Sonible smart:gate

What smart:gate Is For

smart:gate is a gate and ducking plug-in designed to clean up and control dynamics in a targeted way within your productions and mixes. Whereas a classic gate simply opens or closes based on a global threshold, smart:gate relies on "content-aware" processing to focus on the intended source (for example, a voice in the middle of a live take, a guitar in a band recording, or a piano with bleed).

It is suited for common studio situations such as vocal editing (reducing room noise, headphone bleed, breaths), cleaning up amplified instrument takes (buzz, hum, residual feedback), managing drum bleed, or controlling ambience between phrases. In post-production, it also helps isolate a useful source without abruptly "cutting" everything around it.

Main Features

Content-aware gating: the right signal at the right time

The core of smart:gate is its ability to determine a target from a set of instrument profiles and sound signatures. You select the relevant source from a menu, and the plug-in adapts its detection to keep what matters, even if the dynamics are irregular or if a competing element temporarily takes over. The result: more musical gating, with less pumping effects and fewer unwanted openings.

Familiar controls, controlled behavior

To stay quick in session, smart:gate retains classic and effective settings: Threshold, Attack/Release, Hold, and Tolerance. You find familiar landmarks to adjust the opening speed, closing, hold time, and detection tolerance, while benefiting from targeting intelligence when the take is complex.

Visual guidance and quick adjustments

The plug-in offers visual feedback on the detection of the target source to facilitate parameter setting. This display helps understand what the processor "considers" as the target and to adjust behavior without guesswork, particularly useful when working quickly on a large number of tracks.

"Instant replay": adjust without losing context

When changing parameters, the Instant replay function provides a result prediction to hear the impact of settings in context without interrupting your workflow. It's ideal for precisely timing an attack on consonants, mastering a closure between two phrases, or fine-tuning bleed reduction on sensitive passages.

3-band suppression network: cleaner and more musical gating

smart:gate integrates a three-band suppression control to weight the gate's action according to the spectrum. You can thus avoid cutting too much low end (often carrying rumble) or, conversely, preserve a useful part of the signal in the mids while attenuating problematic areas. This approach is particularly effective on vocals (sibilance and unwanted noises), guitars (amp hiss), or piano (mechanical noises).

Level bias: increased precision on transient sources

The level bias parameter allows increasing level dependency to refine the response, an advantage when targeting transient sources and wanting a more selective behavior. This helps achieve more controlled gating on fast attacks without making the overall behavior unstable.

Content-aware ducking mode and classic gate mode

Because gating and ducking rely on similar logics, smart:gate offers a ducking mode that reduces a selected signal while maintaining the target-centered approach. And if you prefer a traditional method, the No Target mode lets you use smart:gate as a non-AI gate, handy for simple tasks or to keep a fully conventional behavior.

External sidechain and detection options

For advanced mixing scenarios, smart:gate features an external sidechain input and detection options in mono, mid, or side. You can thus drive the reduction from another track (for example, a guide track) or adapt detection to a complex stereo image, useful on overheads, ambiences, stereo buses, or multitrack takes.

Technical specifications