40 trance patterns
Six styles: Uplifting, Progressive, Psy, Tech, Vocal and 90s Classic. Each pattern comes with three ready-made variations: a fill, a softer fill, and the beats flipped.
TranceTools Gate · Free plugin · Mac · VST3 and AU
TranceTools Gate: a free trance gate plugin
A trance gate made for trance. Forty patterns in six trance styles, a pump on every beat, and delay and reverb after the gate, so the tails ring through the gaps. Free, from the people behind TranceTools.
Made for trance
Why another gate?
Most free gates are generic: a grid of steps and nothing else. You end up stacking a gate, a pump plugin and an echo, then hunting for a pattern that sounds like trance.
TranceTools Gate starts from trance. Pick a style and a pattern, and the gate, pump and tails are already set to suit it. Then make it yours.
Gate and pump in one
The pump ducks every beat like a sidechain to the kick, with Soft, Punch or Long curves. It works together with the gate, and the curve shows you the result.
Tails after the gate
Delay and reverb come after the gate, so echoes ring through the gaps instead of being chopped off. That's the classic trance pad sound.
An 8-bar chain
Four slots, A to D, and a chain that picks one for each bar, so the gate changes as the track moves. For example, A A A B A A A C.
Stereo patterns
Link both sides, give left and right their own patterns, or play the right side one to three steps behind the left for a wide, bouncing gate.
No clicks
Smooth attack and release, never faster than 1 ms, so the gate opens and closes cleanly at any setting.
The grid
Every step, your way
- 16 or 32 steps, in 1/8, 1/16, 1/32 or triplets (1/8T and 1/16T).
- A level for every step: drag up and down.
- Ties, for longer notes with no gap.
- Swing up to 75%.
- Depth, for a gate that only dips instead of cutting to silence.
- Mix and output, for parallel gating.
Locked to your track
Gate follows your DAW's tempo and bar position to the sample, including tempo changes and loops. Stop the transport and it keeps running at your DAW's tempo, so you can audition sounds with the gate on.
Made to go with TranceTools
Write the parts in TranceTools. Gate them with Gate.
TranceTools writes trance ideas you can drag into your DAW as MIDI: chords, pads, leads, arps and more, made to fit together. Put Gate on the chords or pad, choose a pattern in the same style, and the part comes alive.
TranceTools: £29 one-off · £19 until 31 December · every 1.x update free
No catch
Free, and staying free
No account, no sign-up and no nag screens in the plugin. The only link is a small "Made by TranceTools" in the corner.
Questions
Good to know
New to it? Read the Gate user guide. Want to try patterns first? Build one in your browser.
Anything else? Email hello@trancetools.com, or ask on the TranceTools Discord.
Is it really free?
Yes. TranceTools Gate is free for personal and commercial use, so you can use it on tracks you release and sell. Please don't share the plugin files or sell them; send people to this page instead. It's provided as is, with no warranty.
Which formats and systems?
VST3 and AU on Mac: macOS 11 or later, Apple silicon and Intel. There's no Windows or AAX version yet.
Does it work with my DAW?
We've used it in Bitwig Studio and Ableton Live. It's a standard VST3 and AU audio effect, so it should load in any Mac DAW that hosts them. Put it on the same track as your synth, after it.
Where are my presets saved?
In Music/TranceTools Gate/Presets, in your home folder. Each one is a .ttgate file you can back up or share.
How is it different from the Gate Builder on this site?
The Gate Builder runs in your browser and exports MIDI. TranceTools Gate is a plugin that gates the audio itself, live, with pump and tails.
Get TranceTools Gate
Free for Mac, VST3 and AU.
Download free