Running two gates

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I changed a lot on my rig yesterday. I put a couple k100s with the v30s in the Mills cab, redid my pedalboard, and added a rack eq. Then, like a dumbass, I cleaned the front of the amp and sweeped all my knobs, lmao. So when I finally figured out how to get sound out of the thing, it sounded like a disaster. Finally got the thing back to a useable sound. Moral of the story is, I have always struggled to have a lot of gain with a lot of definition. I am pretty new to the EQ game, but I used my para Eq to cut frequencies that were adding noise (static) before the preamp, then obviously turned on the Zuul (in the loop) to cancel the rest. But I still had that noise that comes and goes (artifacts?). I don't have much experience with noisegates. The first Zuul I bought when they first came out was trash, or I was trying to put too much of a load on it, I don't know. But I am sure a lot of you that play metal have struggled with this, you fight the gate with adding gain. You don't want to turn the Zuul all the way up because it cuts off the note and kills your sustain. I was running a zuul before the amp for a long time and that gave me more of the start/stop thing I wanted when i wanted, but could still have sustain if the knob wasn't too high. The only problem is that it couldn't silence the noise from the preamp since it was before it. Well, this morning I put a zuul back in front of the amp and left the one in the loop. I have a pretty good amount of gain going into the amp, and I can keep both knobs really low and have silence when not playing and no artifacts. Kinda longwinded, but I was just wanting to see if anyone else had tried running two gates before.
 

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I think that is super cool for that one sound- hi gain super chunk. But what happens if you want to solo or play a clean or low gain part- tap dancing? Maybe that doesn't apply or matter.
 
I think that's the whole point to have Pedals like the Zuul or even the ISP Decimator G-string. Is you run it in the front and the loop for that total noise control. I am surprised that didnt for you with the Zuul. Which Zuul do you have.. blackout or mini?

Cheers
 
Duke of Metal said:
I think that's the whole point to have Pedals like the Zuul or even the ISP Decimator G-string. Is you run it in the front and the loop for that total noise control. I am surprised that didnt for you with the Zuul. Which Zuul do you have.. blackout or mini?

Cheers
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I have two blackouts. That is the point of the pedal like the zuul is to run it in the loop and it affects the before and after. The problem is that in reality, it works different in the loop than before the amp. So I am trying to have the best of both worlds without affecting any other style of playing. I can switch to a clean channel and have sustain for days still. I haven't gotten to play at full volume yet, which is the real test. If that causes me to have to turn up the pedal in front of the amp higher, then it will be a tap dance to switch to a clean.
 
Smashedguitarist said:
I have two blackouts. That is the point of the pedal like the zuul is to run it in the loop and it affects the before and after. The problem is that in reality, it works different in the loop than before the amp. So I am trying to have the best of both worlds without affecting any other style of playing. I can switch to a clean channel and have sustain for days still. I haven't gotten to play at full volume yet, which is the real test. If that causes me to have to turn up the pedal in front of the amp higher, then it will be a tap dance to switch to a clean.
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that's weird that its acting like that. Have you tried reaching out to Fortin to see if the pedal it self has an issue? Not sure if they're similar beasts or not, but I've had an ISP Decimator G-string for about 12-13 years now and I've used it with my Splawn Nitro, which is a highgain monster and never had quieting down the beast or even getting a nice sustain from the clean channel.
 
Well. I have two of them, so unless both of them have an issue, i don't think there is a problem. The first one i had may have had an issue, but these work great. I am very sensitive to any noise whatsoever, so I am probably expecting too much from a gate. But this is the best I have had it, so I must be on the right track. Do you boost the nitro? What kind of metal do you play? My buddy has a decimator and loves it, but i have never tried one.
 
Smashedguitarist said:
Well. I have two of them, so unless both of them have an issue, i don't think there is a problem. The first one i had may have had an issue, but these work great. I am very sensitive to any noise whatsoever, so I am probably expecting too much from a gate. But this is the best I have had it, so I must be on the right track. Do you boost the nitro? What kind of metal do you play? My buddy has a decimator and loves it, but i have never tried one.
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As long as its working for you then that's great :cool: . At times I use an MXR microamp to give it a bit of a boost or to even just tighten things up a bit. When I bought the Nitro, I was playing Industrial Metal that was heavy on guitars. Now days I play Hard rock covers, and before I bought the Egnater Armageddon (Which has an ISP Decimator build in), I used the Nitro and ISP G-String and they worked great.

Cheers
 
Yeah. I never needed a gate for hard rock with my Avenger. When I started using a TS or other boost, got noisy. But I could make it work easily with one gate. Just being overly picky for sure.
 
Smashedguitarist said:
Yeah. I never needed a gate for hard rock with my Avenger. When I started using a TS or other boost, got noisy. But I could make it work easily with one gate. Just being overly picky for sure.
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If you dont mind me asking, what cables are you using with your rig between guitar pedal board, within pedal board and pedal board to amp?

Some people may disagree, but when I switched my cables from Canare GS-6 to Mogami 2524 (made my own cables), I honestly noticed a huge difference in the overall gain. I noticed my self using less and less gain as I turned up the amp. even at the same high volume levels, I noticed a difference between the GS-6 and 2524.

Maybe also try doing some sort of a process of elimination. Try one pedal at the time with 1 noise gate and then see at what point/pedal you start getting increased noise. I've read really good feedback about the Zuul Blackout, but since I have the G-String, there's no point of me getting one.
 
all mogami gold. The zuul will get rid of the noise. Don't get it twisted, but the artifacts come in. It is something that a lot of guys get with the zuul. It is something that only affects start/stop stuff. Like really tight playing. It is funny, cuz it happens to ola in his zuul video when it first came out. When he came out with that video, I laughed because that shit was happening to me a lot.
 
ah ok.. fair enough. i know what you're referring to now (y)
 
I have done the two gate thing a lot for a long time. Used to be a NS-2 up front and a Decimator in the loop. Now it's just a decimator 2 g-string.
 
rottingcorpse said:
I have done the two gate thing a lot for a long time. Used to be a NS-2 up front and a Decimator in the loop. Now it's just a decimator 2 g-string.
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I am curious about the difference between the decimator G-string 1 and G-string 2.
 
Sorry but I didn't see you mention using the key input on the Zuul, you are doing that correct? I have no problems whatsoever cranking the gain with my Zuul in the loop AND using the key input up front. I usually split the signal either with my tuner or mfx unit to feed the key input. You really shouldn't need two Zuuls, hmm...

I had the Decimator g-string but the Zuul won in an A/B.
 
Yeah. I use the key on both. Have a spliff. And it's not so much that ihave to, but i like silence at all times while not playing. Like on a dime stop and zero pops or anything. And don't think i am complaining about zuul in loop. I used to run it up front only, and that workedperfect unless i was at around 112 or more dbs and in same room with the amp. Then when i put it in the loop, all the noise disappeared, for the most part. Sometimes the zuul wouldn't gate as fast or if it did cuz the knob was high enough to stop all artifacts, then it would hurt the sustain. If you run your zuul in front of the amp once and turn the knob to 1 0 clock, you are going to feel something different when you are boosting and running gain and palm muting and stopping than if you have it in the loop. But the zuul won't silence the preamp noise then. This is part of the reason for the two
 
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And one thing that may be confusing people is i have had three zuuls total. The first one i bought when it first came out, i traded for an amp, figuring the thing just wasn't that good. Then i tried another one, and liked it so much that i bought a third so that i could use it with my other rig since ii was running two amps in stereo. So the original one that may or may not have worked is long gone (as is the XXX that i traded for)
 
If i play really loud (band volume), it's what i need to do also. Z(1) takes care of feedbacks in front & Z(2) takes care of hiss in loop

Guitar-Roach-1Boost-Zuul (1)-Amp -Zuul (2)-Amp Loop
2Key-Zuul (1)
3Key-Zuul (2)
 
Metal1977 said:
If i play really loud (band volume), it's what i need to do also. Z(1) takes care of feedbacks in front & Z(2) takes care of hiss in loop

Guitar-Roach-1Boost-Zuul (1)-Amp -Zuul (2)-Amp Loop
2Key-Zuul (1)
3Key-Zuul (2)
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Yeah. When it gets loud and you are standing in front of the cab, that feedback can be nasty. Hard to tame.
 
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