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Native Instruments' Transient Master


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Pretty much, although I'm sure its got its own unique process behind the scenes. I think with a lot of gear it depends on what you like and what you're inclined to reach for in a situation; even if you can get the same sounds out of a compressor, sometimes you don't want to have to deal with a particular interface to get there. Its a good chunk of change to spend on a UI, but for some people it might be worth it.
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Would it be a fair assessment to say that this is a glorified compressor preset of which you can only adjust two parameters of

 

No. It's a transient shaper, or transient processor.

 

Logic has one of these: the Enveloper plug-in.

 

Here's an article on the subject:

 

What’s wrong with transient shapers?

 

J.

 

So it's Enveloper where you can only adjust two parameters.

 

Even the freebie Bittersweet rone2him linked offers more control, for $60-120 cheaper. I've used it on occasion and loved the results.

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So it's Enveloper where you can only adjust two parameters.

 

Even the freebie Bittersweet rone2him linked offers more control, for $60-120 cheaper. I've used it on occasion and loved the results.

 

It has more controls than the SPL hardware unit it emulates, and is cheaper than the UA version. More controls does not mean better processing.

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So it's Enveloper where you can only adjust two parameters.

 

Even the freebie Bittersweet rone2him linked offers more control, for $60-120 cheaper. I've used it on occasion and loved the results.

 

It has more controls than the SPL hardware unit it emulates, and is cheaper than the UA version. More controls does not mean better processing.

 

Yeah, judging by the sounds coming out of the NI vid, the shaping it can do is a lot more dramatic than what you can get out of Bittersweet, which I've used (and liked) several times.

 

EDIT:

Actually, I take that back. Bittersweet is dramatic but it only has one set of controls for the transient shaping where the NI version has one each for attack and decay. So the NI version is more flexible.

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Wait, wait. You're telling me that this is emulating a $1400 rack unit whose sole purpose is transient envelope shaping?

 

What is it about the SPL unit that makes it worthy of a four-digit price? It seems like cheating, to simply manipulate an attack and sustain knob and somehow take a drum from fat thwack to a relaxed body-heavy sound.

 

Would someone be so kind as to explain to me, a mere plebian with enough ego to think his laptop and cheap digital plug-ins will somehow produce good sounding results, what's so magical about a transient shaper? Is it really a magic sauce you can toss a sound in and somehow get the exact dynamics, thin and sharp versus sweet and woody, by manipulating a mere two knobs?

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Is it really a magic sauce you can toss a sound in and somehow get the exact dynamics, thin and sharp versus sweet and woody, by manipulating a mere two knobs?

You did watch the video, right? :)

 

I'm sure it'll be source and context dependent.

Sometimes it might work great...other times not so much.

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Wait, wait. You're telling me that this is emulating a $1400 rack unit whose sole purpose is transient envelope shaping?

 

What is it about the SPL unit that makes it worthy of a four-digit price? It seems like cheating, to simply manipulate an attack and sustain knob and somehow take a drum from fat thwack to a relaxed body-heavy sound.

 

Would someone be so kind as to explain to me, a mere plebian with enough ego to think his laptop and cheap digital plug-ins will somehow produce good sounding results, what's so magical about a transient shaper? Is it really a magic sauce you can toss a sound in and somehow get the exact dynamics, thin and sharp versus sweet and woody, by manipulating a mere two knobs?

 

The link jordi gave explained it pretty well; on occasion you want to alter the transient envelope without compressing or expanding the material. It will be an occasional thing, when standard tools don't quite do it, but there are studios that spend far more on far less useful gear.

 

More detailed info: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/oct98/articles/spltransient.html

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I have both the Flux and the Sonnox versions of TSs. The Flux Bittersweet is much more subtle, but it can still do the trick sometimes. One trick I've done is to lower all the transients on a drum bus and it sounds like a room mic. Try it, it's pretty cool! Different from compression.
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