Cerberus Gate^™

Cerberus Gate Manual

Version 1.1.0 · Creative Solutions Digital · BloodLine Series

Cerberus Gate is a noise gate and tightness processor for guitar and bass.

Install

Mac: copy Cerberus Gate.vst3 to ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3/ and Cerberus Gate.component to ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components/. Then rescan plugins in your DAW. In REAPER: Preferences > Plug-ins > VST > Re-scan.

Requirements: macOS 10.13 or later, Intel or Apple Silicon. Formats: VST3, AU, Standalone.

Where to put it

Before your amp (on the clean DI), or after it with KEY set to DI (see Detector). In CS Rack, put your amp module before Cerberus Gate: KEY INT then listens to your clean signal automatically.

The five knobs

Gate character: NATURAL, TIGHT, BRUTAL

These are not presets: the knobs stay where you set them. Each mode changes how the gate reacts underneath them.

NATURAL keeps sustain and natural decay. TIGHT suits palm-muted rhythm. BRUTAL gives the fastest open and the hardest stops, for extreme high gain and djent-style cuts.

Detector

The Detector decides what the gate listens to. It never changes your sound.

• LEARN: stop playing and click it. After 2 seconds, Threshold is set just above your noise.
• KEY INT / DI: INT listens to the plugin's own input. DI listens to the sidechain input: feed it your clean DI when Cerberus sits after the amp, and the gate follows your playing instead of the amp noise. In CS Rack, with modules before the gate, INT listens to the rack input (your clean signal).
• SC FILTER: ignores lows below this frequency when deciding to open (hum, string thump). Fully left is OFF.
• LISTEN: hear what the gate listens to. Click again to stop.

String Gate

For open strings that keep ringing when they shouldn't.

1. Click the tuning box: Guitar, Bass 4, Bass 5 or Bass 6; standard or drop; up to 7 semitones down.
2. Light the strings that ring (lowest string on the left).
3. Turn the ON / OFF dome on. The LED lights while it cuts.

• Normal mode acts only after you stop (palm mute, choke). While you play it does nothing.
• K.A.A.T. (Kill At All Times) cuts the lit strings' open pitches all the time, while you play too. Use it for a string you never want to hear in a song: light only D if you chug on E and A and might brush the open D. It removes the open-string pitches only, not every note on that string.
• SENS: how easily it hears that you stopped (normal mode). Start at 50 %.
• DEPTH: how far the rings are pulled down.

Scope

Grey is the input, red the output, amber what the gate is doing, dashed the threshold. Click the scope to open it large; click again or press Esc to close.

CS Rack

The bar along the bottom opens CS Rack: other Creative Solutions Digital plugins chained with Cerberus Gate, left to right through six slots. CSD plugins only.

• + (empty slot): pick an installed CSD plugin. Its editor opens.
• < >: move a module, or Cerberus Gate itself, earlier or later in the chain.
• ON: switches that module on or off. On the Cerberus Gate slot it switches only the gate. ACTIVE / BYPASS (top right) bypasses the whole rack.
• EDIT opens the module's editor; X removes the module.
• Right-click a slot: replace, remove, rescan.

A module that is not installed on this computer shows NOT INSTALLED: audio passes and its settings stay in the session. Module controls cannot be automated through Cerberus yet.

Gear menu (top right)

Tooltips on or off, open your presets folder, About, updates, Ko-fi.

Presets

Save, Save As and Delete are in the preset bar. Presets store the sound, not the routing: KEY, the String Gate instrument and tuning, and the rack stay as you set them.