In this free video tutorial, Pro Tools Expert team member Julian Rodgers uses the Plugin Alliance SPL Attacker to emphasise the transient in a variety of sources. He demonstrates the effect on kick drum, snare and bass before comparing the effect in context. The Attacker employs the same processing technique as the original SPL Transient Designer using SPL’s Differential Envelope Technology dynamic processing with its level-independent methodology. This is an important distinction as, although similar effects can be created using compression or upward expansion, both of these techniques are level-dependent in a way that the attacker isn’t.
Tail Suppression
Although the primary effect of this plug-in is in emphasising the transient, one of the less expected but still very useful effects of this plug-in was increased intelligibility introduced through a degree of tail suppression introduced at high settings, usefully cleaning up and de-cluttering a rhythm section by drying up the tails. With only two controls to worry about this is a simple but very usable effect which offers results not easily achieved using traditional dynamics and EQ.