RackPack: Transient Designer
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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 chan-
nels of the Transient Designer are connected to the DAW or console and
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 two linked
Transient Designer modules. Now crank the master ATTACK control to
the max 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.)
You can also create a reverb effect that moves from one channel to
the other. Reverb presets with a long decay or a long pre-delay and
especially those that have flamboyant reflections set to appear after
the beginning of the diffuse reverberation tail are predestined for
that. Insert the left and the right channel of the reverb through two
Transient Designer modules that are NOT running in LINK mode this
time. Turn the ATTACK fully right on one module and reduce SUSTAIN
slightly (about -1.5 dB). On the other module turn the ATTACK fully left
and the SUSTAIN to the 3-o‘clock position (about +12 dB).
These settings preserve the original complexity of the reflections in
the reverb but the maximum intensity of the effect will move from the
left to the right in the mix while the reverb will maintain it‘s presence in
both channels. You can make this effect even more dramatic by setting
all controls to their most extreme positions, but you run the danger of
ending up with an lopsided effect that appears out of balance.
Bass, The Re-Invention of Reverb
Applications
