napalmdeath
Well-known member
I have no complaints with my Decimator II. Stupid simple, does it's job pretty well, and I don't hear much tone suck.
B
braintheory
Well-known member
I gotta disagree here. The Decimator was more transparent than other gates I’ve had, but when compared to the Phalanx it exposed it as being noticeably less transparent, worse feel, worse decay/sustain on long notes and not as good at doing the tight stop/start rhythm stuff that gates can be really effective at doing. The Phalanx has some degree of tone suck still that I can notice, but better than the other gates I’ve had so far (Decimator I & II, Boss NS-2, Lichtlaerm, Cockblocker, Zuul, Guul). I still wanna try a Thelema, Golem, Wizard Gate Keeper and KSR. None that I've had have been perfect, but the Phalanx has been closest imo
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RedPlated
Well-known member
Exactly what I hear with the one I’ve got.
Devin
Well-known member
I still use the D2 as well. As far as tone suck, I just dial in my amp to sound good with the pedal in the chain and call it a day
dainbramage0
Active member
All this talk of "tone suck" makes me wonder if people had good tone to begin with, without a gate.
Practice playing or practice swapping out your noise gate hoping for a miracle.
Practice playing or practice swapping out your noise gate hoping for a miracle.
napalmdeath
Well-known member
Yep. Tonesuck is in the ear of the beholder. Keeps my amp quiet with an OD and EQ behind it, and my amp sounds pretty stellar.
RedPlated
Well-known member
How does practicing playing elimate unwanted noise from a high gain amp?
Smash
Hack
I would assume a lot of people, myself included, use them as a crutch when they suck at string silencing. Moving away from the gates got me keeping the madness at bay with my hands.
DanTravis62
Well-known member
If you're running the gate so high it covers up string noises that could be silenced with technique, I don't doubt it is causing tone suck 
psychodave
Well-known member
When I have a noise gate in my signal chain it takes away from both tone and feel. Once I take it out of the signal chain, all is good except for the unwanted hum/hiss from using high gain. So gates are a necessary evil. I wish I could just turn a knob on the amp and make it better ?.
Smash
Hack
I used to use it to have to run one just to kill the background noise on a boosted amp. Now that I have the Warshall, the backgound is quiet. I never use a gate anymore. One test i did just to see if i could use a gate was test the sustain of the chord or note played. Then as I turned down the threshold, I noticed how many harmonics were getting covered up by gating. It was irritating, so I just sold the damn things. Haven't used them in months.
psychodave
Well-known member
What’s crazy is that it is not tube amp dependent. I’ve been using a Randall RG100ES as my main amp and I slam the front with a VFE Standout. With a gate, I get tone suck like you mention above… the dynamics of harmonics are removed a little bit. I can’t pinpoint it just to a gate though since I can’t hear and feel differences in amps with having a pedal out front… even one with true bypass.
All of this said, I use to run an old MXR phase 90 out front of every amp just for the tone suck… well it was a good tone suck. Haha
Smash
Hack
I have a randall rg150 head. I have never had a head that the zuul worked so well with. It was dead quiet, and besides a little loss in harmonics and a bit of sustain loss. I feel like for techincal death, you can't hardly beat that setup.