I suspect a lot of other folks will mention drums (seems kinda obvious) or percussion loops (ditto) ...I've also been digging it on piano, for those pieces where you *don't* want a pristine natural acoustic piano sound. Cool for "texturefication" of uprights or electric grands.

Occasionally use it on electric bass, either for morphing moving lines into throbbing jello, or for pulling out whatever remnants of tone and pitch-definition survive overzealous slap/pop players.

use it all the time...add a little boost to kick/snr/tom attack...cut some ring from the toms, kick....sounds like a record right from the start.
-Brian

I've found it useful on reverb returns as well. If you want to tighten up your snare verb... kind of the same effect as gating, but without the 80's sound to it.. HUGE reverb that gets out of the way..

Genius...Pure Genius......

i just mixed an artsy piece for npr that involved spoken word over ambient textures. the voice was recorded on a built-in laptop mic in a parked car with the windows down on a busy manhattan street. the transient designer was perfect for suppressing the background noise in between words and phrases, way more natural and accurate than the gates.

i also love the way it instantly transforms a big roomy room mic into a tight, claustrophobic 70's drum booth mic.

no fears of using it while tracking. it's way more predictable than compression, which i track with all the time.


gregoire
del
ubk
.

agreed...I had never thought of that!!!! Another awesome thing it's good for is making reamped guitars sound a little more like guitars actually plugged into an amplifier! I find that reamping guitars you loose alot of the attack for some reason...so I add a little attack...and move the sustain knob alot during the process..... on chuggy stutter guitars I bring it way down..on held notes I crank it up...so awesome.

It's also great on room mics.....will a little messing around you can make a boomy as Sh*t room mic sound like a kick/snare close mic...but with TONE!!!

As far as tracking goes...it's pretty damn good...just don't go overboard...but that pretty much goes for everything you do in tracking.

ditto on the reverb trick. the dbx 117 family does something similiar as well. I've never used them in tracking situations. Initially I used them strictly for drums. Seemed like the logical thing to do. Now they spend all their time on reverbs, acou gtrs and elec gtr. Need a gtr to bite more? Or need to smooth it out? It's the perfect tool. I wish I had 4 more channels.

Along the same lines...anyone using the Sony Oxford Transient Modulator plug? Anyone had a chance to use both and compare?

Often on bass, kick drum, snare, lead guitar.
Very useful.

While you can track with it, I'm more of a fan of leaving it until the mixing stage, that way you can really fine tune what does more in the context of the mix, rather than trying to decide while tracking when you might not have half the tracks done yet.

Definitely great use on kick and snare. For snare record top snare with a second mic/pre and put that thru the TD then blend to taste (IBP works well here to align with 1st mic). Or simply mult the 1st mic and put it thru the TD. Lets you really emphasize any aspect of the drum you'd like.

Brilliant idea to use it on the reverbs as well as the guitar re-amping!

To all those who would like more channels of it, depending on what you're using it for it's no big deal to print the effect even during pre-mixing. Usually the little 'whap' of a snare drum you're emphasizing with it will not be suseptable to degradation thru an additonal A/D-D/A conversion if you need to print the effect and free it up for use on more tracks...

I've got the TransMod plug and a TD-4. The TD-4 is cake to use and ends up on every mix while I've gotten something useful out of the Sony maybe 6 times out of a million times trying. I finally had to see what the hardware was all about and it's just waaay more useful. Two knobs, done. SPL uses this two VCA's thing that I'm not sure you can really do what it does in software. At least no one has so far.

Interesting! No big shock to me, as I'm a believer that hardware often does certain things better than the softare emulation of it.

side question: what do you guys think about the 2 channel version?

I have the two channel version. I love it. My question would be, does the 4 channel version sound different? I know it's apparently balanced where the 2 channel is unbalanced. It also has XLR connectors which the 2 channel does not. But does it allow you to do anything that you can't do with the 2 channel?

-Aaron

P.S. I just used it this afternoon to fix a kick drum. It's like friggin' magic!

Often used - but only to fix indevidual problem drums, never on a mult.. more later...

I am curious too - so I started a thread - check it out:

https://gearspace.com/board/showthread.php?t=78741

I believe you, but I'm really surprised to hear that. I would have though that it was far easier to do than compression.

When you have done all you can to make a bass drum sexy sounding - but still need more... er.. sustain or uh.. note length.. The Transvestite Designer can get you there.. Ditto with say 2nd tom that is too short (or too long) in note


biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiim
bem
baaaammm

treat the 2nd tom (add sustain with TD) and you can get

biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiim
beeeeeeem
baaaaaaam

or

biiiiiiiiiiiim
beeeeeeeeeem
baaaaam

Treat the 2nd tom with sustain removal on TD and you get

biiiiiiiiiiiiiim
beeeeeem
baaaaaam

Maybe it is. i mean increasing or decreasing the attack of a transient might be simple enough in software but it terms of ease of use and ultimately getting a desirable useful sound the TD is where its at for me.

The Sony will certainly add snap or knock it back but I just can't get it to do all the full on envelope shaping that the TD will do. I've used the sony for stuff like softening ac gtr attack when a comp wouldn't do it for me and I've assed around with drum stuff with ho-hum results. I've never been able to just completely smack around a drum with it like I can the TD.

Couldn't stand the sound it gave to drums.

Even on a mult is came off tinny and plasticky.

Got rid of it eons ago.

Never looked back.

I heard (probably here so take w/ 10lb bag of salt) its a big part of TLA's drum sound lately. anybody have any info in that regard?

In this age of bedroom studios and mediocre playing/tracks, I wouldn't doubt that he may rely on it from time to time. Let's email him! [LOL] Tom! Are you out there?!?!

thrill's probably having drinks with him right now, laughing about all the mere mortals he threw off the transient designer trail.

I use it both live and in the studio.

For live work, do you ever have a drummer who smashes the snare hit but is pussy with a sidestick? Ride that attack knob!

Aside from the obvious studio apps, try using it between an aux send and a reverb. It gives many options in the reverb tone and vibe.

i found that the attack control was most useful at very low settings, like 1-3db for most sources. for negative attack values it could be set up to maximum for all types of fun effects. the sustain i found very useful at all settings for natural sounding sustain to breathing--like effects.

unfortunately (shameless plug follows) I am selling it now, (listed in GS classifieds) due to the fact that I need cash for other puchases i have already made. it will be missed.

anyone else wanna chime in about the TD?

I was looking to sell my TD4 a while back then I found it's best use IMO.


I use it for shaping sounds in mults when making a drum kit. (samples to be used in production).

I think for sound design it's pretty cool. But as thrill said it is pretty hard to smooth out the glassy part of it out.

IMO, it is not the end all, be all that many describe it as.

It's like any other tool in that in can be abused easily. Pay attention to gain structure as it will kick you in the balls really fast! It is definitely worth owning and it can salvage wimpy snares in mixing and do many other really cool things. Get it and sell it if you don't like it.

I'm a fan of Transient Designer of the first grade... I bought mine on there launch I think now almost ten years ago... and everybody thought I was crazy to spend my money on that strange machine who claimed to 're-liquid' audio... I'm using it since then on almost every project and I'm still loving it.

The proof of it's success is the fact that the price for the TD went up by more than 100% when the item became more known and popular.

In either way we are talking about two different kinds of tools when comparing a TD and a Distressor... If you have to compare (I'm not sure if you can but the Distressor is a compressor, and the TD is rather a kind of gate/expander-like designer of transients

You can't have a studio without considering owning one... that's my humble opinion

Kind regards from Belgium

Pedro

I've never used one of these, but I don't really see how it's much different from a compressor.

Maybe someone could post some before and after samples of drums, with and without the TD.