For a variety of effect racks I’ve built, I’ve found that building in some compression is quite useful.
For example, when I first built the StormGate rack, I found that it sounded good on some material and far less so than others. In particular, there’s was lots of material where the result was not nearly as percussive as I wanted it to be when gated. Enter the Rough Rider:
With the Ratio cranked up to 1000 and a fairly slow Attack, this thing will give just about anything a percussive attack.
Just drop the compressor into the rack, and map the device on/off switch to the same macro knob that’s turning the StormGate on, and controlling pattern selection.
The Macro Mapping needs to be adjusted to the same settings as the StormGate on/off switch: off when all the way left, on as soon as the knob is turned.
