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→Noise Gates
The 2:1 and 4:1 Gate effects are the true expansion-based noise gates, and they work very well. These are the ones to use for high-gain patches where you need dead silence when muting the guitar strings. The difference between the two is the expansion ratio they use. The 2:1 Gate effectively halves the volume of the signal if the original signal is lower than the Threshold value you dial in. The 4:1 Gate basically doubles that, making the volume 1/4 of what it is originally. For punchy chord/silence/muted chord/silence djent-type riffing, I like the 4:1 Gate. For leads or more traditional hard rock, I prefer the 2:1 Gate - it's enough to achieve silence while muting but won't noticeably decay sustained notes too quickly.
I use fairly high-output passive pickups, and a Threshold setting of 3-4 is quite enough. If you find yourself needing to go much higher to achieve silence, this indicates some other issue, either in your guitar electronics, pickup height, gain setting, or pickups themselves.
== All those Wah Choices ==