Softube Transient Shaper Plug-In Released
Softube first previewed their Transient Shaper last month at NAMM 2015. With the announcement of the official release, users will get to experience their dual-band transient shaper that can effect bass, treble, or both.
The crossover is user-defined between 100Hz and 4000Hz, with 700 as the default. Actual shaping controls include Sustain, Punch, and Level. Sustain and Punch do as the name suggests but what is interesting is that the controls can be set to a negative value, reducing the original signals transient sustain, and punch – helpful for when drums need to ride in the back seat.
Dualband transient shaping for customized sustain and punch.
The Softrube Transient Shaper is available now for $99 MSRP ($89 at Softube authorized retailers). The plug-in is available for Mac and PC in VST, VST3, AAX, and AU formats as 32 or 64-bit. Here are more details from Softube:
Transient shaping has become a vital technique in music mixing. The ability to sharpen or soften the onset of a sound, as well as lengthen or shorten the decay, has proven very useful for giving each sound just the right size and position in the mix. Transient Shaper takes this concept one step further, by letting the user affect either the entire frequency range—as most similar tools—or only the treble frequencies or bass frequencies.
Use cases
For example, on drum overheads, this means you can turn up the Sustain knob and set its frequency control to Wide. This will simultaneously stretch out the room sound and cymbals, as well as give you more sustain and boom to the toms. But let’s say you don’t want boomier toms. Then you set the Sustain knob’s frequency control switch to Hi, in which case the Sustain processing only affects the high frequencies, i.e. the cymbals and room, but leaves the toms just the way they are. Set the switch to Lo, and hear how you now only get boom from the toms, but the room sound and cymbals stay unaffected.
More than percussion
The dual band operation makes Transient Shaper useful for much more than drum and percussion sounds. Give a vocal track clarity and presence by adding some high frequency transients—add Punch with its frequency slider set to Hi. Or create a darker and more rounded sound that oozes with vintage vibe by instead turning down the Punch knob. Use it on piano, bass, guitar, electronic drums—Transient Shaper works on a wide range of sound types.
The crossover frequency is user selectable, as is the Punch behavior (Fast or Slow). We also added an output distortion section called Clip.
In short:
- Dual band transient processing tool
- Add or reduce punch and/or sustain from any sound
- Affect either the whole frequency spectrum, only the high frequencies or only the low frequencies
- User selectable crossover frequency
- Clip section adds output distortion