When Did Noise Gates Become Standard Tools In The Studio?

I was reading a bit about noise gates last night, and I was curious when they started being used to prevent leakage when recording drums. I tried to google some information on the subject, but my search didn't answer my question. If anyone around here has some info to share, I would love to hear it! Thanks.

 

I know there was the Kepex in the early 70s, from Allison Research.

http://www.valleypeople.com/history.html

These were pretty nifty devices. I once made a roto tom with a tom, a kepex and a sweep oscillator. I'd sweep down on the tom hits and the gate would open and close at the right times to create that easily identifiable sound.

They were also useful as gates, and particularly useful on drums. Normally on drums you have a lot of leakage. I've seen engineers try to get a good sound for one drum with one mic but as soon as they bring up a second drum mic, the sound of the first drum changes substantially.

With gates, you can dedicate a separate mic to each drum and be able to treat them all individually without that interaction. This means you can eq each one separately as well without worrying about unintended consequences.

 

Very cool! Thanks for the reply.

 

In the air tonight
UK version.

 

Yep, very much the "1980s Phil Collins Sound" kinda thing. I just listened to about 100 major 1980s hits in a row, and I thought, "jesus, every one of them has the exact same drum sound!" Very dated now.

But in the right hands, a gate can be a terrific creative tool.

 

Gated drums - first time I heard that was on David Bowie's "Low" album released in 1977.

 

Forgot about that. Apparently, it was used as early as 1976, which I wasn't aware of:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gated_reverb

It's almost overpowering, how many 1980-1987 or so songs used this technique. Just really, really dated now, but by god, it was impressive 30 years ago. That first drum riff on "In the Air Tonight" really knocked people out of their seats.

 

Yes ,the main component of that drum sound was a reverse talkback mic (an ancient omni STC apple and biscuit) that was combined with a drum array and heavily gated

 

Bowie's single "Heroes" made use of gated mics for the vocals. One mic was positioned close to Bowie as you'd normally do for a singer, another was stationed further across the studio, and a final one was way out toward the edge. Bowie's vocals started a barely more than a whisper - only picked up by the first mic - but by the end of the song he's shouting and being picked up by the distant mic, giving his vocal this incredible hollow, desperate sound.