Renegate is unique in that it uses a "43-band psychoacoustic auditory model" of the way humans detect loudness. I was intrigued by this and decided to take a look. Noise gates are usually triggered by just level, the voltage increase of an incoming audio signal over a preset threshold setting.

I received the full version and quickly found it has selectable 6dB/octave low-pass or high-pass filters modeled into the VCA (voltage-controlled-amplifier). I also liked the 4X over-sampling feature for the VCA that actually passes the audio signal. There is a look-ahead feature so that the fast attack transients of audio will not be missed or late being detected. There is a black window down in the bottom of the GUI that indicates the last change(s) you made and alerts you to the current value when you click on any switch or turn any control.

Three Ways to Renegate

I could gate a mono or stereo audio track in three ways. Conventional gating for noisy tracks or standard cleanup happens using the Threshold fader located in the Detector section in the center of the GUI.

There is a cool level meter just under this fader that shows the instantaneous dynamic of the signal you're gating--this is helpful when gating sustaining audio from synth pads or actual real instruments playing. The Threshold setting--a "dot" in the threshold fader is also mirrored in the Gain Map window on the left side of the GUI. Here you get a graphical representation of the gating action based on the parameters you've set. You can see and set how deeply the gate shuts down to below -70dB.

A second way to open the gate is to use MIDI triggering. The plugin sets up automatically an unused Input MIDI node and, once I set my keyboard to that, I was ready to "fire" the gate whenever I wanted it to open using a MIDI keyboard controller. There are a lot of possibilities here to explore! In this mode, the input level coming into Renegate will have no affect plus all other functionality is retained.

The third way to open the gate is using a built-in sequencer that syncs to your session tempo. Along the bottom of the GUI is a row of 16 buttons representing 16 subdivisions or steps. You may select what musical note each step is to represent and also set the number of total steps from 1 to 16.

With buttons looking something like a '80s Roland TR-808 Rhythm Designer, when a particular step is selected it turns red meaning Renegate is not passing audio (closed) and when not selected it is blue (open). When in operation the individual steps turn yellow indicating audio is passing through at that precise moment. Looking for a magical sequence? Click on the Dice button and a random pattern will be selected for you! I love this stuff!

I found the large Attack and Release controls fantastic for precisely setting these critical parameters when gating signals. The essential Envelope window at the top right of the GUI 'mirrors' these two controls settings graphically and you may further refine your rough control knob settings here. You can set Hold time as well as Attack and Release by click dragging points on the graph. I think the automatic scaling of this window is brilliant!

You cannot, however, adjust Threshold and Depth in this window but they are mirrored and changeable back in the Gain Map window.

I thought Renegate an awesome tool for not only basic noise gating but more interesting as a sequencer like effect and for programmable MIDI effects. The very visually oriented operation gives me a detail look at exactly what is happening and I liked the Raw and Smooth options--although I mostly went with the Smooth.

The full version of Renegate sells for $29 as download.