LICHTLAERM AUDIO "The Key And The Gate"

Signal Guardian | Transparent Noise Gate · Single-Knob Precision.

"Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate." – H.P. Lovecraft, The Dunwich Horror

In the void between your notes, chaos waits. The Key and the Gate was forged to seal that chaos without choking your sound — a hyper-responsive, envelope-controlled noise gate that keeps your tone alive while banishing unwanted noise to the abyss.

Where most gates clamp, choke, and steal your sustain, The Key and the Gate listens. It adapts. Its fully analog envelope-follower tracks your playing in real time — from sharp staccato riffing to long, singing leads. No sputter. No false cuts. Just pure signal when you play, and total silence when you don’t.

Two Modes of Operation — One Unshakable Gate

· Standard Mode

Plug into the top-mounted I/O and use it like a classic gate — only more transparent, more musical, and far more responsive.

· Keyed Mode (The True Magic)

Here’s where the spell takes hold: patch your guitar into the side-mounted KEY input/output, and your original, untouched signal becomes the reference for the gate — while your actual tone continues down its usual, distortion-laden path. The gate listens to the clean signal, not the noisy aftermath — so it doesn’t care if you’re on a clean boost or a wall of fuzz.

• Zero tone suck
• No lost sustain
• No need to re-dial for different gain levels

You can leave it always on, and it will always work — transparently, musically, invisibly.

Beyond the Gate – Creative Chaos

The KEY input also opens the door to creative mischief:

• Inject an LFO for bizarre rhythmic gating or tremolo-like pulses
• Use an external audio source for studio-style sidechaining
• Gate your dirt pedal’s output with a clean drum track for modular-style pump effects

Simplicity as a Virtue

• One knob. That’s all. Dial in the threshold and you’re done — no menus, no hidden settings, just performance-focused elegance.

The Key and the Gate is not just a noise gate — it’s a guardian spirit for your tone. Whether you summon cleans, dirt, doom, or delay-drenched chaos, it watches silently, waiting to strike — only when needed.

Features:

• Lichtlaerm Audio Smart Relay technology
  
• side mounted jacks for the side-chain
  
• top mounted jacks for the noise gate
  
• standard 9V center neg. power supply
  
• True Bypass
  
• fully analog circuitry