Favorite Transient Designer Plugin in 2022

My favorite lately is the Boz Transgressor 2. You can EQ the transient and the decay separately which I find quite useful.   

Sonnox Oxford Transmod and Envolution

I own the Transgressor as well as the Softube Transient Shaper. They both have an eq component, but work in different ways. I do like how they're both relative easy to use too.

I'm mostly just curious about what is considered the best in 2022. So far I'm this thread, it seems like I'm still mostly seeing recommendations for some usual suspects. Which is totally fine.

What do you prefer about the Sonnox stuff? The Transmod hasn't been on my radar really, but I have sort of given thought to the Envolution from time to time. And it is on UAD, which would be an added bonus for me.

I like SPL Transient Designer (Plugin Alliance) and sometimes Sonnox Transmod, as it can be way more extreme and harder.

I guess last time I broke out the Izotope Mutliband transient thingy because the drums I was give were so badly recorded, it took a lot of work.

They're all a little different, yeah, these are the ones I've chosen.

It’s cleaner tonally and can have way more drastic effects for problem solving.

the transmod works a little differently than a traditional spl transient designer, which kills high frequency detail because it’s like a compressor with pretty much. infinite sidechain distortion.

transient shapers like a compressor split the audio into audio path (up/Down) and rectified sidechain (all up). Then the sidechain is used to generate a dc control voltage for the voltage controlled amplifier to multiply the audio signal by. Unlike a compressor, there’s no threshold or ratio controls but just smoothing filter, ie attack and release. in a compressor, attack and release are just one crazy complex low pass filter to slow down the rate of change. In a transient designer there are two in a row. One with the attack knob and instant release and then the other with instant attack and the release knob. Then it multiplies the audio path by the difference between them with a lot of program dependencies and smoothing to the filters. But still… we all know what happens when you set a compressor to instant attack or release. Thus a transient designer deadens the sound a bit compared to slow attack for overshoots on a compressor.

transmod has a more control over the overshoots and can get cleaner or crazier distorted. Read the manual and Paul Frindle posts for tips. 

Envolution is more of a traditional transient shaper with the Sonnox harmonic cleanliness and optional distortion but it is far more controllable and better sounding than the spl brainworx plug. It’s not as open up top as the Transmod. A lot of the newer Sonnox stuff (from suppressor on) doesn’t sound as good as the old Paul Frindle Oxford plugs and isn’t as low cpu.

a More subtle traditional one I like is the transient knob in Klanghelm sdrr2 but it’s often too subtle while Transmod can get crazy overshoots that get overdriven out by it or something down the line for extra crispyness

Neutron 3…just because I own it and it’s there, and I like the way the analyzer shows the transient info. I don’t use it enough to really need anything else.

Turns out, Fosfat's not really a transient designer...they call it a transient fertilizer, and that kinda makes sense. You can add sub bass or filtered noise to your transients -- the attack and release has more to do with the synthesized sounds you are adding. The nice part is that you can zone in on the target range for whatever you're adding.

I used it today across a bunch of drum loops passed to me by a friend that weren't normal drums, but instead a whole big pile of crazy industrial metal and clanging sounds. Since the different loops were made with different sounds I used one instance on the "kick" and gave them a consistent bass note -- I also very easily automated the sub bass frequency on one loop to make it intermingle with the rest of the arrangement in a more musical way. I then added some snare "fizz" to the mids and gave it a little bit of release which created a consistent "snare" sound across the different loops. Six very different loops ended up sounding like a very cohesive (and complicated) kit. Neat trick and very easy to use!

With pitch drops available for the bass synth part, I can imagine it would come in handy if you were handed some overly flat drum recordings that needed tonal bounce added back in. For a dull snare, it'd take 2 seconds tops. 

Only complaint / wish:
It'd be nice if there were two available frequency ranges. I ended up just using two instances to make the "kick" and "snare". 

For the intro price, it'll definitely save me a lot of time. 

--
And thanks 80hz and Guitar for reminding me about Punctuate. I've been really happy with Elevate and Equivocate since I got the bundle last month and had totally forgotten to play with the transient shaping separate from Elevate. The spectral stuff is extremely powerful. 

Definitely. I’m really happy that I went in on all 3 Advanced versions when they were selling them for $150.  Tonal Balance and Ozone get the most use for the mastering, saturation, and bus tools, but Neutron has the transient shaper and masking EQ, and Nectar has a chorus that is nice for the 80s Harmonizer effect.

The only reason why I don’t use more of the bread and butter processors in there is because Slick EQ, Kotelnikov, etc, are already integrated into my work flow and I can get results very fast there.

i use the one free with cubase now and again, i think it's called transient shaper ? A little goes a long way for me.