Once the preserve of the well-off producer at the bleeding edge of music technology, transient shaping – that is, level modulation of the separated ‘attack’ and ‘sustain’ parts of a signal – has become a fundamental and ubiquitous audio engineering technique over the last couple of decades. Here are six of the best plugins around with which to do it in your DAW.

Wavesfactory Quantum

Like all transient shapers, Quantum starts by dividing the input signal into attack and sustain portions, both of which can be boosted and attenuated using the two big, obvious Volume knobs. Three transient detection modes are provided (Drums, General and Soft); the Sensitivity, Decay and Hold knobs are used to adapt the algorithm to the shape of the source material if required; and the waveform display makes it easy to see what’s going on.

So far, so good, but Wavesfactory’s adventurous plugin then takes things in a whole other direction by enabling a range of high-quality effects to be independently applied to the divided attack and sustain signals. 16 modules are onboard – Compressor, EQ, Reverb, Phaser, Chorus, Convolution, Delay, Saturation, Enhancer, etc – and the interface makes adding, rearranging and operating them quick and easy, with the controls for the selected module appearing in the centre panel.

Unarguably the most overtly creative plugin in our list, Quantum’s combination of detailed transient control and colourful multi-effects processing puts it in a class of its own, and comes together to form a hugely compelling sound design toolbox.

Sonnox Oxford Envolution

Setting Sonnox’s transient shaper  – which, despite the name, has absolutely nothing to do with impulse responses – apart from the rest is the independent control it facilitates over the Attack, Hold and Release stages of the transient and sustain signals. This opens the whole thing up to incredibly precise dynamics sculpting, making it supremely viable for getting a grip on acoustic guitars, pianos and other instrumentation that demands processing transparency, as well as up for heading off into more unconventional territory. You can audition the difference between the input and processed transient and sustain signals, too, which presents its own creative possibilities, such as pulling out the sustain signal to simulate negative-ratio compression

On top of that, Envolution incorporates filter circuits into its Transients and Sustain sections for frequency-based processing, each one switchable between tilt EQ and band-pass/notch modes, and proving useful for correctively exaggerating and/or reducing the amount of shaping applied across the frequency spectrum. Throw in a saturation stage for reining in excessive peaks, and you have a truly surgical solution for rebalancing transient-fronted signals of all kinds that never sounds anything less than fabulous.

oeksound Spiff

The follow-up to oeksound’s Soothe dynamic EQ, Spiff is built on the same conceptual foundations as its phenomenally successful sibling plugin, automatically identifying and targeting transients with the guidance of the Sensitivity, Decay and Sharpness controls, then either cutting or boosting them (it’s not meant or able to do both at the same time) to an extent determined by the Depth dial. The detection circuit can be tailored and honed using a five-band EQ and the Stereo Link parameter, while up to 4x oversampling and a choice of minimum and linear phase modes ensure clean, aliasing-free results at the expense of CPU cycles.

The fact that Spiff was originally designed specifically for the zapping of mouth clicks, as well as its lack of ‘sustain portion’ processing, suggests that it’s primarily meant for transparent corrective work – and it does indeed do a stellar job of sorting out vocal tracks, calming drums down and all that important stuff. However, its unique specification also lends it plenty of scope for more profound and explorative transformations.

Waves Smack Attack

Waves’ aggressively titled plugin might look less complicated than most of the others we’re looking at here, but that concise control panel belies Smack Attack’s great depth and versatility. The Attack and Sustain portions have their own Sensitivity dials for setting the points at which processing is applied, and each offers three extendable (0.5-500ms for the Attack and 30-1000ms for the Sustain) envelope configurations for defining their respective shapes. This seemingly straightforward setup gives you everything required to add punch and energy to drums, percussion, basses, guitars and other attacking instrumentation; suppress or enhance room ambience and reverb; tighten up flabby beats; and generally take command of your dynamic profiling. The optional output limiter/clipper doesn’t hurt either, allowing overs to be smoothly and transparently attenuated, or audibly lopped for edgy distortion.

Plugin Alliance SPL Transient Designer Plus

Changing the dynamics processing game upon its launch at the tail end of the ’90s, SPL’s Transient Designer hardware was the world’s first transient shaping effect – and Plugin Alliance’s plugin emulation confidently nails that legendary response and transparency. Like the real thing, Transient Designer Plus’s control panel is about as minimal as they come, with no adjustable envelope shapes, detection circuit EQ, dry/wet mix control or other ‘frills’ in sight; just a pair of knobs for cutting/boosting the Attack and Sustain portions, a stereo link button and an Output Gain control. This simplicity is where the magic of the Transient Designer has always lain, though, as the four carefully calibrated envelope generators at work under the hood (collectively dubbed ‘Differential Envelope Technology’) take care of all the detection and shaping, leaving you to just set the levels and move on.

With its adaptive approach and beautifully musical sound, Transient Designer Plus makes for a flawless virtualisation of a stone cold studio classic.

New Fangled Audio/Eventide Punctuate

Our last entrant sees the Transient Emphasis section of Eventide’s Elevate Mastering Limiter broken out into its own plugin, serving up frequency-variable transient shaping across up to 26 bands, set to the MEL auditory scale or one of your own making. The band slider on each band sets the amount of transient cut or boost applied to it, while the main Transient Emphasis slider scales them all collectively; and the plugin deploys “intelligent” algorithms to adjust the level modulation and transient envelope for every individual band, taking the modulation of all other bands into account.

It’s heady stuff, for sure, but the interface makes it all surprisingly intuitive and user-friendly, and when it comes to fine control and natural sounding results, Punctuate is hard to beat.

What’s your go-to transient design plugin? Let us know in the comments.