Reason 6: Alligator, Gates

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Published in SOS February 2012

Technique : Reason Notes


Robin Bigwood
Before version 6 came along, Reason was not exactly over-endowed with dynamics processors, and it had no gates at all. But gates are very useful for both ‘utility’ functions and creative use, and Reason 6 has made good the omission. Getting started could hardly be easier, as there’s now a gate on every single mixer channel in Reason 6.
Having a compressor and gate on every channel is one of Reason’s most grown-up features. The gate is quite sophisticated, too, with a side-chain input and plenty of parameters to play with.
Having a compressor and gate on every channel is one of Reason’s most grown-up features. The gate is quite sophisticated, too, with a side-chain input and plenty of parameters to play with.
Channel Hopping
My number one use for gates, and probably most other people’s too, is in cleaning up multitracked drums and percussion. You know the kind of thing — you close-mic all the individual drums in a kit, but all those mics still pick up unwanted spill from other drums, and that can make getting a good sound difficult. In particular, it can be hard to achieve crispness and focus, especially if you’re after a really tight, dry effect. Here, gates come into their own. Used on the individual drum channels, they only allow signal to pass when each drum is sounding. The rest of the time the gate is closed, silencing the spill. Let’s work through an example.
1. Set up a playback loop around a region of your song that contains some representative drum hits. If you can, find a section that contains some hits of differing intensity and level.
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Published in SOS February 2012

 

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