Set Floor to avoid unnatural silence between words¶
A fully closed gate produces complete silence, which can sound unnatural during pauses in speech. The Floor knob limits how deep the gate can cut, so background audio is reduced rather than eliminated entirely.
Before you start¶
- The TX Gate or RX gate stage must be enabled in the CHAIN widget. The ClientGateApplet is hidden until the Gate stage is active.
- Open the Aetherial TX Gate sub-container (TX side) inside the Aetherial Audio (TXDSP) parent container, or open the floating editor by double-clicking the GATE stage in the CHAIN widget.
Steps¶
- Locate the Floor knob in the five-knob row at the bottom of the Aetherial TX Gate applet.
- Turn Floor clockwise to raise the floor (less attenuation, less silence) or counter-clockwise to lower it (more attenuation, deeper cut).
- Watch the Gain-reduction bar while pausing speech. The amber fill should stop growing before it reaches the floor you set — the bar will not extend beyond the Floor value.
- Speak normally and pause. Confirm that pauses sound like reduced background rather than dead silence.
What each control does¶
| Control | Default | Valid range |
|---|---|---|
| Floor | -15.0 dB | -80.0 to 0.0 dB |
| Return | 2.0 dB | 0.0 to 20.0 dB |
| Gain-reduction bar | — | 0 to 40 dB GR |
| Flip (Expander / Gate) | Unchecked = downward-expander (gentle, ratio-based). Checked = Gate (hard cut). Snaps ratio and floor to preset pairs when toggled; other knobs stay put. Label updates live between 'Expander' and 'Gate'. | Editor-only control (floating ClientGateEditor). Colour: unchecked = green (Expander), checked = amber (Gate). Tooltip: 'Flip between downward Expander (gentle) and Gate (hard) modes. Snaps ratio + floor to preset pairs; other knobs stay where you left them.' |
| Peek (lookahead) | Sets a pre-read delay so the gate can open fractionally before a transient arrives, avoiding clipped attack edges. 'Off' disables the delay line entirely. | Editor-only control. Higher values increase latency on the TX path. 1 and 1.5 ms match Ableton's preset options; 3 and 5 ms added for very fast transients. |
| Attack | Exponential mapping (0.1 * 1000^n). Sets how quickly the gate opens after input rises above Thresh. | Editor-only control. Label 'X.XX ms' below 10 ms, 'X.X ms' above. |
| Hold | Linear mapping (n * 500). After the input drops below Thresh − Return the gate stays open for this long before it begins closing, preventing flutter on rhythmic material. | Editor-only control. Label 'X.X ms'. |
For the RX side, the equivalent persisted key is ClientGateRxFloorDb. The Floor knob in the Aetherial AGC-T applet works identically.
Tips¶
- The default Floor of -15.0 dB is marked by the tick on the gain-reduction bar. If attenuation at that value still sounds abrupt, try raising Floor to -10.0 dB or -6.0 dB.
- Floor only caps the attenuation ceiling — it does not change when or how fast the gate opens or closes. If the gate is opening and closing too sharply, also adjust Release. See Tune release for natural open/close.
- If the gate chatters — opening and closing rapidly on signals near the threshold — increase Return to widen the hysteresis deadband. The cyan band on the transfer curve grows wider as Return increases, making the sticky zone easy to judge visually.
- Setting Floor to 0.0 dB disables all attenuation, effectively bypassing the gate's effect without disabling it in the chain.
- When the Gate stage is disabled in the CHAIN widget, the entire applet tile dims to roughly half opacity. This matches the dim effect used on the EQ curve and provides a quick visual indication that the stage is bypassed without requiring you to check the CHAIN widget directly.
Troubleshooting¶
- The gain-reduction bar fills all the way regardless of Floor — confirm you are adjusting the Floor knob on the correct side (TX or RX). The TX and RX applets have fully independent state and separate persisted keys.
- Pauses still sound completely silent — Floor may be set lower than -40.0 dB on the scale, or Ratio is very high (approaching 10:1), making the gate behave like a hard cut. Raise Floor toward -15.0 dB and consider lowering Ratio. See Choose gate vs soft-expander behaviour via ratio.
- Gate chatters near the threshold — the Attack knob is no longer present. Use the Return knob to add hysteresis instead. Increase Return until the gate stays open through brief dips in the input level.
- The applet tile looks faded or dim — the Gate stage is bypassed in the CHAIN widget. The reduced opacity (approximately 55%) is intentional. Enable the Gate stage in the CHAIN widget to restore full brightness and DSP processing.