Transient Designers (Transient Shapers) are amazing for controlling and shaping the attack part of a sound, as well as the sustain part.
Having used oeksound Soothe and the updated Soothe2, it didn’t take much for me to have a gander at Spiff plugin when asked. Oeksound is a relatively new plug-in company from Helsinki, Finland, founded in 2016 by Olli Keskinen. When we talk about transients, drums come immediately to mind, but I strongly suggest trying Spiff on other material too. Oeksound Spiff is available for both PC and Mac platform, in AU, VST and AAX format, at the price of €149 EUR. A trial version is available on Oeksound’s website.
Basically you can make sounds more snappy, plucky or punchy by increasing the attack on the transient shaper plugin. But you can also increase the sustain, length, depth and room tone by increasing the sustain part on the transient designer.
Or, you could go in the opposite direction by decreasing the attack to make the sound less in your face, or reducing the sustain part to make it shorter and snappier.
There are many transient shaper VST plugins on the market, but here are my top list of recommendations for you:
1. Softube | Transient Shaper
Softube are already known for their high studio quality effects plugins, and this is no exception. It sounds very natural, and is very easy to use. The best part about it is that you can choose if you want to affect the hi band, the low band, or the complete frequency range…both with the sustain and attack knobs (called punch on this plugin). You can also adjust the cross over frequency of the bands, as well as set a fast or slow attack setting on the punch knob.
2. XLN Audio – Ds-10 Drum Shaper
While this is called a drum shaper, it is technically a transient designer and can be used on other rhythmic sounds as well. But what makes it stand out is that you actually have 2 modes dedicated to either Kick or Snare sounds. And a third mode suitable for the drum bus. The interface other than that is very simple, with the standard attack and sustain knobs, but it also features a special “mojo” knob that changes frequency focus depending on mode (kick, snare, bus). Not only that, but you can change the sound algorithm for different results (classic, natural and smooth).
3. Joey Sturgis Tones – Transify
This is a multi band transient shaper, with 4 bands with separate cut-off frequencies that you can set, as well as individual clip cirquits for extra aggressive sounds while avoiding digital peaking. You can for example tame and tighten the low end, while opening up the high end shimmering depths, which makes it perfect for use on mixing groups.
4. Oeksound – Spiff
This transient shaper works by analyzing the incoming audio signal in order to apply the processing on only the transient information of the waveform, which makes it very detailed and controlled. You can also dial in the exact frequency range for super detailed transient control, adjust the depth, sensitivity, decay etc. of the transients. And even shape where in the stereo field you want to shape the transients (mid/side). Everything outside of the boundaries of your setting will be left natural, which can help to reduce the common side-effects of using transient designer plugin.
5. Waves – Smack Attack
Waves have included some very interesting features in this transient shaper, that allows you to control both the shape (envolope) and duration of both the attack (transient) and the sustain. It also has a “sensitivity” which almost acts as the threshold on a compressor, letting you dial in how many and how much of the transients you shape.
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Meet Spiff, an advanced, adaptive transient tool that will let you sculpt your sound with high precision.
by Vince Bellanova, Sept. 2020
Oeksound’s Take on Transient Control
We previously met the Finnish Oeksound in the pages of SoundBytes Magazine, especially when we talked about their innovative and quite impressive Dynamic Resonance Suppressor, Soothe 2 (you can read the review here). With Soothe 2 we could say goodbye to manual, tedious resonance taming sessions and leave that responsibility to this tool. This time we are going to explore their second plug-in, Spiff, which is Oeksound’s new approach to transient shaping. The interface of Spiff is quite similar to Soothe, but the process is entirely different. Spiff is described as an adaptive transient tool, and it recognizes the transient material and processes it according to our directions. As with Soothe, we have a lot of freedom because we can direct Spiff’s reaction with the EQ interface.
Spiff has been highlighted for treating voices and removing clicks and pops, but as we will see its applications are countless. It’s perfect for drums, for both controlling or enhancing some parts; we can use it on entire mixes, or Master channels; we could also use it for sound design for sound sculpting plucky synths, enhancing impacts; or even for controlling field recording material.
What is intriguing is that Spiff seems to push the boundaries of multi-band transient shaping by letting us move with comple freedom within the spectrum. This tool is also adaptive, so it automatically recognizes transient material and only reacts when needed.
Let’s dive into the controls.
Meet Spiff
Spiff is designed to be an intelligent tool that reacts only to the transient material, and it can work in two modes, Cut and Boost, allowing us to add some spike or to tame and control our material. Most of the controls are on the left, while the center of the GUI is dedicated to the EQ. Selecting one of the modes (Cut or Boost) the color of the EQ interface will change between light blue and magenta.
The EQ, as with Soothe, is more of a Sidechain EQ, meaning that boosts and cuts make Spiff’s reaction to transient in that area more or less pronounced. As with Soothe, we can play with the five different bands, selecting their shape, adjusting frequency, Q factor and we can also listen to the single-band isolated with the Band Listen mode. Between the shapes we also have Low and High Pass, if we remove the lows with a Low Cut, for instance, we are telling the plug-in to ignore that frequency region.
The application of Spiff can be as simple as cutting or boosting transients in very specific areas of the spectrum, but there’s more. The big Depth knob controls the overall effect intensity of the processing.
We can take much more control over its action by setting its Sensitivity, for instance. Less Sensitivity means that only the most pronounced transients will be detected, and more means the opposite, of course. Sharpness allows us to control how narrow the cuts and boosts will be, ranging from broad, natural curves to sharper ones. Broader Qs (Sharpness knob values tending to the left) are more natural.
Decay controls how much time a cut or boost requires to jump back to its regular level. This can also be set in relation to high and low frequencies via the dedicated knob, which can be used to set a longer decay for one of the two parts of the spectrum.
One of the most useful controls is the Delta switch with which we can monitor and listen just to Spiff’s action. In this way, we can have a much clearer idea of what we are doing. This is also suggested as a starting point while playing with the Depth knob and with the Mix, which is another essential control. Yes, it is just a Mix control, but the combination of the Depth, Sensitivity, and Mix control is offering a very high level of control over the processing.
Spiff also offers a Trim control to compensate eventual level changes, it allows to work in Mid/Side or standard stereo mode, to link both sides to apply the same amount of processing to both Left/Right or Mid/Side, depending on the mode we selected, and to further adjust it with the Balance control.
In the Advanced tab, we can set the oversampling and resolution, as well as the phase mode, choosing between Minimum Phase and Linear Phase, with the Minimum Phase resulting more natural, while heavier on the CPU and less accurate.
Spiff Vst Plugin
With a nice assortment of controls, Spiff has a bit fo a learning curve, but that is tied more to its effect than to the plug-in itself, especially because Spiff can do some truly unique things. Sometimes in cut mode, it can be necessary to adjust the mix to avoid excessive blurring, but I found it amazing for adding color, sharpness, and definition to drums and whole mixes. I have been impressed by the clarity and impact it can give without being aggressive, without sacrificing dynamics and doing something I have never seen. Transient shapers usually offer attack and release settings, and they are multiband if we are lucky. But here we can break the bands’ barriers, be very selective with the region to boost or control, and also take advantage of other useful controls such as the Decay knob, which, to me, is very interesting when used to morph the sound and perfect for adding a nice tail in the low end of percussive material, for instance.
Controlling drums, enhancing their punch, adding low end and weight, these are just the beginning, Spiff is also magnificent on vocals, instrument busses, even on raw recordings of everyday objects I use in my job for sound design for both adding some clarity or removing slight imperfections.
One improvement I’d like to see is to be able to boost a band while doing a cut on another. Nevertheless, I found easy and simple to get good results with Spiff.
Spiff Vst Torrent
Conclusion
Spiff is a processor like no other, it is particularly interesting just because it can morph your audio material by enriching it or correcting it with precision and it is still able to offer a lot of control over its action. When we talk about transients, drums come immediately to mind, but I strongly suggest trying Spiff on other material too.
Oeksound Spiff is available for both PC and Mac platform, in AU, VST and AAX format, at the price of €149 EUR. A trial version is available on Oeksound’s website.