MSD DENOISER  v0.2.0
MSDplugins
================================================================

The silence between the chugs, without losing the chug.

A noise gate with LOOKAHEAD - it hears the note coming before it
has to decide, which is the one thing no gate pedal on the floor
can do. One knob. Set the threshold, forget it.


WHAT'S IN THE BOX
-----------------
  MSD Denoiser.vst3   VST3 plugin
  MSD Denoiser.exe    Standalone application


SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
-------------------
  Windows 10 / 11, 64-bit
  A VST3 host, or run the Standalone
  macOS is NOT supported in this version


INSTALL
-------
  VST3       Copy "MSD Denoiser.vst3" to
             C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3\
             then rescan plugins in your DAW.
  Standalone Run "MSD Denoiser.exe" from anywhere.
             Pick your audio device under Options first.


CONTROLS
--------
  THRESHOLD   The only decision. Above it the gate is open,
              below it the noise gets pushed down. Hover or
              drag the knob to read the dB value.
  FOOTSWITCH  Click it to bypass. The LED is the bypass lamp:
              lit means the gate is working.
  LED LADDER  The strip under the footswitch is gain reduction -
              it fills as the gate closes. Watch it to see what
              the gate is actually doing to your signal.
  Right-click anywhere for window size: 50% / 75% / 100%.

  Everything else (range, attack, hold, release, lookahead
  amount, sidechain filter) sits at a tuned default in this
  edition and can still be automated by the host.


WHERE THIS SOUND LIVES
----------------------
Modern metal and djent rhythm work, where the gaps do as much as
the notes and gating is part of the sound. Thrash, hardcore and
death metal - fast muted picking that has to stay articulate.
High-gain amp sims at home, which is where noise really bites:
laptop fans, cheap interfaces, fluorescent lights, a pedalboard's
worth of hiss stacked in front of 40 dB of gain. Single coils on
a loud stage, humming under the lights between songs. Doom,
stoner and shoegaze rigs with big noisy chains - the wall of
noise while you play, nothing at all when you stop.

It will happily kill hum on a clean funk or country take too. The
tight rhythm tone is just what it was voiced for.


HOW TO SET IT
-------------
  1. Play the riff. Turn THRESHOLD up until the noise goes
     away between the notes, then back off slightly.
  2. Watch the ladder, not the meter in your DAW. It should
     fill in the gaps and empty when you play. If it is
     flickering while you hold a note, the threshold is too
     high.
  3. Put it AFTER the distortion or amp sim, not in front of
     it - the noise you are chasing is mostly made by the gain
     stage. Keep it before reverb and delay, so it never
     chops a tail.

That is the whole workflow. There is one knob for a reason.


WHY LOOKAHEAD MATTERS
---------------------
A gate has to decide before it lets a note through. A pedal only
has the signal it has already received, so it either opens late
and eats your pick attack, or it opens early and lets the noise
through. This plugin delays the audio and lets the detector run
ahead of it, so the gate is already open by the time the
transient arrives.

Measured on the shipping build, at 48 kHz:

  Pick attack lost, 3 ms lookahead    0.31 dB
  Pick attack lost, no lookahead      4.95 dB

That is the whole argument for doing this in software.

The lookahead is reported to your DAW as plugin latency, so the
host lines the track back up for you. It stays reported when you
bypass, too - a gate that changed its latency when you stomped
it would shift the track under you.


HOW IT WAS BUILT
----------------
This is not a clone of any pedal, and it is not ear-tuned. Every
release is measured by a headless test harness before it ships -
11 behavioural checks, plus 19 self-tests that prove the
measurement code can actually report a failure. Numbers from
that harness, at 48 kHz on defaults:

  Noise floor pushed down          41.6 dB (Transparent)
                                   70.0 dB (Hard)
  Guitar tail kept vs bypass       91.2%
  Release after a staccato stab    390 ms
  Release after a sustained note   5360 ms
  Mains hum at 50 Hz rejected      45.7 dB
  Gate chatter on decay            0 reversals
  Bypass vs dry input              sample-exact

The two release numbers are the interesting pair: the gate
closes fast after a stab and slowly under a sustained note,
from the same knob setting, because the release rate adapts to
what you played. A fixed release time cannot do both - which is
why most gates make you retune the knob when you go from a
chugging riff to a held chord.


LICENSE
-------
You may use this plugin in your own music, commercial or non-
commercial, on machines you own. You may not redistribute,
resell, or reverse-engineer it. Provided as-is, with no warranty
of any kind.

MSD Denoiser and MSDplugins are trademarks of their owner.


SUPPORT
-------
Include your DAW, Windows version, and sample rate when
reporting anything.
