Drawmer DS201 (1982–present)
The box that gave the noise gate a brain, and made a small Yorkshire company's name shorthand for "industry standard."
Overview
Picture a rack full of gates all chattering on the same snare bleed, and one unit that doesn't. The Drawmer DS201 is a dual-channel noise gate that attenuates a signal when it drops below a set threshold. The difference is the variable high-pass and low-pass filters in the trigger path, so the gate only listens to the part of the spectrum that matters. According to Drawmer's own documentation, the DS201 was the first noise gate to include this frequency-conscious gating, a concept the company pioneered. That feature turned a utility box into a standard.
It's simple to operate. The DS201 runs as two independent channels, or links them for true stereo gating, with channel one acting as master when the stereo link is engaged. Each channel has attack, hold, decay, and range controls, so the gate can be as abrupt or as gentle as the material demands. A key listen function lets the engineer monitor the filtered sidechain signal and dial in the filters by ear. The familiar Drawmer "traffic light" metering gives an at-a-glance read on gate and threshold status. Each channel has its own meter and balanced I/O, so it can process two unrelated signals or one stereo-linked pair. Each channel also switches individually from gating to ducking, which makes the DS201 useful for voice-over work and for excising clicks and pops as well as for cleaning up drum mics.
Physically it's a black two-channel, 1U rack unit with balanced XLR inputs and outputs. One retailer's listing gives dimensions of 1U x 200mm and a weight of 3kg, though that figure stands alone and hasn't been corroborated elsewhere. A second retailer lists 3.2 kg, so "around 3kg" is the safe description. The operator's manual specifies 19-inch rack mounting occupying 1U of rack space, secured with four M6 pan head screws, and warns against mounting near heat sources or obstructing airflow. The same manual gives the XLR wiring convention - pin 2 hot, pin 3 cold, pin 1 ground - and notes the headache of unbalanced operation: pin 3 must be shorted to ground at both input and output. Key inputs arrive on 1/4-inch mono jacks. If those jacks live on a patch bay, the manual insists the sockets be fully normalised to prevent random triggering.
The manual's technical section is where the trail goes cold for a spec-chaser. Input impedance is listed at 20KΩ, maximum input and output level at +17dB, output impedance at 50Ω balanced and 100Ω unbalanced, and bandwidth at 23Hz to 31KHz -1dB. Noise at unity gain with the gate open measures -90dB wideband and down to -97dB on an IEC A-weighted reading, with distortion under 0.025% at 0dB input across 100Hz, 1kHz, and 10kHz. Power draw is 9 watts, with a 32mA fuse for 230V operation and 63mA for 115V. Third-party spec sheets add a dynamic range figure, 116dB from one source and ">110dB" from another, and crosstalk of -80dB at 10kHz. The two dynamic-range numbers don't agree, so the DS201's dynamic range is somewhere north of 110dB, depending on whose sheet you trust. The surviving documentation does not give a conventional frequency response or a single headline THD figure.
Key Features
Frequency-Conscious Sidechain Filtering
This is the defining feature, and the reason the DS201 became a standard. Variable high-pass and low-pass filters sit in the trigger path rather than the audio path, so the gate responds only to the frequency band you've selected. A snare gate can be told to ignore the kick drum bleeding into the same mic, and a vocal gate can be told to ignore a bass rumble that would otherwise hold it open. The filters don't color the output signal in normal operation; they only shape what the detector hears. Drawmer's own literature calls the DS201 the first noise gate to include this, and period press backs the claim: Mix (May 1999, p.136) credited Drawmer with pioneering frequency-conscious gating and described the variable high-pass and low-pass filters in exactly those terms.
Key Listen
A three-position switch - Key Listen, Gate, Bypass - routes the filtered sidechain signal to the output so the engineer can hear what the detector is actually listening to. That means dialing in filter settings by ear instead of guessing. The manual notes that leaving the switch in Key Listen lets the DS201 be used purely as a filter rather than a gate, which helps when the program material needs shaping more than gating.
Full Envelope Control
Attack, hold, decay, and range on each channel. The hold control is what separates a musical gate from a stuttering one. It keeps the gate open for a set period after the signal drops below threshold, smoothing over the natural gaps in a drum hit or a vocal phrase. Range sets how far down the gate closes, so a gentle 6dB duck and a full mute are both available from the same box.
Gating and Ducking, Per Channel
Each channel switches independently between gating and ducking. Gating mutes below threshold. Ducking pulls the level down by a set amount and lets it back up when the signal returns. The ducking mode is what makes the DS201 useful for voice-over beds, for taming a reverb return, and for the classic hardware sidechain-ducking trick that otherwise requires a DAW.
Traffic Light Metering
The "traffic light" LED display shows gate status at a glance - closed, hold, open. Each channel has its own meter alongside a variable master fader with output LED metering.
Stereo Linking
A link switch ties the two channels together for true stereo operation, with channel one controlling both. For stereo bus gating or a linked pair on overheads, this keeps the image stable rather than letting one side open while the other stays shut.
Historical Context
Drawmer Electronics was officially founded with the introduction of the DS201 Dual Noise Gate in 1982, which makes this the product that essentially created the company. The design brief was pointed: simpler gates triggered erratically on bleed and overlapping instruments, and the DS201's sidechain filtering was the answer. The same dual-channel DS201 remains in production today, four decades on.
It was not cheap when it arrived. The family grew around it. The DS201B is a later revision of the model, and EQ Magazine (November 1995, p.110) reviewed the DS201B for application in "all studio and live work." The DS501 Power Gate was positioned in the Drawmer range above the industry-standard DS201, and Drawmer's own literature groups the DS201 with the DS501 and DS404 as its family of industry-standard noise gates. The DS101, the 500 Series gate, is described as taking its place alongside them, and is reportedly based on a single channel of the 201. Sound on Sound (June 2001, p.96) called the DS201 the first commercial two-channel gate to feature built-in side-chain filtering and noted it remains an industry standard.
Collectibility & Value
This is not a scarce collectible so much as a working tool that happens to be old. Because the DS201 is still in production, the used market is a mix of decades of units, and pricing reflects that spread. Equipboard lists best prices from $100.00 and places the DS201 in the high-end/boutique tier at $501 and up. Professional Audio Design shows a sale price of $1,099.00 against a regular $1,219.00. Studiocare lists an original price of £950.40. Reverb maintains a price guide and estimated value for the Dual Gate, though the specific figure isn't documented here. A used unit sold through Vintage King came with their premium servicing and a one-year warranty, which tells a buyer more about condition than about market average.
On the repair side, the record is thinner than the sales listings. No documented pattern of common failures, maintenance requirements, or repair lore has surfaced for the DS201 - no capacitor sagas, no service bulletins, no owner complaints worth repeating. One owner repair note does describe an intermittent "Range" knob potentiometer (reportedly a 4k7 part), the kind of age-related wear any pot-laden unit will eventually see. The absence of failure data is an absence of information, not a guarantee of reliability, so inspect any used unit on its own merits. One caution for anyone shopping by search string: listings matching "DS201" are frequently not Drawmer products at all. Collins 30S-1 amp lamp holders and ABB circuit breakers (DS201-C40, DS201-C10) share the designation. Confirm the unit is a black 1U Drawmer gate with XLRs before bidding.
eBay Listings
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