Transient Shapers on a Bus Channel

I experimented with adding a transient shaper on the entire percussion bus, but also my “rhythm” bus where all ostinato strings, pulse synths etc. goes. It is very cool to be able to quickly and easily make the entire rhythmic section more snappy! :stuck_out_tongue:

Have you tried using transient shapers on group tracks, or any other experiments that got you good results? :smiley:

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In general when I use a transient shaper, I insert a compressor/limiter after it, so I don’t increase the peaks of the signal. The illusion with transient shapers is always “overdoing” it and making things unbalanced again, so the limiter keeps the sound under control.

You can actually do a good comparison: 1. Increase the transient or 2. decrease the sustain and check what sounds better. Sometimes an increase in the sustain can be more natural, the signal is getting “compressed”. So it’s similar to “compressing” a signal.

Setting-wise I wouldn’t go crazy on the BUS. 1dB can make a huge difference. On a single track, 5dBs can work, depends on the mix of course. More than 5-6dB it’s getting unnatural. The human ear doesn’t require a lot of volume-gain, to find that something is more “snappy”. 1-2 dB work in most cases.

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I like to use transient shapers mainly to shorten the sounds, like you know Michael Jackson type sound in drums. So basically reducing sustain is often most important. Especially if the entire drum bus takes too much space in the mix by “washing out” like every sound rings for too long.

I agree, you have to be careful with all things you put on a bus, it quickly sound unnatural.

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