New Gear Review: DMG Audio Expurgate Plug-In

DMG’s Expurgate is an audio gate plug-in that includes models of expander/gates from two classic British consoles, a ducker, an old digital gate and DMG’s “Textbook” gate.

I like that the GUI opens in simple mode with a real-time Time Series Graphical display running to show the input signal and the gate’s gain reduction action. Between this graph, the L/R or Mid/Side gain reduction I/O meters and your ears, setting gate threshold and ratio is fast and accurate. In Advanced mode the plug-in GUI nearly doubles in size revealing the Mixer’s Input/Output, Make Up Gain, Dry Level controls, spectrum analyzer, a three-band side chain equalizer and Split EQ.

The clever Knee parameter makes the exact threshold level setting less strict while the Hysteresis control nearly eliminates annoying gate “chattering.” The Look Ahead function means you’ll never clip the front part of the audio.

Monitoring signal chain points include: the Output, side chain EQ, the Split-band, pass band and the difference signal—the sound the gate is removing. Expurgate will accept external side chain signals and MIDI Note On messages for opening or the shutting the gate. All 89 of Expurgate’s parameters are automatable.

I’m just getting started with DMG Expurgate, using it every day in my Pro Tools mix sessions. It is awesome, it sells for £99 and is downloadable.

dmgaudio.com/expurgate

Barry Rudolph is a recording engineer/mixer who has worked on over 30 gold and platinum records. He has recorded and/or mixed Lynyrd Skynyrd, Hall & Oates, Pat Benatar, Rod Stewart, the Corrs and more. Barry has his own futuristic music mixing facility and loves teaching audio engineering at Musician’s Institute, Hollywood, CA. He is a lifetime Grammy-voting member of NARAS and a contributing editor for Mix Magazine. barryrudolph.com