I've been looking for something particular. I got this description that shows what I want perfectly...
'Aside from other controls for altering sensitivity, envelope etc, noise gates can be used for other purposes like gluing a sloppy bass part to a kick drum, or gluing a sine wave oscillator to an 808 kick to generate deep bass. Noise gates can also be used as effects generators using the so-named side-chain feature.
Instead of the threshold being set manually, this cunning feature ‘opens’ and ‘closes’ the gate automatically depending upon another audio signal that’s been patched into the side-chain input. If that audio signal is something like drum machine pattern (i.e. lots of short, dynamic bursts of signal) then that rhythm will be applied to the main audio track on which you are using the noise gate.
In place of your acoustic guitar, let’s take a synth pad, or some backing vocal ‘Oohs.’ If you apply a noise gate with side-chain inputted drum beat on this type of sound - i.e. a smooth, sustained audio signal - it’ll turn it into a sort of groovy, stuttering effect in the exact same rhythm as the drum beat. In effect the drum beat will ‘play’ the synth or vocal.
This effect is extremely infectious, creating instant danceability, instant feel, instant but non-intrusive movement, not the least because it is precisely in-time with the drum beat, and so, we hope, with the rest of your track.'
Is there such a thing in a stompbox? Essentially a noise gate, with the 'side chain' feature?
Could be interesting...Also something I've found called 'trigger gates' which you write in a sequence and it will gate what you play to that sequence, give it a rhythmic staccato vibe...but I've only seen plugin versions for logic and that - no stompbox things.