The most famous example of a song with gated reverb is “In the Air Tonight” by Phil Collins. Other examples include Peter Gabriel’s “Intruder,” XTC’s “Respectable Street” and “Generals and Majors,” Yellow Magic Orchestra’s “Behind the Mask,” and Collins’s “Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now),” along with the Genesis songs “Mama” and “No Son of Mine.” Gated reverb combines a strong reverb with a noise gate that cuts off the reverb’s tail, so drums sound huge and punchy but stop abruptly.
The effect does not imitate any reverb found in nature, which is part of why it sounds so distinctive. It was used on so many drum tracks in the 1980s that it became a defining sound of that decade. Here are 12 examples.
1. “In the Air Tonight” (Phil Collins)
This is the song most associated with gated reverb. It was produced by Collins and Hugh Padgham, and its drum sound is the textbook demonstration of the effect.
2. “Intruder” (Peter Gabriel)
On Peter Gabriel’s third solo album, Steve Lillywhite and Hugh Padgham applied gated reverb to Phil Collins’s drums, which he played without cymbals at Gabriel’s request. Padgham said he found the sound by accident through a heavily compressed and gated talkback microphone.
3. “Computer Game / Firecracker” (Yellow Magic Orchestra)
Yellow Magic Orchestra used gated reverb on the snare drum in this 1978 synthpop track, with Yukihiro Takahashi on drums. The effect was produced with a digital reverb unit.
4. “Behind the Mask” (Yellow Magic Orchestra)
The band’s 1979 track, composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto, uses the same gated snare. It shows the effect on electronic pop.
5. “Sister Europe” (The Psychedelic Furs)
Steve Lillywhite produced this 1980 single and said its drum sound was done before the Peter Gabriel album. It is an early step toward the full gated sound.
6. “Respectable Street” (XTC)
Lillywhite and Padgham refined their technique on Terry Chambers’s drums for XTC. The result is especially clear on the album Black Sea, including “Respectable Street.”
7. “Generals and Majors” (XTC)
Another track from Black Sea, “Generals and Majors” is one of the most distinctive examples of the Lillywhite and Padgham drum sound.
8. “Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)” (Phil Collins)
After “Intruder,” Collins used gated reverb widely in his own work. This ballad is one of the examples from his solo music.
9. “I Wish It Would Rain Down” (Phil Collins)
Another Collins solo song with the gated drum sound, showing how central the effect became to his records.
10. “Mama” (Genesis)
Collins also brought the sound to his band Genesis. “Mama” is one of the Genesis songs that features it.
11. “No Son of Mine” (Genesis)
A later Genesis example, “No Son of Mine” keeps the big, abruptly cut-off drum sound.
12. “You’ll Be in My Heart” (Phil Collins)
Another song from Collins’s own catalog that is cited for the effect.
What Gated Reverb Does
- Big reverb: the drum is recorded or processed with a lot of room sound.
- A noise gate: the gate closes quickly after each hit, cutting off the reverb tail.
- The result: a drum that sounds powerful but leaves space in the mix, because the tail does not ring on.
The effect fell out of fashion in the 1990s, when many bands went back to more natural drums, but artists such as Haim, Lorde and Beyoncé have used it again since.
Final Thoughts
To hear gated reverb, start with “In the Air Tonight” and listen to how each drum hit explodes and then stops dead. Then compare it with “Intruder” and the XTC tracks, where the sound was first developed.
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