KMA Machines Pylon Noise Gate

To call the KMA Machines Pylon simply a Noise Gate is an insult to what this machine can do. And it’s why this thing has been getting amazing reviews across the board.

This advanced, multi-functional, super-versatile pedal not only packs in an ultra-fast Gate with smooth trigger, an integrated Boost section, an External Trigger Input for external bypass switching or Gate-triggering, a relay-based Channel Switcher for your amp, but it also sports a built-in Audio Transformer to help enhance and balance your rig.

Drive circuits at full tilt can be noisy beasts. To help get a grip on the noise floor, Pylon’s gate is based on a high-performance Blackmer® VCA and provides truly lightning-fast and super-precise performance. And it’s easy to find the right spot, simply choose between one of the two detection-range settings and dial in the threshold to taste. Choose either soft decaying notes using HIGH mode or a fast-closing response in LOW mode, and dial in super tight tones when you need them—but without interfering with your signature tone. Fast palm-mutes? No problem. Decaying notes? Dead simple! And so you know when it is operating, the white status LED will also turn blue as soon as the gate starts to act.

Boost
KMA Machines Pylon provides a staggering figure of up to 30 dB of gain, the integrated boost circuit can really help to fine-tune your tone, but (and again we are blown away by this little beast) it can also serve as an attenuator. Its CUT control will tighten up your low end and is selectable between 65-730 Hz to ensure a mid-focussed and cutting lead sound. Choosing between three different modes for the boost’s on/off state, gives you enough options on how you want to use it. Either leave it ON to always help shape your tone, OFF if you don’t need it, or use SYNC mode so it is activated with the GATE. Both CUT & BOOST knobs are backlit, in order to show you the on/off status of the BOOST section at a glance.

Using transformers in pro-audio gear is nothing new, but while they help to easily match the impedance of low-level and unbalanced signals such as from guitar or bass instruments, PYLON’s audio-grade-transformer gives additional warmth with nice low-frequency harmonics. Guitars, synths or in fact anything you put through the pedal will never have sounded so solid. The pedal gives more ‘heft’ and enhances the core tone, in a much finer way and without any of the phase issues that can happen when using EQ alone!

To help tame superfluous low end (especially for rhythm chugging and soloing) KMA Machines added a built-in roll off that affects everything below 65 Hz when the internal BOOST section is activated.

Loop
With KMA Machines Pylon IN/OUT and SEND/RETURN jacks, it’s capable of many different wirings to suit many different setups. This includes the classic 4-Cable method that helps to tame those unwanted extraneous noises from your amp’s own drive sounds. You achieve this either via the amps own FX Loop or by connecting your dirt pedals on your board to the pedal etc. via the SEND/RETURN jacks. Using PYLON this way, the clean signal from your source (guitar/bass/synth etc.) will trigger the gate to kill the hiss and buzz, then once you add your favourite flavours of dirt etc., it will help to keep your initial attack and therefore levels more intact.

And There’s More…
Sometimes you may want rely on your amp’s distortion but also use the clean channel of your amp and only want the Gate on the drive. That sounds like it could be a bit of a tap dance to switch over channels, turning your gate on/off and maybe turn on a boost too. Well have no fear, PYLON is here and will give you all of that in one go! Connect the CHANNEL input on PYLON to your amp’s channel switcher connector, set the polarity slide switch to suit and here we go. As soon as you engage PYLON it will also switch the amp’s channel. Alternatively, you could also use this socket as a remote switch for many functions on other pedals you may have in your arsenal too.

Last and by no means least we added an internal GND-Lift DIP switch for helping isolate any ground issues, if needed.

So, you thought gates were just utility devices? With PYLON you’ll enhance your whole rig. And it looks brilliant, KMA have knocked it out of the park, and really analysed what players need. Boutique at its best! We’re converts, what about you?

As always, we’re here to support you, so please do contact us for anything you want to ask.