Hotone Gate used as HPF

[JohnArnson]

I am pondering on getting a Hotone Gate pedal, which is a noise gate pedal, but also have an adjustable HPF and LPF build in, the HPF's lowest EQ point is 40 Hz, which seems just abotu perfect for a 4 string bass, and with the sensitivity of the noise gate set to 0 I should in theory only get the effect of the filter.

However when you activate the HPF the LPF will also automatically be active, but setting it to the max, which is 15Khz it shouldn't really matter much, since that high frequency content is generally unwanted on a bass anyway.

I got a question though, as I am not absolutely sure how a HPF does work, and I wouldn't want it to cut frequencies above 40Hz, so set to 40Hz would the cut off curve start at 40Hz or would the curve already begin before that point?

 

[Stumbo]

got the hotone gate this week, and just tried it with the band.
mission accomplished, finally cut through better with my clean signal
great pedal but really tiny

View attachment 3135269

Cool!

What are the specs of the gate?

How does it clean up your tone?

lo-cut from 40 - 120 hz
hi-cut from 5k - 15k
and noise gate

the cut of everything below 40hz makes the low end much thighter and better audible.
hi-cut doesn´t have much effect, i think. (or are there frequencies left in that range on a bass?)
noise gate has a fancy lighted knob (but also nice to remove some finger noise and humming)

 

[JohnArnson]

Perfect, thank you.

Will order one at once!

 

[Hypocrite]

I've had one for about a year now, and the h/lpf don't do jack poop. Honestly, with the hpf on at any setting, it just boosted the bass frequencies a bit. I was pretty disappointed, but the noise gate is good, so there's that.

 

[JohnArnson]

I've had one for about a year now, and the h/lpf don't do jack poop. Honestly, with the hpf on at any setting, it just boosted the bass frequencies a bit. I was pretty disappointed, but the noise gate is good, so there's that.

Well if that is true it would suck, though it conflicts with the experience "Basst Scho" had with the pedal, quoted in the post above yours:

the cut of everything below 40hz makes the low end much thighter and better audible.

Perhaps yours was faulty?

 

[Zbysek]

Well if that is true it would suck, though it conflicts with the experience "Basst Scho" had with the pedal, quoted in the post above yours:


Perhaps yours was faulty?

Not neccessarily conflicting experiences, IMHO. Basst scho said that the low end is much tighter and "BETTER AUDIBLE". That might be viewed as boosting the bass frequencies... Plus some high pass filters create a bump just above the cutoff frequency, if I understand it correctly...

 

[basst scho]

the hotone still works fine. the lowcut makes a noticeable difference. hicut not so much
i use locut at around 70hz now...hicut doesnt do anything no matter what position, at least to my ears

are there any frequencies over 5k on bass anyway?

 

[JohnArnson]

the hotone still works fine. the lowcut makes a noticeable difference. hicut not so much
i use locut at around 70hz now...hicut doesnt do anything no matter what position, at least to my ears

are there any frequencies over 5k on bass anyway?

Cool, thank you for confirming it.

Seems like I need to get one of these little cheap pedals then soon then.

Though as I am relatively poor an already made a big gear investment this month I'll have to wait till next month with buying it even if it's an amazingly cheap pedal.

As for your question, there are no notes on a bass that has a fundamental frequency as high as 5Khz, but that doesn't mean that there will be no 5Khz frequency content in your tone though, as all notes will have additional harmonic content, which is why all instruments sound different from each other and not just like the notes generated using a sinus wave generator.

Cutting everything above 5Khz will make the tone of your bass more round and deep sounding, but it will also take away some definition, clarity and zing, and having some frequency content in your tone above 5Khz will also make it sound more open.

Personally I like having a good amount of higher frequency content in my tone and have the 6Khz slider on my amp's graphic equalizer boosted about 4dB.

But when we are up around the 15Khz that the Hotone's LPF go to it would make practically no difference to the tone of a bass if you cut everything above it, not least because the speakers in most bass cabinets, unless they are also equipped with a high frequency tweeter, will start to roll off everything above about 5Khz in a rather steep downward going curve.

Perhaps with all frequency content above 15Khz the tone of a bass would sound ever so slightly less open, but the difference would be absolutely minimal and barely detectable for your ears.

 

[basst scho]

no fundamentals, sure, but didn't know how far up the harmonics go...thx

 

[Hypocrite]

For the record, I would still get an actual h/lpf, because the Hotone just doesn't do it right. It probably has something to do with it only cutting 3dB, as opposed to the Broughton's 12dB. With the Hotone I literally can't hear/feel/tell any difference whatsoever. But YMMV, of course

 

[Zbysek]

For the record, ......cutting 3dB, as opposed to the Broughton's 12dB.

For the record, Broughton cuts 12dB PER OCTAVE, not in total...

 

[Hypocrite]

For the record, Broughton cuts 12dB PER OCTAVE, not in total...

Sure, but I felt it was irrelevant for the discussion

 

[AlexBassMP]

I could be wrong but IMO I guess that those built in HPF/LPF on this pedal are for complementing the noise gate for getting rid of the low rumble or high feq hiss more than as a tone shaping tool.

 

[JohnArnson]

I could be wrong but IMO I guess that those built in HPF/LPF on this pedal are for complementing the noise gate for getting rid of the low rumble or high feq hiss more than as a tone shaping tool.

A HPF is a HPF no matter the intended use, how it works doesn't just suddenly change according to if you use it for tone shaping or noise reduction (also you could claim noise reduction is always the purpose of a HPF, as what people usually use it for in the context of bass is for removing unwanted low frequency content in their signal), also you would actually think one made with the purpose in mind of removing noise would be even more efficient, though that doesn't seem to be the case in this particular pedal from what "Hypocrite" writes.

 

[Mushroo]

A HPF is a HPF no matter the intended use, and you would think one made with the purpose in mind of removing noise would be even more efficient, though that doesn't seem to be the case in this particular pedal from what "Hypocrite" writes.

Fair enough, but where does Hotone advertise this pedal as a "HPF"? We are assuming that it is, but the manufacturer doesn't call it that.

 

[JohnArnson]

Fair enough, but where does Hotone advertise this pedal as a "HPF"? We are assuming that it is, but the manufacturer doesn't call it that.

They do in fact!

On their Hotone's home page under the description of the pedal.

It literally says it got a build in HPF and LPF that can be activated or deactivated as you wish.

 

[Mushroo]

They do in fact!

On their home page under the description of the pedal.

It literally says it got a build in HPF and LPF.

Got link? I'm on the product page and I see no reference to "HPF" or "High Pass Filter."

Gate_Hotone

They call the control "Cut" and describe it as "enabling a harder noise reduction mode." Somewhere along the way, we made the assumption that is the same thing as an HPF.

Same with the manual. No reference to "HPF" or "High Pass Filter" anywhere in the manual.

https://www.hotoneaudio.com/downloads/manual/skyline/Gate Manual.pdf

 

[JohnArnson]

Got link? I'm on the product page and I see no reference to "HPF" or "High Pass Filter."

Gate_Hotone

They call it a "low cut" and we are assuming that is the same thing.

They call it low cut filter and high cut filter, yes, but as that is not an official term for any known EQ filters I assume they actually mean a high pass filter and a low pass filter.

Either way since my purpose is for it to cut away lows, and that is exactly what most people use a HPF for, it ought to work just as fine anyway, as long as it is efficient enough, which you would assume it would be with noise reduction in mind, even if that doesn't actually seem to be the case judging from Hypocrit's experience with the pedal.

At this point I feel you are discussing semantics rather than actual functionality.

It is supposed to cut lows or highs respectively under and over the set EQ point, and that is exactly the purpose of a LPF and HPF, no matter what you then chose to call it.

My bass doesn't become a 6 string guitar all of a sudden, just because I call it that.

 

[Mushroo]

.
At this point I feel you are discussing semantics rather than actual functionality.

Yes you opened the door to discussing semantics with your statement "A HPF is a HPF no matter the intended use." I am playing devil's advocate, that your statement has a logical corrolary, "not-HPF is never a HPF no matter the intended use."

I don't own this pedal and I'm mostly just posting to follow. Let us know when the pedal arrives if it does what you think it does.

 

[Pulverizor]

Pedal owner here, 'tis indeed a hpf/lpf.