In this free video tutorial brought to you in with the support of Plugin Alliance, Pro Tools Expert team member Julian Rodgers demonstrates what can be achieved using the SPL TD Plus from Plugin Alliance

More Features Than SPL Attacker Plus

The SPL Attacker and Attacker Plus offer the same control over the attack of transients as the Transient Designer Plus and while I strongly suspect that increasing the transient "smack" of drum tracks is the most common application for all of these plug-ins, the TD Plus can do much more than this and offers greater control without an over complicated user interface.

Features Offered By Attacker And Attacker Plus

The Attacker plug-in offers Attack and Output Gain controls. Unlike the TD Plus, the attack control in the Attacker and Attacker plus can increase the strength of transients but can't soften them. The Attacker's output gain is likely to be used to attenuate the output to prevent overs caused by the (slightly addictive) effect of the increased transients produced by this plug-in.

The Attacker Plus adds a limiter to protect against the overs a process like this always risks, the other difference is the addition of a wet/dry control. The effects of reducing the amount of attack compared to blending in some dry signal are similar but markedly different and in use I found my preference was to process hard and mix in some dry. 

Features Offered By The Transient Designer Plus

The Transient Designer Plus introduces negative values for the Attack parameter, allowing transients to be reduced, it adds the Sustain control which gives independent level control of the body of sounds, both up and down  - this is probably my favourite feature, giving quick access to huge drum sounds!

The addition of a side chain with a tuneable band pass filter allows the effect to be precisely targeted towards specific parts of a drum loop or timbral element of a track. See all of these features demonstrated in the free video tutorial.