Gate

Gate

Silences (or attenuates) the audio when its level falls below a chosen threshold. Useful for muting microphones during pauses, suppressing room tone or background hum between speech phrases, and cleaning up multi-mic mixes where every open mic adds noise. Built on FFmpeg's compander filter, with broadcast-style controls (threshold, ratio, attack/release, knee, gain reduction, makeup gain) plus advanced detector settings.

Gate - Settings

Input

Input — overall level applied before the gate.

Input
Property Description
Input gain (dB) Pre-gate gain applied to the input, in decibels. [min=-24, max=24, default=0]. 0 leaves the signal unchanged. Negative values reduce the input level; positive values boost it before the gate processes it.

Gate

Gate — the main controls that decide when the gate opens and closes.

Gate
Property Description
Gain reduction (dB) How much the gate attenuates the signal when closed, in decibels. [min=-36, max=0, default=-36]. −36 dB silences the audio completely (full gate); less negative values leave a quiet "duck" of the original through (often preferable on speech to avoid sudden cut-outs). 0 dB effectively disables the gate.
Threshold (dB) Level below which the gate closes, in decibels relative to full scale. [min=-48, max=0, default=-24]. Audio quieter than this triggers the gate; audio louder is allowed through. Set this just above the noise floor — too low and the gate barely engages, too high and it chops off legitimate quiet content.
Ratio (1:1 - 20:1) How aggressively the gate closes below the threshold. [min=1, max=20, default=4]. 1:1 effectively disables the gate. Higher values produce a more decisive close — useful for hard gating noisy mics, while lower values give a softer "ducking" effect.
Attack (ms) How quickly the gate opens when the signal exceeds the threshold, in milliseconds. [min=1, max=200, default=20]. Short values catch the start of words and percussive sounds; longer values can clip fast onsets.
Release (ms) How quickly the gate closes after the signal drops below the threshold, in milliseconds. [min=5, max=5000, default=250]. Short values close abruptly between words (more obvious gating); long values let the natural tail of words fade out before muting.
Knee (1 - 8) Soft-knee width around the threshold. [min=1, max=8, default=2.8]. Low values give a hard, decisive open/close; high values give a gentle, gradual engagement around the threshold.

Output

Output — final level adjustment after the gate.

Output
Property Description
Makeup gain (dB) Extra gain applied after the gate to raise the overall level. [min=0, max=24, default=0].

Advanced

Advanced — operating mode, channel link, and detection type.

Advanced
Property Description
Compressor mode CompressorMode — operating mode / gating direction. Reuses the underlying compressor's mode setting. The standard mode for a gate is the one that pulls down quiet parts (i.e. cuts when the signal is below the threshold), which is what most users want.
Link mode How left and right channels are linked when the gate decides whether to open or close. Linked detection keeps the stereo image stable; independent detection gates each channel separately.
Detection How the gate measures the input level — peak vs. RMS. Peak detection reacts to instantaneous peaks (more aggressive on transients). RMS reacts to the smoothed loudness over time (more transparent on speech and music).

Actions

Actions — one-click commands.

Actions
Property Description
Reset Reset all settings to their defaults.

Inherits from: AbstractAudioOperator, AbstractOperator, AbstractAudioMetering.

See also: Gate in Script Engine Objects.