Transients

[DM60]

As I am trying to take my recordings to a higher level, I have been diving a bit deeper into transients, how to effectively use them to smooth out bass guitar snare, etc. But also how to utilize them to create dimension and space.

I know I can go out and find information, and I have, but wanted to learn from also you guys what and how do you treat transients or do you think that it is just more voodoo?

 

[Papanate]

I either hand automate them or write them - rather than use Compression and other tricks - last year I was using the Waves Big Knob to try and tame things - it’s alright but not fast enough - so now it’s written and sometimes by hand.

 

[DM60]

Yea, I am using some plugins, not sure of the results yet. Waves plugin as well.

 

[Seafroggys]

I feel this is kind of a missing a forest for the trees perspective. Kinda like guitar tone chasers who start thinking about the type of cord they use, rather than pickups and amps.

"take my recordings to a higher level" is kind of a nebulous, marketing term that doesn't really mean anything. What is it exactly you are trying to improve? And what makes you think that focusing on transients will help you achieve that goal?

Transients can be important, sure. IMO, the best way to affect transients is to go to the source - the microphone. The old adage from when I was a regular on these forums 15 years ago was that LDC's tended to "round" the transients a bit, so they were smoother, less sharp, and SDC's were more accurate, capturing the sharp transients accurately. Are you wanting to smooth your transients? Make them more pronounced?

Using the right mic for the job will go a lot farther than going into the digital nitty-gritty with plugins and shit.

 

[DM60]

Actually, I am not looking for anything in particular, only trying to better understand all of the various parts to make better decisions when I want to do something. The better one understands the theory, the better one can make decisions when a decision may/or may not be needed.

It was more from a better understanding than do I ... Diving deeper into sound sculpting. Not sure that is clear or not.

 

[shmaller]

If I want a sound to punch through the mix, I leave the transients alone or maybe even heighten them. If I want something to sit back in the mix or drone a bit more, I squash or clip them away. Squashing them will create a compressor pumping sound; clipping them will make the whole thing sound flat.

For me it starts at the preamp. If I want something "punchier", I dial my preamp master volume down and the input gain up. I like the way it sounds when it's pushed. For something more natural sounding, I turn the gain down and the master up.

When compressing bass and snare I set the attack and release by listening for how long I want the "punch" to be, so that the transient is let through the compressor unaffected and then the decay is compressed. It's best to do this by ear, but the gauge can be helpful - a faster attack will fling the needle around when the snare is hit, but with a slower attack it won't budge until the transient has long past and might kinda look and sound like it's not doing anything.

Depending on how dense the mix is or how punchy I want it to be, I will also use sidechain compression the bass guitar, cued off the kick, where again I set the attack and release by listening for how long the transient should be. "How long the transient should be" is a question for your ears, but basically, when is the "thump" over? This allows the kick drum to get the big "thump" to start the beat, and then the bass guitar holds the note. I might use the same approach on the guitar bus with sidechain compression triggered from the snare, so that the guitars duck out of the way of the snare transient and they don't fight for frequency space. You want a quick release here so that the guitars aren't fading in and out - just get the hit of the snare and then get them back up to volume.

Finally, if there is a silence followed by a big transient (maybe a big crash cymbal), I like to lead in with some of the preamp hiss or room noise or something to alert the listener that something is coming - I'm not into jump scares in my music lol.

This all applies my music which is like indie rock / big loud distorted guitars stuff. I like the sound of the kick and snare cutting through dramatically to drive the song. In more natural-sounding genres (like a live jazz set), this is all probably overkill.