SPL^® Transient Designer

This plug-in is great for shaping sounds. I mainly use it to bring out attack in snare and kick. Lately though I discovered it's possibilities when editing non optimal live recordings. Just bring the sustain down a bit and the liveliness decreases. I seldom find myself doing a mix where the SPL Transient Designer plug-in isn't represented on at least one track. Highly recommended!

Bought it after demoing with snare-drum tracks. You can use it to sound like Erasure early 90s or just take out the impact on the master sum in the mix, without making it less audible. Same goes for trancey synth lines with a hard attack.
One of the plug-ins you need to own to go to the max in your mix without destroying it.

I haven't had a snare or bassdrum without this plugin for years... If you haven't got a 500.000 dollar ssl, great drums and the best drummers it really is a nice and easy tool to get extra punch with the attack knob. and if you have all that you might find the sustain knob interesting in some cases. by now i used it on nearly everything. for example with sustain you can get some more room to very dry signals you don't wanted that dry.

it just simply does things no other processor can. must have!

I use this on both kick and snare religiously. Can craft tone ridiculously well.

What a surprise ! Transient Designer was purchased mainly for drum tracks but I have found almost any instrument that lacks punch or needs to be tamed can benefit.

I love this plugin.
It's very efficient on Snare to improve the global sound of this fundamental percussion instrument in the mix.
Definitely, it's a tool that anybody should have his mixing work.

Five stars says it all. I'd add celestial bodies if I could. I can't even count the number of instances where the Transient Designer's magical ability to control ambience has saved a dialog track in post.

Beyond that, there's all the musical stuff you can do with it-- bringing flavor and schmutz to snares and toms (or taking it out!)... I consider this plugin one of the best musical/ sonic enhancing investments I've made.

What would I have wanted to know before purchasing? Frankly, I bought it on the basis of how UA presented it-- descriptions have always been accurate, and this one was no exception. So... I guess I knew what I needed to know already. Thanks for a superb utility.

Probably my most used plug in.
On every project in the last year.
I use it to sculpt.
But mainly my go to when clients send guitars and drums with too much lounge room in them.
I can guarantee theres always a way that this thing appears in my mix somewhere.
More power to SPL.
I went out and bought a DynaMaXX hardware compressor, figured if they can make something simple work so well, they must be pretty pretty good designers.
Well, set and forget, I leave this compressor on all the time.
SPL is excellent.
Love
Christopher

I've tried it up against the Shaack and Stillwell alternatives, and I like the UAD TD better. The attack is tighter, and the release seems a bit smoother in the UAD plug. It's mostly used on kick and snare, and often I'm drawing some sustain back off the source rather than doing any crazy boosting, though a little added attack is generally good. This plugin has done more to make me happy with my drum sounds than any other plug - I can tighten up the kick and snare, and need less EQ to get to where I want to go.

3 words: shaak trainsients shaper.
it's cheaper, it hase way more options, it's sounds good.
SPL Transient Designer is good, but 199$ is too much imho :)

This plugin has saved the day many times on video recordings where the audio has way too much room sound because it was recorded with the on-camera microphone. I open up this plugin and just magically turn down the room. Excellent!

For me this is the best virtual transient designer...it sounds very good, much better than Waves TransX!!!
Beautiful for kick,for snares, for gating loops!! fantastic plug!!!

If there were more stars available I would add them. This plugin is a godsend for dialog ambience control. I love all of my UAD-1 plugins, and am hopelessly dependent upon them at this point, but the Transient Designer is the one I honestly don't know how I lived without, and from this point on couldn't. Thanks, you people; you made my job a whole lot easier.

Works great in certain situations. It's pretty outstanding on kick drum. You can totally cut or add boominess to the kick quite easily. It is good on other drums as well, but it's not necessarily going to rescue poorly recorded or badly eq'd drum tracks. It's more like, if you have something good it can help you get it exactly right in the mix by adjusting the snap and body of the source. It's very easy to imagine this one being quite a lifesaver in certain situations.

I must say that the SPL Transient Designer plugin sounds really good. I used it when mixing and mastering a project and it performed really well. Compared to the Sonnox TransMod the Transient Designer is better at detecting transients which in my opinion makes it more useful. The TransMod is ok but when adding transients they can fluctuate in level which makes it harder to use. It terms of sound the Transient Designer adds a more snappy sound. TransMod has a slightly more dark transient sound which I don't find as useful in the heat of the action.
The Release-knob on Transient Designer is really cool, not just because it can dry up sounds and make drums tighter. I mostly use it the opposite way adding release which can add character and girth to wimpy sounding drums and loops.


Just my two cents
Frederick

I wrote a review once before, and now that I finally bought this plug after the demo ran out- my efforts to improve some old mixes have greatly improved.
This plug-in works well on live concert tracks, where bleed can be a real issue. Its smoother than a normal noise gate and I find it has done many great wonders
to the vocal and drum tracks. Isolating all of that vocal mic bleed, and hh in the snare mic bleed has been a blessing. I find its worth the price, its simple and does what
it says it does!!! Keep up the good work UAD!
www.myspace.com/silostudios

In relation to SONNOX TransMod (Native) I only can give the Emulation of the SPL TD 3 Stars.
The Sonnox gives you more freedom in forming and creating transients.

I love 80% of the UAD Plug Ins!!!!!!!!

For me this one is not as good as the others and in my opinion a bit too expensive for what it does.

A fracking magic wand! Just when I thought my club kicks couldn't kick any more ass, this plugin proved me wrong. It's amazing how much impact one of these can have on the overall feel and thickness of an entire mix. In a word: whoa!

This is a must have! I've finally been able to get that clean snare track to stand out, without all of that hi-hat bleed.