SSL has released X-Gate, what the company describes as a comprehensive and highly visual gating plugin inspired by the workflow from its digital broadcast consoles.
Featuring a rolling waveform graph, mid/side processing options and tweakable hysteresis using independent open and closed thresholds, X-Gate looks to build upon SSL’s rich heritage in digital console gate design.
X-Gate delivers a range of control features for sound sculpting – with the interactive sidechain filter interface and mid/side balance options, users can focus the gate on unwanted sounds and process the signal as naturally as they’d like. In addition to visual feedback including the hardware-inspired traffic light system for immediate visual confirmation of the gate’s current status, the rolling waveform visualisation graph provides an intuitive display of the incoming signal against which to set your open and close thresholds.
The EXP and DUCK modes immediately drops the plugin into two additional modes, visualised by the I/O graph: fixed expander mode for transparent gating, and duck mode for attenuating a signal only when it exceeds a threshold – combine this with your DAW’s sidechain for intelligent ducking.