Hi Stromkraft, apologies for delay in reply.
As I was taking ages to write my reply [mja] made a quicker more to the point (and possibly more useful!) reply. All [mja]’s points ring true, and I agree - these are the compelling features of our devices. And thanks to him as now I don’t have to make them.
But I feel your question was a little more leading so here is a bigger discussion…
It is a very fair question. However, I would not use your word “over”, and I am not in the business of making a sales pitch
. The other plugins you mention are all excellent. So, rather I could just tell you something more in depth about the Transient Machines devices and make a few comparisons with other similar plugins.
First of all, we have been working on Transient Machines on and off for almost two years now, and in my research I have pretty much gone through all hardware and software in the field, although I do not know the Waves plugins well as I am not a Waves person.
One of the things that happens in development is taking out ideas. There were times where we had all sorts of different possible devices using our original algorithms and covering a multitude of use cases, but crucially what we wanted to do was make not complex audio-engineer-centric devices but easy to use but still powerful tools for Live music making musicians. I find the Waves plugins needlessly complex in this regard, for example, and the Sonnox plugin is similar, although both brilliant dynamics processors.
“Crack” is very similar to many of the other plugins available, such as the NI plugin. However it also has this ‘Mix’ feature, much like the 2nd version of the SPL plugin, which immediately makes it useful for all sorts of programme material, whereas the NI is killer on drums but not as diverse on other materials (in my humble opinion). Also, both Transient Machines devices have these selectable Dynamics / Output processors which are really versatile for all sorts of different sound design tasks (we hope).
There is an “Impact” preset in the pack called “Impact like Crack.alp”. This loads up Impact as if it is an instantiation of Crack, and is a good example of how you can add elements to Impact for ever greater control. Every addition in Impact is CPU managed, so you only use the CPU required (right down to a single filter in the EQ). As you add ‘bands’ (using “Split”) and modify the ‘Crossover’ filter frequencies, you’ll quickly find that, in a different manner, you have the sonic control of features from the TransReckon such as the ‘Sens’ controls. Although FYI, we have a similar system to this ‘Sens’ idea in prototype already that may one day make it into a future pack update.
In fact the most different is the Elysia hardware ’nvelope 500’, which uses only crossover filters to achieve a brilliant blending of transient shaping. It really is amazing and I encourage you to test the hardware if you can ever get your hands on it; a lot more expensive than Transient Machines though
. We also experimented with mixing using crossover filters like this, but felt we could never get it how we wanted it. Again, maybe something we will research more in the future.
So, I hope I have demonstrated that Transient Machines are their own beast, and we know and respect many of the other work done in this area. By the way, if you are a Max builder you may be interested in a couple of excellent threads over on the Cycling ’74 forums about transient detection in Max. Search for Rodrigo Constanzo. I may add to those threads with some of our research when I have the time.
While this post of mine is long, I have only touched a little on the subject. If you want more discussion try contacting us at
[email protected] and I’ll see if I have time to extend my verbosity.
stkr.
