SPL Transient Designer 2880 User Manual

SPL Analog Code ® Plug-in

Manual

Transient Designer

2

Transient Designer Analog Code® Plug-in

Manual

Transient Designer Analog Code® Plug-in

Model Number 2880
Manual Version 2.0 – 12 /2011

This user‘s guide contains a description of the product. It in no
way represents a guarantee of particular characteristics or results
of use. The information in this document has been carefully com­piled and verified and, unless otherwise stated or agreed upon,
correctly describes the product at the time of packaging with this
document.

Sound Performance Lab (SPL) continuously strives to improve its
products and reserves the right to modify the product described in
this manual at any time without prior notice. This document is the
property of SPL and may not be copied or reproduced in any way, in
part or fully, without authorization by SPL electronics GmbH.

SPL electronics GmbH

Sohlweg 80, 41372 Niederkruechten, Germany
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
E-Mail: [e-mail]
Website: spl.info

© 2011 SPL electronics GmbH. All rights reserved.

The SPL logo, The Analog

Code®, Vitalizer® and Atmos® are trademarks of SPL electronics GmbH.

All

other logos and brand names are registered trademarks of their respective

owners.

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Transient Designer Analog Code

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Plug-in

Content

Installation 4

Plugin Alliance Activation 4
System Requirements and Compatibility 4
MAC and Windows Installation 4

Introduction 5

The Analog Code 5
Transient Designer 5

Control Elements 7

On 7
Link 7
Attack 7
Sustain 7
Output Gain 8
Power LED 8
Signal LED 8
Overload LED 8
Settings A, B, C, D 9
Mouse Wheel Control 9

Applications 10

Overview 10
Drums & Percussions 11
Drums: Ambience 12
Guitars 12
Bass: Staccato vs. Legato 13
The Re-Invention Of Reverb 13
Backings 14
Keyboards & Sampler 14
Post Production 14
Mastering 14

Your Notes 15

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Transient Designer Analog Code® Plug-in

Plugin Alliance Activation

Your Analog Code plug-in must be activated in your Plugin Alliance
account. You can set it up and log into your account anytime at

http://www.plugin-alliance.com

For details about the activation process, read the Plugin Alliance
Activation Manual. The PDF file is stored in the same folder of your
computer like this product manual file.
Alternatively, the following web page provides the same informa­tion: http://www.plugin-alliance.com/activation

System Requirements and Compatibility

For details about system requirements and supported platforms or
formats visit http://www.plugin-alliance.com/compatibility

MAC and Windows Installation

1. Check for the latest plug-in software version before installation:

http://software.spl.info/download

2. Execute the installer file and follow the instructions.

Installation

Transient Designer Analog Code® Plug-in

5

Introduction

The Analog Code

While SPL hardware products have been fascinating audio pro­fessionals from home studio owners to mastering engineers in
the world’s most renowned facilities for years, the need for this
technology in the form of plug-ins has also been an ever-growing
demand. With the Analog Code® plug-ins we have finally accom­plished our much desired goal: to transfer to the digital domain the
high quality we have striven to achieve with our analog processors
throughout several decades.
The first time we ever heard a software that fulfilled our expecta­tions, one of our hardware developers said to the programmers:
“you have cracked the Analog Code” — thus was coined the name
of our digital products.

Transient Designer

The Transient Designer plug-in provides a revolutionary concept
for level-independent dynamic processing. It is completely differ­ent in principle from common compression technologies that are
based upon processing signals from a specific signal level.
Working with the Transient Designer is very simple: Attacks can be
amplified or attenuated and sustain may be prolonged or short­ened. However, the possibilities for studio and live applications
are seemingly endless.
The technical foundation for processes inside of the analog para­gon is SPL‘s Differential Envelope Technology (DET). DET allows
level-independent dynamic processing by calculating differences
in generated envelopes.
DET represents a radically dif ferent approach to dynamics process­ing, both from the technical and creative way of signal processing:
thanks to the level-independent processing the setting of a thresh­old is not necessary. Other common controls, for example param­eters for time-constants are set automatically—and in a musical
manner as they follow the characteristics of the input signal. >

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Transient Designer Analog Code® Plug-in

After all, only two controls allow to completely reshape the attack
and sustain characteristics of a sound. Attack can be amplified or
attenuated by up to 15 dB while sustain can be amplified or attenu­ated by up to 24 dB.
Thus, in a very obvious and simple way, the Transient Designer
opens a whole new dimension in dynamic processing with entirely
new, stunning and vast possibilities for dynamic manipulation
and processing that cannot even be duplicated with several daisy­chained, conventional compressors or other dynamics devices.
The Transient Designer plug-in is modeled from the SPL RackPack
module. A new feature of this module in comparison to the stand­alone hardware versions is the output gain control that allows to
compensate for level changes after processing the signal. This
ensures a simple and safe adjustment of levels and helps avoiding
internal clipping.

Introduction

Transient Designer Analog Code® Plug-in

7

Control Elements

On

With the ON button you can turn the Transient Designer on or off.
The ON button is illuminated when the plug-in is activated. You can
also click on the Power-LED to activate or bypass the plug-in.

Link

The LINK mode can not be activated when a mono track is pro­cessed. Thus the LINK mode can only be activated when a stereo
track is processed. In that case the louder of the two stereo tracks
determines the control signals (according to ATTACK and SUSTAIN
settings). If the LINK mode is not activated for a stereo track, left
and right channel are processed independently according to their
individual levels.

Attack

With the ATTACK control you can amplify or attenuate
the attack of a signal by up to 15 dB. Positive ATTACK
values emphasize attack events, negative ATTACK
values smooth out the attack envelopes of sound
events. For an extensive description and explanation of the pos­sible applications of the ATTACK control please refer to “Applica­tions” on page 9 cont.

Sustain

With the SUSTAIN control you can amplify or attenuate
the sustain of a signal by up to 24 dB. Positive SUSTAIN
values lengthen the sustain, negative SUSTAIN values
shorten the sustain. For an extensive description and
explanation of the possible applications of the SUSTAIN control
please refer to “Applications”, page 9 cont.

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Transient Designer Analog Code® Plug-in

Control Elements

Output Gain

The OUTPUT GAIN control allows you to reduce the
output signal by up to -22dB or boost it by up to +6dB.
This ensures that following devices receive an opti­mized level. The center position at 12-o‘clock equals
0 dB output. If the OVL-LEDs keeps flashing reduce the
Output Level to avoid internal clipping.

Power LED

With a click on the POWER LED you can turn the Tran-

sient Designer™ on or off. The POWER LED is illumi­nated when the plug-in is activated. You can also click the ON
button to activate or bypass the Transient Designer.

Signal LED

The SIG. LED indicates that an audio signal reaches the input. In
the analog world this LED helps the operator especially in complex
setups to determine immediately whether the Transient Designer™
actually receives any signal. In the digital domain it simply tells you
that the channel where you inserted the plug contains a signal that
is loud enough to ensure correct processing.

Overload LED

The OVL LED indicates internal clipping. Wether the clipping is
audible or not depends on the kind of audio material you are pro­cessing. Nevertheless it should be avoided that the OVL LED illumi­nates. Use the Output Gain control to reduce the output level if the
OVL-LEDs keeps flashing.

Transient Designer Analog Code® Plug-in

9

Settings A, B, C, D

The settings feature allows to store four different sets
of adjustments (A, B, C, D). Much faster than with the
usual save and recall preset dialogs, the respective
current setting is stored automatically when you switch to another
setting – to recall previous settings by just one click.
For example, leaving setting A (by calling another setting) stores
the current parameter setting under A, calling B restores the last
adjustment made under B.
Settings A, B, C, D can also be included into the automation of
host applications to apply different sets of parameters to different
parts of a song.

Mouse Wheel Control

All SPL Analog Code plug-ins support mouse wheel control for
rotary controls and faders. Place the mouse cursor over a rotary
control or fader and move the wheel or scroll ball of your mouse
to adjust the control or fader. Hold the CTRL (Windows) or APPLE/
COMMAND key while moving the wheel or scroll ball for fine adjust­ments with higher control resolution.

Control Elements

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Transient Designer Analog Code® Plug-in

Applications

Overview

The Transient Designer™ RTAS/AU/VST plug-in can be used with
any host application that support s VST (i. e. Cubase, Nuendo, Wav­eLab, ...), AU (Apple Logic), or RTAS (Digidesign ProTools).
You can manipulate the attack and sustain characteristics of a
signal reg ardless of level in the most intuitive and simple way. Usu­ally equalizers are used to separate instruments in a mix – the tonal
aspect of the signal is considered, but not the temporal aspect.
The Transient Designer now opens this next dimension in signal
processing. By manipulating the attack and sustain curves of a
sound event, the mix can be made to sound more transparent.
Instruments can be mixed at lower levels while still maintaining
their positions in the mix—but occupying less space.
The following examples are given as suggestions and examples.
The described procedures with specific instruments can of course
be transferred to others which are not mentioned here.

Transient Designer Analog Code® Plug-in

11

Applications

Drums & Percussions

The processing of drum and percussion sounds is probably the
Transient Designer’s most typical application.

• Emphasize the attack of a kick drum or a loop to increase the
power and presence in the mix.

• Shorten the sustain period of a snare or a reverb-flag in a very
musical way to obtain more transparency in the mix.

• Shorten toms or overheads without physically damping them.

• Adjust the apparent “distance” of the microphone by simply
varying the ATTACK and SUSTAIN values.

• The Transient Designer is a perfect alternative to noise gates.
Since it adapts processing to the original signal, the sustain is
shortened more musically than with fixed release times – within
seconds a drumset is reliably free from crosstalk.

• Enjoy an amazingly simple integration of drum sounds into a
mix. If the acoustic level of a snare is expanded to approximately
+4 dB by increasing the attack value, the effective increase of
peak levels in the overall mix is merely about 0.5 dB to 1 dB.

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Transient Designer Analog Code® Plug-in

Applications

Drums: Ambience

If your drums happen to sound as if the room mics have been placed
in a shoe closet, the Transient Designer can immediately turn that
sound into the ambience of an empty warehouse. Just send the
room mics stereo channels through the Transient Designer and
crank the ATTACK control to emphasize the first wave.
Now slowly increase SUSTAIN values to bring up a “all-buttons­in-1176-sound“ room tone—but without pumping cymbals. For a
solid and driving rhythm track just fine-tune the SUSTAIN control
to make sure that the room mic envelope ends more or less exactly
on the desired upbeat or downbeat.

Guitars

Use the Transient Designer on guitars to soften the sound by low­ering the ATTACK. Increase ATTACK for in-the-face sounds, which is
very useful and works particularly well for picking guitars. Or blow
life and juice into quietly played guitar parts.
Distorted guitars usually are very compressed, thus not very
dynamic. Simply increase the ATTACK to get a clearer sound with
more precision and better intonation despite any distortion.
Heavy distortion also leads to very long sustain. The sound tends
to become mushy; simply reduce SUSTAIN to change that. If you,
however, want to create soaring guitar solos that would make even
David Gilmour blush, just crank up the SUSTAIN control to the max
and there you go.
On acoustic guitar tracks you can emphasize the room sound by
turning up SUSTAIN. If you want the guitars to sound more intimate
and with less ambience, simply reduce SUSTAIN.

Transient Designer Analog Code® Plug-in

13

Applications

Bass: Staccato vs. Legato

Speaking of bass: Imagine a too sluggishly played bass track ...
you may not have to re-record it: Reduce the SUSTAIN until you can
hear clear gaps between the downbeats—the legato will turn into
a nice staccato, driving the rhythm-section forward.

The Re-Invention Of Reverb

With all reverb applications mentioned below, the left and right
channels of the Transient Designer are panned hard to left and right
(or where they would have been panned to without the Transient
Designer™) to achieve the same stereo image.
Always and everywhere the same reverb presets – boring, aren‘t
they? Try looping the left and right output of your reverb through
the Transient Designer.
Create two mono tracks panned hard left and right with the same
audio material and insert the same reverb in both channels in an
insert before the Transient Designer plug-in. Now crank the master
ATTACK control to the maximum and reduce SUSTAIN to a bare
minimum. The intensity of the reverb is now much higher in the
beginning while the reverb time is reduced.
The opposite can be just as intriguing: manipulate a reverb pattern
so that it takes on a pyramidal slope. Turn the ATTACK all the way
to the left and SUSTAIN all the way to the right. Now the beginning
of the reverb is strongly reduced whereas the sustain blossoms
and seems almost endless (obviously that will only happen if the
decay of the reverb in the actual reverb device has been set to a
sufficient value—a signal must always be present as long as the
sustain time lasts).

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Transient Designer Analog Code® Plug-in

Applications

Backings

A common problem especially with tracks that are recorded and
mixed in different studios: Backings lack of ambience, and find­ing a reverb that “matches” takes time ... so simply emphasize the
original ambience by turning up the Transient Designer™’s SUS­TAIN control. And the opposite problem, too much ambience, is
similarly simply solved with the opposite processing —just reduce
SUSTAIN.

Keyboards & Sampler

Sounds in keyboards and samples usually show a lot of compres­sion., not maintaining enough of their natural dynamic. Increase
the ATTACK values to re-gain a more natural response character­istic. The sounds occupy less space in the mix and appear more
identifiable even at lower volumes.

Post Production

When dealing with overdubs in movies you can easily add more
punch and definition to effect sounds from any sample library.
The same applies to outdoor recordings that suffer from poor
microphone positioning—simply optimize them afterwards.

Mastering

Like with any good thing, you also have to know where not to use
it. For example, using a Transient Designer in mastering usually is
not recommended, as it is rarely a good idea to treat a whole mix at
once. Instead, treat individual elements within the mix.

Transient Designer Analog Code® Plug-in

15

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Your Notes

SPL – Sound Performance Lab

Sohlweg 80, 41372 Niederkrüchten, Germany
Fon: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
E-Mail: [e-mail], Website: spl.info

Transient Designer

Analog Code

®

Plug-in

Manual