Well, right now I am working on a Transient Shaper. I know, why? There are already a number of good transient shapers around. I personally like Transient from Sleepy-Time Records. It is a freebie, and it is highly configurable.
Right now, I have three reasons for doing this:
1. I want to apply a similar GUI from ClipShifter to a transient plugin. When I am mixing something, I personally do better if I have a plugin that provides great visual feedback about the processing. It is always about listening, but my ears are better with my eyes helping out. Compressors and EQs are especially prime candidates for visual GUI feedback.
2. All of the transient shapers that I have used are subtle. They are very useful, but they typically lack extreme settings. I want something that can be pushed to the point of sounding ridiculous. In my tests, I am already finding that this is a challenge. Being able to push a transient shaper to the extremes requires a lot of tweaking of the detection process and the gain processing to minimize glitches.
3. A transient shaper plugin is a means to a different end. If you can separate out the attacks and the releases, why can’t you start applying other effects separately to the attacks and releases…and that is what I want to design.
Let me know if you have any thoughts or suggestions about transient shaping.
Yeah that transient from Sleepy-Time is a great one. Now I think you are serious. haha.
Thats it man, a good visual feedback is important. The ears are the top end ruler but they often get tired and deceives us. A good visual feedback (e.g. clip shifter) prevent that.
Ideas for the transient shaper: A clear separated control of the shaper input signal with flat filters/EQs and or sidechain input (sidechain = flexibility) that dont affect the dry/wet audio. keep a “delta” knob (like TDR feedback compressor II) for people that wants to process the output shapes separately in a diferent track. And… to the end. Multiband processing (haha, too much?) Multiple instances can deal with that with sidechain…
thats it.
keep the good work. cheers
Thanks for the suggestions. I think that I can do most of what you suggested, except the multiband (that will have to wait). Something really interesting that I have being playing with is three controls instead of the normal two. Ever other transient plugin I have seen separates audio into an attack and release phase. I actually have it separated into three phases; attack, sustain, and release. I am getting some pretty interesting results because each phase can be controlled individually.
I’ll post some screenshots in the coming days. I might put this on hold for a little bit and make some more changes to ClipShifter. I just figured out a better antialias filtering system than what I was using in the beta. I already have it working in my Transient plugin and it is working out nicely.
Wait a minute. I change my mind on the multiband issue. I have been working the past few weeks with ClipShifter and I have come up with a good multiband component for it. I think I could definitely do this for a transient shaper. The only issue will be where to fit all the controls and knobs. I know that this sounds ridiculous, but I am having a hard time.