Harmonic Saturation vs. Transient Designing
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- KVRian
- 1095 posts since 12 Jan, 2011
Harmonic Saturation vs. Transient Designing. What is the difference in sound and usage? They seem fairly interchangeable to me for processing and sound design on some tracks. Any thoughts? I'm thinking transient design is more geared towards percussive sounds as it focuses on attack while saturation deals more with the overall legato.
Last edited by tommyzai on Fri Aug 18, 2023 3:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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- KVRist
- 487 posts since 2 Feb, 2005 from UK
Harmonic Saturation - or more correctly Harmonic Distortion - is the addition of even or odd harmonics into the signal, and thus is signal dependent. We tend to use non-linear approaches for this - so the gain levels will affect how much and what type of harmonics are being added.
Transient Design - or Transient Management is wholly focused on the transients, often early in the sound, and very often of a percussive nature, so basically the gain of the early or attack part of the sound source. Of course changing the attack portion can be negative or positive, thus with some makeup gain you can reduce the perceived level of the early transients or enhance these parts of your sound. Enhancing the transient to some extreme level will usually mean you are adding some level of distortion later in your signal chain, but the process itself isn't adding any harmonic content.
Transient Design - or Transient Management is wholly focused on the transients, often early in the sound, and very often of a percussive nature, so basically the gain of the early or attack part of the sound source. Of course changing the attack portion can be negative or positive, thus with some makeup gain you can reduce the perceived level of the early transients or enhance these parts of your sound. Enhancing the transient to some extreme level will usually mean you are adding some level of distortion later in your signal chain, but the process itself isn't adding any harmonic content.
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- KVRAF
- 2285 posts since 20 Dec, 2002 from The Benighted States of Trumpistan
Basically, it's control of tone vs. control of envelope. Harmonics are what happen when something vibrates at multiples of the fundamental frequency: a guitar string, for example, could have a fundamental at 110 Hz (A), but it'll also vibrate at integer multiples (harmonics) of this: 220, 330, 440, etc. Where it gets interesting is that different instruments vibrate in different ways. Saturation just means adding harmonics, which changes the sound.
A transient is the beginning of a note: the initial attack. Sometimes the attack is too loud, or too quiet, or lasts too long, or doesn't last long enough. Transient designers let you change how the initial attack plays out by changing these parameters.
So really, these are completely different things in theory, but in practice, if a transient is too loud it could get clipped, which is its own sound. Guitarists exploit this... well, we used to, back when magical dinosaurs named Jimi and Ritchie and Eric ruled the Earth. Nowadays, everybody just compresses the signal so much that there isn't any difference -- just flat, static, and appropriate when music is just a product.
A transient is the beginning of a note: the initial attack. Sometimes the attack is too loud, or too quiet, or lasts too long, or doesn't last long enough. Transient designers let you change how the initial attack plays out by changing these parameters.
So really, these are completely different things in theory, but in practice, if a transient is too loud it could get clipped, which is its own sound. Guitarists exploit this... well, we used to, back when magical dinosaurs named Jimi and Ritchie and Eric ruled the Earth. Nowadays, everybody just compresses the signal so much that there isn't any difference -- just flat, static, and appropriate when music is just a product.
Wait... loot _then_ burn? D'oh!
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- KVRian
- 870 posts since 25 Aug, 2019
Where the Transient Design term comes from? It sounds like "anything that changes transients".
It can be a transient saturator, but also can be transient dynamics.
The later is basically a simplified compressor, which is most of the plugins calling them selfs a Transient xxxxx are doing.
Example is the PA SPL Transient or Softube Transient.
Those tools are mostly used on drum and other percussive instruments to control the loudness of well, transients, which are the first few milliseconds of the sound.
It can be a transient saturator, but also can be transient dynamics.
The later is basically a simplified compressor, which is most of the plugins calling them selfs a Transient xxxxx are doing.
Example is the PA SPL Transient or Softube Transient.
Those tools are mostly used on drum and other percussive instruments to control the loudness of well, transients, which are the first few milliseconds of the sound.