Old way of transient shaping? How was it done before transient shaping tools exist?

[Trancit]

Like I said, just semantics. No need to be rude with the personal attacks. I've been an extremely successful full time mastering engineer for more than a decade, and have never found a use for one, under your definition. Compressors I use all the time, and under my definition, they are "transient shapers".

No, no, don´t get me wrong... this wasn´t meant as a personal attack...
I never meant to doubt you ... it was just curiosity!!
With the reference to "Mastering" I just meant that usual these are people which are very familiar with all kinds of audio processing... because of that I wondered that you don´t know this designation...

I beg your pardon if you expressed myself wrong... I am not a native englisch speaker and I wasn´t aware of perhaps sounding rude...

[Tj Shredder]

What SPL invented was totally new. It did not exist before...
https://www.elysia.com/transient-designer-story/
https://www.elysia.com/transient-designer-story-part-2/
All the mentioned compressor methods, though they had an effect on transients, it wasn’t their aim. People simple liked the sound change.
Transient shapers don’t belong into the mastering process, its more sound design and mixing...

The german original:
https://www.elysia.com/de/transient-designer-story/

[Trancit]

...
Transient shapers don’t belong into the mastering process, its more sound design and mixing...

...

I know... but you don´t become a versatile Mastering engineer without having full blown knowledge about mixing as well imho...
Again... it´s not meant negative in any way... I am just wondering...

[Autobot]

What specialised tools are you talking about?

Well, I mean Transient Shaper not devices which inflict the transient. I think about something like SPL Transient Designer, khs Transient and so on.

I wondered how sculpting attack and sustain without Transient Shaper was done back in the day.

[Hermetech Mastering]

What specialised tools are you talking about?

Well, I mean Transient Shaper not devices which inflict the transient. I think about something like SPL Transient Designer, khs Transient and so on.

I wondered how sculpting attack and sustain without Transient Shaper was done back in the day.

Cool, I get what you mean. I just think that back in the day, engineers weren't that concerned about "shaping the transients" as much as they were about getting the music to fit on the distribution medium (vinyl or tape). So different mindset, and hence why "Transient Shapers" (by your definition) didn't really exist back then.

[Niowiad]

edited: I just realized this is a different thread and I thought I was posting here
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=545894

[MogwaiBoy]

Cool, I get what you mean. I just think that back in the day, engineers weren't that concerned about "shaping the transients" as much as they were about getting the music to fit on the distribution medium (vinyl or tape). So different mindset, and hence why "Transient Shapers" (by your definition) didn't really exist back then.

+1. Hermy's right

They just had the core dynamics tools (up and downwards compression, gating and maybe expansion) at their disposal, and so that's what they would have used.

I'm sure they talked and thought about transients like we do (slow attach compressor lets the kickdrum transient through = "punchy"), they just wouldn't have called a channel on the console a "transient shaper" channel, for example.

Transient Shaper is essentially a modern marketing term.

[Aether Music]

Can i just add.. he is right transient shapers are literally a process in music now and not just a preset on a compressor. Where as you wouldve been correct but now transient shapers are more than just compression that emphasises transients, now there are plugins with a full on process of controlling and designing transients definitively. Izotope Alloy mastering suite for example has a whole transient shaper plugin, SEPERATE to the multiband compressor stage. Prime example. And thats coming from a major company.

PLUS although ur KIND of right in the sense that u can enhance transients with compression, (enhance not control) it is still a different effect as you will be letting your attack through, leaving your transient dry and compressing everything after it, where as a transient shaper will do the opposite, it applies the compression (upward) on the initial transient.

Using a compressor would also mean to get nice transients you would have to slam hard on your compressor and could horribly ruin the dynamics or your track or its RMS. In old classic rock, jazz and pop i can see why you may want to do this and why you might class this as transient shaping, but for modern HipHop, Rnb, EDM, Trap & Drill, where the LUFS is different and you want to maintain clarity for maximum loudness , using a compressor would completely change the body of your track.

[MogwaiBoy]

Can i just add.. he is right transient shapers are literally a process music now and not just a preset on a compressor. Where as you wouldve been correct but now transient shapers are more than just compression that emphasises transients, now there are plugins with a full on process of controlling and designing transients definitively. Izotope Alloy for example has a whole transient shaper plugin, SEPERATE to the multiband compressor stage. Prime example. And thats coming from a major company.

PLUS although ur KIND of right in the sense that u can enhance tranaients with compression, (enhance not control) it is still a different effect as you will be leaving your transient dry and compressing everything after it, where as a transient shaper will do the opposite, it applies the compression on the initial transient.

Using a compressor would also mean to get nice transient s you would have to slam hard on your compressor and could horribly ruin your the dynamics or your track or its RMS. In old classic rock, jazz and pop i can see why you want to do this and why you might class this as tranaient shaping, but for modern HipHop, Rnb, EDM, Trap & Drill, where the LUFS is different and you want to maintain clarity for maximum loudness , using a compressor would completely change the body of your track.

Older thread but sure. I wasn't saying that 'Transient Shaper' is a misonmer - it is totally a legitimate digital signal processing term now. Plugins can now isolate, separate, and otherwise treat transient content in entirely new ways.

But the original question was... what did they do BEFORE this current era of transient designers? And that was with compression, expansion, and gating. You can still do a great deal of shaping with just those.

[TIMT]

Not sure, but i'd assume things like companding in tape NR and samplers would cause some kind of not accounted for transient shaping/increasing

As for transient designers/shapers the processors themselves..i think most of them sound odd, and prefer to have them off with the exception of Sonnox's Envolution. If i need to do something like this i just duplicate the sound and do a tight logarithmic fade down to the portion of the attack i want to emphasise which is better because i may not want to emphasise the very initial part of the attack(you would rarely need to do this IME. as in digital mixes more often than not the first few samples of the attack our your enemy). More often than not i find with digital, the manual way is best e.g edits and such

[kvaca]

I wondered how sculpting attack and sustain without Transient Shaper was done back in the day.

back in the analogue days, when music/pop,rock,classical,jazz/ was mostly acoustic, you have to choose the right mic and position for given acoustic space, the right recording medium, the right eq and compressor and the right settings, the right experienced recording engineer...etc...which all affected transients, but in much more natural way than any transient shaper in existence

[whyterabbyt]

Compressors basically have an envelope follower on the input signal, and that envelope is used to drive a control over the gain.

The original transient designer used two different envelope followers on the signal, and the difference between those two envelopes was used to drive control over the gain.

https://www.elysia.com/transient-designer-story-part-2/