rwl
Well-known member
- Build Rating
This is a report on the Muffler noise gate. I've been looking for a noise gate, but the Muzzle was out of stock for a while and also relies on a THAT4301 that I can't seem to find anywhere. So I figured I'd try this, although not many people are talking about it. Why not? I don't know. This is a dead simple noise gate... that works.
Inspiration
My inspiration here was the Barn Owl, because owls have incredibly muffled wings. I didn't have a good idea for associating with an individual owl with this pedal . But the Barn Owl is quite common and I figured that was fine for this pedal.
I did the design and built the pedal in November/December, so I was looking for a Christmasy/wintry theme. And as I mentioned on other pedals, I've been shifting more towards designs that aren't full bleed. I'm pretty happy with the print here, which I knocked out quickly to hit my order quota. I'm *not* happy with the color of the text, which is too low-contrast (I wasn't sure how silver the background paint would be). And I really wish I'd figured out a way to accommodate a larger knob, but I didn't want to stack a bunch of circlesm since that looks awkward. Thinking about it now, maybe a different polygonal/diagonal background behind the owl would have worked better. The circle background would be good on a sticker... Next time
.
The design is a Tayda UV print on the "Winked Silver" paint job - a nice enough color. I heard UV needs paint to bond and this was an interesting background. But what I really wanted was the "metallic champagne" (a sparkly white color), which seems to be out of stock.
Writing all this out, the pedal was a lot of compromises - compromise on color, on knob, on the PCB itself. But I'm surprisingly happy with it.
The Build
A very easy build, all dead simple components. In fact I'm kinda surprised you can make a noise gate with components that are this simple. It feels like the kind of thing that would require an LDR or something.
I've seen some reports of problems with this build on the forum - hiss or fuzz on gating - but I didn't encounter any.
The Pedal
It's a noise gate with one knob, no send/receive or anything. When the noise is below the threshold, it eliminates it. When it's above, it doesn't. It's lacking some of the fancier features of other noise gates, and if you're sustaining a note for a really long time or have your threshold too high, you may get an abrupt chop. I haven't tried other noise gates, so maybe they're all like this.
But personally I'm sensitive to background hum and this eliminates that when I'm not playing, so I'm pretty happy. I'm not in a rush to find another noise gate anymore, although I might eventually build one.
Firsts
Pedal rating: 4.5/5
Inspiration
My inspiration here was the Barn Owl, because owls have incredibly muffled wings. I didn't have a good idea for associating with an individual owl with this pedal . But the Barn Owl is quite common and I figured that was fine for this pedal.
I did the design and built the pedal in November/December, so I was looking for a Christmasy/wintry theme. And as I mentioned on other pedals, I've been shifting more towards designs that aren't full bleed. I'm pretty happy with the print here, which I knocked out quickly to hit my order quota. I'm *not* happy with the color of the text, which is too low-contrast (I wasn't sure how silver the background paint would be). And I really wish I'd figured out a way to accommodate a larger knob, but I didn't want to stack a bunch of circlesm since that looks awkward. Thinking about it now, maybe a different polygonal/diagonal background behind the owl would have worked better. The circle background would be good on a sticker... Next time
.The design is a Tayda UV print on the "Winked Silver" paint job - a nice enough color. I heard UV needs paint to bond and this was an interesting background. But what I really wanted was the "metallic champagne" (a sparkly white color), which seems to be out of stock.
Writing all this out, the pedal was a lot of compromises - compromise on color, on knob, on the PCB itself. But I'm surprisingly happy with it.
The Build
A very easy build, all dead simple components. In fact I'm kinda surprised you can make a noise gate with components that are this simple. It feels like the kind of thing that would require an LDR or something.
I've seen some reports of problems with this build on the forum - hiss or fuzz on gating - but I didn't encounter any.
The Pedal
It's a noise gate with one knob, no send/receive or anything. When the noise is below the threshold, it eliminates it. When it's above, it doesn't. It's lacking some of the fancier features of other noise gates, and if you're sustaining a note for a really long time or have your threshold too high, you may get an abrupt chop. I haven't tried other noise gates, so maybe they're all like this.
But personally I'm sensitive to background hum and this eliminates that when I'm not playing, so I'm pretty happy. I'm not in a rush to find another noise gate anymore, although I might eventually build one.
Firsts
First noise gate
Pedal rating: 4.5/5
Attachments
Last edited:
. Weird, I see all your other builds
