance of the MW gate. I set the MW gate key input to MIDI, and voila, the MW gate appears as a MIDI output destination for MIDI tracks. I created a MIDI track, and then played a note where I wanted the delayed audio to appear; in my case, one measure after the "target" words/phrases. It worked like a charm, and only required a little bit of MIDI note editing to capture exactly the timing that I wanted.

I thought is was really cool the way that worked so easily, and can imagine lots of ways to use a keyed gate (one example - using strictly quantized MIDI not durations to gate drum sounds for extreme rhythm effects) so I just had to share it.

Hope this helps someone out!

Chris

[Yawnstrosity]

I didn't know about this. Thank you. It be used in place of automation to mute/unmute any effect?

[Shooshie]

I've seen and used the gate, but never noticed the MIDI keying feature. That's great! Thanks for pointing it out and telling us how it works.

Shooshie

[grouse]

This kind of thing was on my radar somewhere but I never really had a practical example.
Thanks for posting, this is something I could definitely use.

[crduval]

I didn't know about this. Thank you. It be used in place of automation to mute/unmute any effect?

I suppose you could use it in this way, although at some point automation might be easier / less taxing on your system - you'd need an instance of the MW gate on every effect aux. If you have a complicated mix with lots of effects, I would probably use mix automation.

Chris

[Yawnstrosity]

I see what you mean. I was recently doing a project where I wanted a huge reverb on just a few snare hits. It seems like it would be ideal for doing that sort of thing.

One thing I always found confusing about using automation to mute/unmute effects is that when the automation line is at the bottom (i.e., zero dbs) the effect is on, and when it's at the top the effect is off. Seems like it should be vice versa. Wonder if I'm doing something wrong here.

[Shooshie]

I see what you mean. I was recently doing a project where I wanted a huge reverb on just a few snare hits. It seems like it would be ideal for doing that sort of thing.

One thing I always found confusing about using automation to mute/unmute effects is that when the automation line is at the bottom (i.e., zero dbs) the effect is on, and when it's at the top the effect is off. Seems like it should be vice versa. Wonder if I'm doing something wrong here.

It's the MUTE that's on or off, not the automation. The automation continues, as the mute itself is automated.

[Yawnstrosity]

Ahhh. So does that mean that if I mute the effect, then take a snapshot, then do the automation, it will be opposite (automation line at top means effect is on)?

[Shooshie]

Ahhh. So does that mean that if I mute the effect, then take a snapshot, then do the automation, it will be opposite (automation line at top means effect is on)?

Not sure what you mean. Mute isn't really an effect but its automation control points are treated the same as any effect: up is on, down is off. But compared to Volume (CC#7), the results of the control points positions are opposite. If Volume is up, the sound is on. If Mute is up, the sound is off. If Volume AND Mute are up, Mute overrides Volume. Mute is the final arbiter of all conflicts.

Shoosh

[Yawnstrosity]

OK, I understand, thanks for taking the time to explain.