User Manual
Transient Shaper
Intro
Shaping vs. Compressing
Typical Use Cases
Stereo/Mono Operation
Block Diagram
Extended Features
Credits
One of the most popular features of the Console 1 is the addition of the Transient Shaper in the Shape section. The ability to quickly get expanding or compressing effects by a quick tweak of a single knob is extremely useful and in many cases completely eliminates the need for additional dynamics processing. While developing the original Transient Shaper for Console 1 we discovered that the underlying algorithm was a very powerful dynamics tool, and that with a couple of small additions we could unleash the true power of it. And in true Softube spirit we wanted to make a product with few simple controls that become a powerful combination that allows you to completely transform your audio track.
The secret ingredient? A cross-over section for the punch or sustain to affect the high or low frequencies. Try it out yourself, and you’ll notice how powerful it is. Add a bit of high frequency sustain to some strings or voice. Remove some low frequency sustain on overheads, or combine the two by increasing the high frequency punch and removing some low sustain on a kick.
So how is the Transient Shaper different from your standard dynamics tools, like a compressor? First, it is level independent. This means that it doesn’t need a threshold control and will react the same even if you change the gain of your track. Furthermore, it doesn’t care about the overall level of a track, it only cares about the transients (Punch) or lack of transients (Sustain).
While it might be easy to think of the Sustain and Punch as “threshold” controls on a auto make-up compressor, it is simply wrong to do so. For example, going from the minimum setting on the Sustain up to the maximum, you will start with an effect that is more related to expanding than compressing, and end up with something that sounds similar to a hard “all buttons in” mode compression.
But while it might sound similar to compression and expanding, that’s not really what it is, but we won’t delve further into those details today.
Here is a brief overview of the knobs and switches of the Transient Shaper.
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- Sustain
- Sustain band
- Gain change
- Clip LED
- Output level
- Punch
- Punch band
- Punch type
- Crossover
- Output level
- Clip on output
Sustain: Increase or decrease the amount of sustain in the audio. A setting below 0 dB will effectively reduce sustain, for example unwanted ringing in toms or a kick drum. A setting above 0 dB adds more sustain.
Sustain Band: Select if the Sustain should affect high frequencies, low frequencies or the whole sound (full bandwidth). Increasing high frequency sustain will make a audio source sound more vibrant without cluttering up your mix.
Punch: Increase or decrease the transients. Add Punch to get more pronounced transients, for example to make it sound as if the drummer is hitting the drums harder. Lower the punch to make the drum hits softer. Punch is only effective on sounds with fast transients, like a drum kit or plucked bass. For “slower” instruments, like voice or piano, it is more effective to work with the Sustain control instead of the punch, although it is possible to soften hard sounds in a vocal track by reducing punch.
Punch Band: Select if the Punch should affect high frequencies, low frequencies, or the whole sound (full bandwidth). Increasing high frequency punch is an effective way of adding more “click” to an audio source, such as a kick drum, while decreasing high frequency punch is very useful to tame sharp transients without taking away too much energy from them.
Punch Type: Adjust the timing of the punch. A SLOW punch type is smoother while the FAST punch is more aggressive.
Crossover: The center frequency of the crossover filter.
Level: Output volume
Clip: Turn on or off output distortion. When on, the output soft clips at 0 dB. Clipping in conjunction with increased transients is a very nice way of adding power to each transient without getting too loud output levels. Clipping is indicated by the Clip LED in the meter window. It is also a good idea to set Clip to CLIP ON when you’re dealing with really loud transients.
Meters
Gain Change: These two meters indicate the gain change in the High and Low frequency bands.
Clip LED: Indicates if the output is clipping
Output Volume: Output peak metering
Slow vs. Fast Punch
There are two main differences between SLOW and FAST Punch Type,
- Transient detection: the FAST punch has faster detection, and is better at detecting sharp transients. If the source transient has a slow build-up, it is better to use the SLOW mode, since FAST mode will miss a slow transient.
- Transient shaping: the FAST punch will shape a shorter part of the transient than the SLOW punch, and will therefore sound snappier, as compared to the more fat punch from the SLOW mode.
Here are a couple of typical use cases for the Transient Shaper.
Kick Drum
To get more click in the kick, add some punch in the high band:
Punch: +
Punch Band: HIGH
Punch Type: FAST
Crossover: 700 HZ
Clip: ON
Snare Drum
Decrease low frequency rumble and ringing by decreasing sustain for the low band:
Sustain: -
Sustain Band: LOW
A snare often needs a slower punch to increase the “fatness” of the attack. Let the output clip if the level gets too high, distortion on a snare drum works very good when you want to beef up a drum track:
Punch: +
Punch Band: WIDE
Punch Type: SLOW
Clip: ON
Overheads
Add room and shimmer. Avoid amplifying the low frequency rumble by only increasing the sustain for the high band:
Sustain: +
Sustain Band: HIGH
Crossover: 1-2 KHZ
Drum Kit Enhancement
If you want to shape the entire drum kit, you’ll need to try both slow and fast Punch Type to see which one is best suited for your recording. Just add a tiny bit of punch for the high frequencies:
Punch: 1-4 DB
Punch Type: SLOW or FAST
Punch Band: HIGH
Crossover: 2-4 KHZ
Vocals
Add shimmer and breath:
Sustain: +
Sustain Band: HIGH
Crossover: 1-2 KHZ
Tame plosives by decreasing the punch for the entire signal. The punch detector will only react on the worst offenders, leaving most of the vocal track intact:
Punch: -
Punch Band: WIDE
Punch Type: SLOW
Bass Guitar
Add body by increasing the low frequency sustain:
Sustain: +
Sustain Band: LOW
Crossover: 100-200 HZ
The Transient Shaper operates in both stereo and mono. The sustain detector operates on the combined LEFT + RIGHT signal, while the punch detector operates in true stereo.
The block diagram is a simplification of how it really works, but a useful help to figure out which knob to adjust.
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A whole range of added control can be accessed with Extended Features. Please see the separate "Extended Features" manual for more information.
Niklas Odelholm – Concept, modeling, sound design
Paul Shyrinskykh – Quality assurance
Patrik Holmström – Framework programming
Henrik Andersson Vogel – Presets and marketing
Arvid Rosén – Framework programming
Oscar Öberg – Framework programming
Ulf Ekelöf – Graphics rendering
Torsten Gatu – Framework programming
Mattias Danielsson – Technical support