Hello there, and welcome back to yet another guitar pedal review! This time, we will look at a noise gate pedal, one of the recent releases by Ibanez.
Table of Contents
As some of you may be aware, I was using my Marshall JVM410HJS – Joe Satriani signature amp as my main source of guitar tones for over a year. Since the amp has a built-in noise gate, which worked so well, I never needed to invest in a noise gate.
However, the more amps and preamps I acquired, the more I need to look into the world of noise gates. Since I have had the chance to test Pentatone Gate thoroughly with my Marshall SV20H – Mini Plexi as well as with my Brunetti Mille CR Preamp, I wanted to share my opinions with you.
So, in this Ibanez Pentatone Gate review, I will provide you with a quick company information on Ibanez, original photos of the PTGATE, as well as a sound demo video that you can have a look at and see how effective the Ibanez Pentatone Gate is!
TL;DR
Whether you want silence when you stop playing your guitar or not is a matter of choice for sure! Some guitar players live without a noise gate for decades as they have never tried one while some cannot live without a noise gate!
Once you have tasted to joy of complete silence when you stop playing, you will never be able to go back to a life without a noise gate. Although there are so many options on the market right now, not all of them check all the conditions.
Ibanez Pentatone Gate is a standalone version of the noise gate that you may find on the Ibanez Pentatone Preamp with the added threshold mode switch. It’s a single-knob noise gate that requires no knowledge and trickery to get started!
Once you place it in your rig in a desired location, it will cut off the excess noise without altering your tone. During my tests and experiments, I did not notice any tone colouration in both on or off states.
Having an additional threshold mode switch along with a highly effective threshold knob will make sure you can immediately adjust the noise gate based on the ever changing signal chains in your rig.
cigilovic.com totally approves the Ibanez Pentatone Gate (PTGATE) and recommends it to anyone who is looking for a highly affordable, effective, easy to use and transparent noise gate!
As always, let’s start with a quick introduction to this legendary brand, Ibanez for those who have never heard of this!
About Ibanez
As many of you know, Ibanez is a legendary Japanese manufacturer of musical instruments, primarily guitars and basses, as well as amplifiers and other accessories. Unlike many of us are aware, Ibanez has a long history in making musical instruments and is possibly a way longer-established company than many of us think.
Ibanez‘s history can be easily traced back to 1908, when Hoshino Gakki, a Japanese musical instrument company, was founded. In their early days, they would import Spanish guitars only. But also had a long-term ambition in the guitar business.
The Ibanez brand name was actually derived from the name of the actual Spanish luthier, Salvador Ibanez, who was building guitars for the company. The company first used the Ibanez Salvador name and later just branded itself under the Ibanez brand to honour the Spanish luthier.
As Ibanez was getting a lot of attention for their extremely valuable guitars (lawsuit era), Gibson brought suit against Ibanez due to their clone guitars. Hoshino Gakki did not really want to fight against it, as the company could be in the same situation, not just with Gibson but also with other guitar manufacturers. This era was the triggering moment for Ibanez to take a look at the company’s long-term ambition in the guitar business. 
Through the 70s, Ibanez worked with various artists who featured Ibanez’s original designs, such as Paul Stanley, Steve Miller, George Benson and Bob Weir. However, moving forward with the 80s shredders era, they still had issues with their brand identity. Actually, what Ibanez wanted was someone like Eddie Van Halen and what he did for the Kramer brand.
Ibanez had already worked with legendary guitar players such as Lee Ritenour, Joe Pass, Steve Lukather and Alan Holdsworth, but the company was missing a rockstar image that could boost the brand’s identity.
After having long discussions and meetings, they decided to go to Steve Vai! Vai was already getting a lot of attention when he joined Frank Zappa at the age of 20 years old. Later, he replaced Yngwie Malmsteen in Alcatrazz and also released his debut album. Around 1985, he joined David Lee Roth’s band, taking giant steps into the rock music scene already.
Vai was already cooperating with other guitar brands such as Kramer and Yamaha, but his customisation needs were usually neglected, and he ended up with pretty much the same standard models that these companies manufactured with some tweaks for him.
Ibanez eventually managed to contact Steve Vai and got his attention and their cooperation, which changed the guitar designs profoundly just started! Legendary luthier, Mace Bailey at Ibanez, made prototypes for Steve Vai based on his input and came up with the JEM design, which would later give birth to the legendary RG series.
This collaboration made Ibanez so successful and gained huge respect and following in the guitar community in the 80s until this day. Although the RG model was considered the edgy, modern and unusual guitar design back in the day, it’s accepted as a classic electric guitar design that has its own place next to Strats and Les Pauls.
Today, Ibanez is still manufacturing dozens of models along with their classic line and is one of the most respected guitar brands ever known to us.
Ibanez Pentatone Gate (PTGATE)
Ibanez Pentatone series pedals are born with Ibanez‘s Pentatone preamp.
Weirdly, the marketing and the distribution of the Pentatone Preamp, as well as other Pentatone series pedals, have been a bit of a failure for Ibanez!
Still, the Pentatone Preamp is not widely available anywhere online despite being actively manufactured by Ibanez according to the official website! 
After the company attempted to release the preamp and market it via influencers online, it disappeared from every online store. However, Ibanez decided to come up with two additional Pentatone pedals, Pentatone Gate and Pentatone EQ.
This is just my theory, but to me, it looked like the Pentatone Preamp kind of failed to create the hype! 🙂 But the design of the preamp (or one of the most sophisticated distortion pedals around!) was so smart!
It featured a pretty much high-gain distortion circuit with pre and post boost function as well as a cleverly designed 5-band EQ and a simple yet extremely powerful noise gate!
Ibanez decided to release these unique features from the Pentatone Preamp as individual pedals! As soon as I realised these products, I purchased both the Pentatone Gate and the Pentatone EQ (Review coming!)!
I was already considering buying a noise gate a long time ago and did some research online. For some reason, I found most of them very complicated and decided not to go for one at that time.
After I experienced the single-knob noise gate on my JVM410HJS, I immediately fell in love with the idea of single-knob noise gates! This led me to think why complicate it further, and I moved my focus to the simple noise gates on the market. 
Unfortunately, there were almost no reviews or test videos available for the Pentatone Gate, so I had to wait for my order to be delivered, and I immediately started testing it and prepared a video for people who are curious about this wonderful pedal!
Before we jump into the demo video, review and verdict section, I’d like to share the Ibanez Pentatone Gate tech specs with you!
Ibanez Pentatone Gate Tech Specs
| Ibanez Pentatone Gate PTGATE | Tech Specs |
|---|---|
| Controls | Threshold |
| Switches | Threshold Mode (High/Low) |
| Switching | True Bypass |
| I/O | Guitar In, Guitar Out, Gate In, Gate Out |
| Size | 70(W) x 116(D) x 63(H) (mm) |
| Weight | 455g, 1.0lb (including Battery) |
| Required Current | 45mA@9V |
| Power Supply | One 9V battery (006P) or external AC adapter |
| Made In | China |
As you can see from the tech specs, it’s fairly simple and pretty much features a standard set of inputs, outputs and controls that you may find on single-knob noise gates.
Before we dive into details and the full review, let’s watch the simple demo video I prepared for you. In this video, I used my Ibanez AR300 guitar, Brunetti Mille CR preamp, Two Notes Opus, MXR Carbon Copy Deluxe delay and Maxon ST9Pro+ as a boost pedal powered by Cioks DC7. 
This signal chain is directly recorded into Reaper via RME Babyface PRO FS interface and monitored via Genelec 8020 DPM monitors. The only effect is the Wave Alchemy Magic7 reverb, which is a freeware one (definitely check this out!).
Ibanez Pentatone Gate Demo & Test (no talking)
I tried engaging and disengaging the pedal to show you how much transparency it offers and how effective it is at removing the noise.
Let’s jump to the review section and inspect the product, and then talk about how good or bad it is! 🙂
Ibanez Pentatone Gate Review (PTGATE)
As explained, the Ibanez Pentatone Gate is a standalone version of the GATE section in the Ibanez Pentatone Preamp. This gate offers a quick response and natural sustain and has an added threshold mode switch, which allows you to adjust the threshold in the appropriate range.
It features the pretty much industry-standard 4 I/O jacks that you can utilise and place the noise gate circuitry in the desired location within your signal chain.
Just like other pedals in the Pentatone series,the Ibanez Pentatone Gate also comes with the same style of box and packaging. It’s very well designed and a high-quality box for such an affordable pedal.
In the box, apart from the pedal, you only have this small manual, as shown below. Although the pedal is very straightforward to use, you may still need to have a look at the manual. Here’s the link to the official manual on Ibanez’s website.
Just for future reference, I’d like to share the barcode and the model number below. As you can see, the Ibanez Pentatone Gate is made in China.
Good thing with the Pentatone series pedals is that you don’t need to worry about the pads that usually come with the guitar pedals. Ibanez Pentatone Series pedals come with already pre-installed, sturdy, thick and strong pads on the bottom chassis as shown below.
Ibanez PTGATE can be powered by a single 9V DC battery or with a power supply, which is a standard one, featuring 9V DC, negative centre with 45mA current.
On the right side, which is the input section of the pedal, there are two inputs labelled as Gate In and Guitar In.
You need to connect an instrument, such as a guitar or the output of another device, to the Guitar In. Plugging a jack into this input jack automatically powers up the unit.
For Gate In, a device to which you’d like to add the noise gate circuitry, such as a preamp in of an amplifier or a distortion pedal, should go in there.
On the left side of the pedal, there are two outputs labelled as Guitar Out and Gate Out. Guitar Out sends the input signal, and this needs to be connected to the input of an amplifier or another device via a standard instrument cable.
You can think of Gate Out as the output for the gated signal.
Although there are multiple connection examples provided in the manual, it may look overwhelming to go through the options. But as a rule of thumb, you always need to do the obvious, which is you need to connect your guitar to the Guitar In.
Then it’s up to you how to build your signal chain around the gate. As you may have noticed from the video I provided above, I added PTGATE after PTEQ and connected it via the Guitar In. 
Then, from the Gate Out, I connected the PTGATE to the MXR Carbon Copy Deluxe Delay Pedal.
So, my Ibanez PTEQ, PTGATE and MXR Delay are placed in the FX Loop of my Brunetti Mille CR preamp.
When I need to move this loop setup to my Marshall Mini Plexi, I just remove the send & return jacks from my preamp and connect them to the FX Loop on my Marshall.
With this setup, the delay tails are not cut off, but as soon as I stop playing, I hear the delay tails, but I hear no hiss or noise added to my signal.
On the pedal, we have a single knob to adjust the Threshold. By adjusting the threshold, you can control the mute circuitry. This sets the limit for when the gate will take effect and start to decrease or mute the signal.
The higher the threshold, the faster the signal will be muted.
Lastly, we have the Threshold Mode switch. Here we have two options labelled as High or Low. High activates the mute circuitry at an earlier time.
Interestingly, the Ibanez Pentatone Preamp has the same noise gate circuitry, but it doesn’t feature this switch! That means Ibanez already managed to improve the feature set further, even with this standalone version of the PTGATE!
Verdict
To be honest, I was pretty disappointed with my decision to prolong the purchase of a noise gate right after I tested my Ibanez PTGATE! Even though I spent a lot of time researching the noise gates, I was never convinced that I could operate them without an issue.
You may think what kind of issues I’m talking about. Actually, I didn’t even need a noise gate in theory. Recently, I got multiple reactive loads to try, and two of them had already built-in noise gates. 
My Two Notes Captor X SE came with (as with any Captor Xs) Torpedo Remote software that contains all the DynIRs as well as multiple reverbs, a powerful parametric EQ and a very smart and easy-to-use noise gate.
The gate was so smart and could learn the threshold by simply muting the strings and adjusting itself to the base noise level. Then I got myself a st. Stock React IR II, which came with full-blown digital effects and gadgets built into the software.
The noise gate in that was also pretty good, but didn’t offer the same simplicity. I had to deal with the threshold, decay and everything.
After a while, I wanted to invest in analogue effects such as my MXR Carbon Copy Deluxe and just realised that I wouldn’t be able to use my software noise gates with these hybrid systems.
Noise gates on these units would cut off the signal at the end of the signal chain, which means they would also cut off the delay tails all the time!
Having played with my Marshall JVM410HJS that came with an excellent, single-knob noise gate led me to think that gates shouldn’t be complicated. The noise gate on the Marshall was developed by the legendary amp designer Santiago Alvarez back in the early 2010s. So, it was actually possible to simplify this noise gate circuitry and implement it into any amp.
Unfortunately, Marshall did not implement this clever design into every amp they released. So, buying a simple, easy-to-use, effective and affordable noise gate came to be a wise thing to do in my situation!
Do You Really Need a Noise Gate?
You may question whether you ever need a noise gate or not. But believe me, after a while, it’s really annoying to hear the background hiss and hum while you are not playing. Also, when you record, you need to edit a lot more parts in your recorded tracks to get rid of the hum.
And if you have used a noise gate for quite some time and switch back to a rig without a noise gate, you will understand why it’s a crucial component in your rig immediately!
After having researched this topic, I just made my decision to go for a single knob noise gate, but couldn’t justify the price tags on legendary ISP noise gates as well as other modern equivalents.
I think what Ibanez was one of the greatest moves ever! Ibanez Pentatone Gate is a wonderful noise gate that is extremely simple to use, effective, transparent and affordable at the same time!
I think the more people discover this pedal, the more popular it will become in the future! During my tests, I have never found out that it added colour or ate up any high-end. I was not able to test the Ibanez Pentatone Gate at stadium-level volumes, but within my experience, it’s one of the most transparent pedals ever!
Unfortunately, there’s no noise gate pedal that you can set and forget. You have to adjust the settings based on the situation you are in. I usually play my Marshall SV20H with Suhr Reactive Load via IRs in my Two Notes Opus.
In this setup, I often add Boss SD-1, Ibanez Tube Screamer Mini or Maxon ST9Pro+ or Crazy Tube Circuits Unobtanium Raw. But I never stack these overdrives together. I think I have enough gain and saturation with one of these, slightly sounding different with each. 
So, when I set up my settings on the Ibanez Pentatone Gate around this, I don’t feel like I need to adjust my settings on the gate. However, when you play with the settings on my amp or preamp, use a different guitar (e.g. higher output pickups) or stack pedals, I also have to adjust the noise gate settings, because it starts being less effective as soon as I change settings.
As you can see in the video, when I changed the threshold to the High setting, it expects to react more aggressively. Meaning that it attempts to cut more signal, thus lowering my overall signal. In this situation, you simply need to back off the threshold knob or switch back and forth with the High or Low threshold setting on the pedal.
I think the Ibanez Pentatone Gate is a wonderful noise gate. For the price, I don’t think you can get a better one! For that reason, I highly recommend Pentatone Gate if you need a proper noise gate!
Where to Buy Ibanez Pentatone Gate (PTGATE)?
As you may know, the new, standalone Pentatone series pedals are being actively manufactured. I got mine from Thomann along with many other pedals, but more importantly, with the Ibanez Pentatone EQ (PTEQ). Thomann usually keeps them in stock, while weirdly, it never keeps the Pentatone Preamp in stock! 🙂
Check out Ibanez Pentatone Gate (PTGATE) on Thomann here
Most of the other sellers on the internet and also on Reverb may offer Ibanez PTGATE at all times, so if you are interested in buying used ones, you should consider checking out these on Reverb. Also, if you are interested in the Ibanez Pentatone Preamp, chances are your only bet is to check out Reverb!
Check out Ibanez Pentatone Gate (PTGATE) on Reverb here
I hope you have enjoyed this excellent noise gate pedal review article and the materials provided here. Thanks for visiting my blog and supporting me so far! I will hopefully see you in the next review here!
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