[Frank Stearns]

Okay. This is getting a little nuts. Can't seem to find a software plug-in
look-ahead noise gate. Found a few hits, but almost like a weird conspiracy, I get
404'd on those pages that look the best!!! Many other hits linked to complaints
about the lack of a true look ahead (grabbing sample data ahead of time, rather than
simply delaying the track -- should be easy to do in a software environment).

Here's what I've got: live vocal tracks and some studio vocal tracks with chunks of
"dead air" that have some amount of noise -- PA leakage in the live stuff; some
coughs, paper shuffles, and headphone noise in the studio tracks.

Obvious NG application... HOWEVER, Sony's NG in Sound Forge (either thru the
compresser or NG window directly) isn't fast enough, even at 0 ms attack! Very front
of program is glitched off, sounds terrible.

Slowing the attack doesn't cut it either, because the "swell up" (even a quick one)
is on the program material (vocal consenants and such). ALL that data needs to be
there.

I'd love to have a gate "threshold time advance" control so that, for example, I
could set the gate attack time to say 100 mS, and then also twist this time knob to,
oh, say, -110 ms. (Be slick to have up to 500 mS look-ahead.) Nice gentle ramp up,
but then we're wide open for business just as the program material starts.

This is, BTW, one of the tricks to clean mixes from live events where leakage is an
issue. You let a little leakage in (in fact, stuff can sound great with a little
leakage -- just not too much); and, #2, when you open up the tracks of interest you
don't do it suddenly.

Anyway. Surely I've overlooked a plugin that will do this... Any suggestions? (I am
tired of doing this by hand with a gain envelope.)

I thought of a duplicate track advanced in time and feeding a side chain to a gate,
but SF doesn't do side chains...

Figured a plug-in designed to do this from the get-go would be simpler.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Frank Stearns
Mobile Audio

--

[Frank Stearns]

"Sean Conolly" writes:

"Frank Stearns" wrote in message
...

self snips...

I thought of a duplicate track advanced in time and feeding a side chain
to a gate,
but SF doesn't do side chains...

Figured a plug-in designed to do this from the get-go would be simpler.

Check out Reaper. I recall that one of the bundled plugins did exactly that,
and the free dowload is fully functional.

Sean

Thanks, Sean. Will do.

I also came up with a work-around within Sound Forge 8 that so far is working very
nicely:

1. Mono target track to the left channel of a new temp stereo file.

2. Make copy of target track. Remove 200 mS (or whatever) from front of copy.

3. Paste shortened copy into right channel of temp stereo file. (SF won't allow
removing time from only one channel of a stereo file.)

4. Run gate; it will key off the right channel as it processes BOTH channels of the
temp stereo file. Obviously, the release time of the gate needs to bridge the time
offset (set the attack to taste), but this is ideal for what I'm doing because a
smooth, gentle close of the gate is desired anyway.

5. Copy resulting left channel into a new track file -- its gating action represents
the "look ahead" action facilitated by the time-advanced right channel. Return that
track for mixing (in my case, for this project, an analog mix).

Hope Sean's and my answer helps someone else.

Thanks,

Frank Stearns
Mobile Audio

--

[Ethan Winer]

Frank,

Sony's NG in Sound Forge (either thru the compresser or NG window
directly) isn't fast enough, even at 0 ms attack! Very front of program is
glitched off, sounds terrible.

Why not just draw volume envelope nodes as needed? Then you can do exactly
what's needed per-instance, versus trying to find one gate setting that
works throughout. Even if you need a lot of envelope nodes, it shouldn't
take more than an hour to program.

--Ethan

[Frank Stearns]

"Ethan Winer" ethanw at ethanwiner dot com writes:

Frank,

Sony's NG in Sound Forge (either thru the compresser or NG window
directly) isn't fast enough, even at 0 ms attack! Very front of program is
glitched off, sounds terrible.

Why not just draw volume envelope nodes as needed? Then you can do exactly
what's needed per-instance, versus trying to find one gate setting that
works throughout. Even if you need a lot of envelope nodes, it shouldn't
take more than an hour to program.

Hi Ethan -

That's what I was prepared to do. However, given the track count and some of
the song lengths (and the awkward ways SF can do this), this could turn into days of
very tedious work.

These are computers, dammit, why am I working so hard on something like this??

See my other post for a solution that is working beautifully (time advancing a
"keying" copy of the track in a temp 2 channel file). Someone (me) now has a
near-perfect fader hand. g

To accommodate dynamic differences, I am altering the gate parameters as needed on a
per section basis.

I guess my overriding point is that in a digital environment one would think that
look-ahead functions such as this would be pervasive. I've been surprised that it's
not, or is based on delaying the entire track which in turn could cause other
problems.

Thanks for your suggestion, though.

Frank Stearns
Mobile Audio
--

[Boris Lau]

Frank Stearns wrote:
Okay. This is getting a little nuts. Can't seem to find a software plug-in
look-ahead noise gate.

As far as I know, Cubase 4 implements the VST3.0 standard, which allows
look-ahead stuff IIRC. If this is new, I would assume that Cubase's
onboard plugins use this feature. But this is very IIRC ;-)

Boris

[Bill Ruys]

"Frank Stearns" wrote in message
...
Okay. This is getting a little nuts. Can't seem to find a software plug-in
look-ahead noise gate.

The Sonitus gate is one of the very best I've used. It has a slider you can
use to set the look-ahead. I've tried a lot of gates and gotten average
results. This one always seems to allow me to tweak it to do exactly what I
wanted.

http://www.cakewalk.com/Products/Sonitus/sonitus4.asp

Bill.


--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

[daz.diamond]

Hi Frank,
as it happens I'm right now making a VST stereo look ahead gate with
adjustable side-chain - I wonder if you'd be interested in trying it and
letting me know your feedback ? it should be available next week, all
being well. I'll post a new message when its available.

cheers
daz[dot]diamond[at]gmail[dot]com

Frank Stearns wrote:
Okay. This is getting a little nuts. Can't seem to find a software plug-in
look-ahead noise gate. Found a few hits, but almost like a weird conspiracy, I get
404'd on those pages that look the best!!! Many other hits linked to complaints
about the lack of a true look ahead (grabbing sample data ahead of time, rather than
simply delaying the track -- should be easy to do in a software environment).

Here's what I've got: live vocal tracks and some studio vocal tracks with chunks of
"dead air" that have some amount of noise -- PA leakage in the live stuff; some
coughs, paper shuffles, and headphone noise in the studio tracks.

Obvious NG application... HOWEVER, Sony's NG in Sound Forge (either thru the
compresser or NG window directly) isn't fast enough, even at 0 ms attack! Very front
of program is glitched off, sounds terrible.

Slowing the attack doesn't cut it either, because the "swell up" (even a quick one)
is on the program material (vocal consenants and such). ALL that data needs to be
there.

I'd love to have a gate "threshold time advance" control so that, for example, I
could set the gate attack time to say 100 mS, and then also twist this time knob to,
oh, say, -110 ms. (Be slick to have up to 500 mS look-ahead.) Nice gentle ramp up,
but then we're wide open for business just as the program material starts.

This is, BTW, one of the tricks to clean mixes from live events where leakage is an
issue. You let a little leakage in (in fact, stuff can sound great with a little
leakage -- just not too much); and, #2, when you open up the tracks of interest you
don't do it suddenly.

Anyway. Surely I've overlooked a plugin that will do this... Any suggestions? (I am
tired of doing this by hand with a gain envelope.)

I thought of a duplicate track advanced in time and feeding a side chain to a gate,
but SF doesn't do side chains...

Figured a plug-in designed to do this from the get-go would be simpler.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Frank Stearns
Mobile Audio