posted 03 July 2002 09:20            

attackdesignerforum.kym

so this is my first try imitating the transient designer of spl.
with it itīs possible to control the attack and sustain level independently from the signal level. (in contrast to a compressor, which is totally dependent on signal level.)
most promising results i got with the attack phase.
concerning sustain - to be totally honest - i fish in deep troubled waters.

it works best with materials like drum loops. increasing attack brings drums to the front, cymbals stay where they are. vice versa i like even more, because it can totally change the sound.
Though the original SPL device is very much punchier (when adding more attack) than my kyma-imitation, the less-attack variation is more colourful in kyma.

originally i wanted to use it for correcting wrong recorded sounds. church bells and especially doors are usually recorded very close, which results in a clear and loud attack phase. when wanting to use that sound for distant shots itīs necessessary to get rid of that detailed attack. just adding reflections and reverb doesnīt truely change perspective. first tries with doors are very promising, a church bell distorted to much.

posted 12 March 2003 21:15            

On SPL's website (www.soundperformancelab.com) they have a fairly in depth explanation on how their transient designer works. They also have some audio demos of a beat processed with more attack, less attack, more sustain, and less sustain, The unit sounds flexible and it seems like it would be extremely useful.

In the attack designer I've been using a portion of one of these sound files where there seems to be little processing (the audio demos change, showing more and less processing). The attack of the attack designer doesn't sound as punchy but I can't improve on it's design.

If anyone has any ideas on how to improve the punch or add the sustain feature you input would be greatly appreciated.

posted 15 March 2003 16:17            

yes, at that time i also tried it with that demo sound by spl. also with the same result that my sound is less punchy. i assume that that is really an *analog* application. the problem could lie in the distortion beheaviour of digital processing. when increasing the attacks (maybe by more than 20db) you pretty fast run into distortion problems. and that is really still only good sounding in the analog domain.
did anybody program a nice distortion module which generates nice overtones? this could be tried in conjunction with the attack designer.

but did you try the sound as an attack remover? that i like more than spls device... ;-)