Music producers have been using gated reverb on drums (snare and toms in particular) for fast-tempo pop songs since the ’80s (first adopted in Peter Gabriel’s 1979 self-titled album). The Mr. Black Heaven’s Gate brings that effect to guitarists in the pedal format.
Gated reverb works well on uptempo snares because it employs a noise gate to shorten the reverb’s decay, and a rule of thumb in mixing is that the reverb should end before the next hit by the same drum comes in. The added bonus is that with its unnatural, abrupt decay, it accentuates the drum’s hits depth and punch.
In the guitar realm, gated reverb is rarely used but it creates an interesting effect that’s very audible and then… it’s gone – because the reverb’s decay gets gated out. This can add a unique dimension to the sound, ranging from some sort of short-lived “ghostly” presence behind your clean notes at high wet settings and short decay to subtle early to medium reflections when used more sparingly.
The controls are super easy, with Wet/Dry blending clean and reverb tones, Trigger setting the gate’s threshold (i.e. how long the reverb will last before it gets gated) and Decay tweaking the speed of the closing gate, from gradual to abrupt.
Check out what this pedal can do in the videos below.
Mr Black Heaven’s Gate, Builder’s Notes
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Heaven’s Gate is a beautiful and unique reverberator, designed and intended for use as a special musical compliment for those that require just the right tool for a special job.
Heaven’s Gate operates very much like a standard reverb pedal, however the Heaven’s Gate also gives you instantaneous control of all the reverb you create, allowing you to make your reflections and ambience instantly appear or disappear at your whim. Simply stop playing or mute your note(s) and the Heaven’s Gate will quickly and smoothly depart, returning you to the crisp and grounded space you just launched from — as though you never applied any reverb at all!
Three intuitive controls deliver a quick and simple setup, and you can dial the Heaven’s Gate in to match your tempos, riffs and style(s) bringing explosive energy to your song, riff, or passage, gracefully and automatically!
Deliberate and nuanced control of your attack and playing will reward you with new textures, tones and inspiration previously only possible via constant and continual simultaneous adjustments of multiple reverb parameters.While the Heaven’s Gate is certainly not a jack-of-all-trades, it is an absolute master of its domain.
We recommend placing your Heaven’s Gate after all dynamically controlled effects (e.g.: ovedrive/distortion/fuzz/envelope-filters/compressors/etc.), and potentially before your delay/echo devices.
