7. Perfecting a mix’s punch with pro-grade transient shaping

1 Transient shaping is a great way of adding punch, power or tightness to individual parts in the mix in a more precise manner than compression – let’s see how it’s done. To follow along, import the files beginning “Breaks…” from the Tutorial Files folder onto audio tracks in any DAW. First, we’ll add some punch and body to the drum break using Melda Production’s MTransient.

2 Call up MTransient (available from meldaproduction.com) on the BreaksBeat channel, then hit the Edit button to start tweaking. We’ll push the Attack up to 2dB with the Sustain at 1dB – this brings out the drum break’s punch and body. Next, push the Saturation up to 20% to excite the transients a little more, and set the Output gain to -2.5dB to match the wet and dry levels.

3 Now we’ve processed the drum break, try bypassing MTransient a few times to hear the difference it’s made. You’ll notice that the break sounds more focused, with a punchy and thickened snare, while leaving room in the mix for other elements to become apparent. Let’s turn our attention to beefing up the bass using SKnote Snap (part of Plugins).

4 Load a fresh Snap on the BreaksBass channel, then set the Hit dial to around -80. This dulls the attacks of the bass notes, freeing up some midrange space for the synth riff and drums to come through the mix. Push the Body dial all the way to +86 to give the bass extra sustain and grunt.

5 Now we’ve added some punch to the drum break and fattened up the bass, we’ll use LVC Audio’s Transector CM to add density to the high-mid frequencies by bringing out the shaker loop’s sustain. Add a fresh instance to the BreaksShaker channel, with a 1.5dB boost applied to the Sustain gain. Pushing the Width control to 130% will make the stereo spread louder, adding width to our drums.

6 Transient shaping is also superb for creative dynamics manipulation tasks like adding synth-like release effects to a track’s static synth riff. Add two instances of any transient shaper (we’re using NI’s Transient Master) to the BreaksRiff channel, then assign both Sustain dials to a single MIDI knob; turning that dial will make the riff swell just like pushing a synth’s amp release to maximum.