Professional Analog Mastering.
Professional Analog Mastering.
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If we look at the ADSR of a signal, the Attack and Decay contain the transient, and the sustain and release contain more of the tonal aspects of an instrument.
The transient typically has a percussive sound, and has higher energy in the high frequencies. The tone plays a bigger part in our perception of the pitch or note, and often contains a lot of quieter details that add enjoyable complexity to a signal when they’re amplified.
With that in mind, I thought if I could find a way to separate the transient and tonal aspects while minimizing artifacts, they could be mixed separately as a way to control dynamics, the frequency response, and perception of depth and width a lot better than a traditional transient expander could.
I’ll show you how in a second, but here’s a before and after in which this separation was used for the kick, snare, bass guitar, and electric guitar.
Watch the video to learn more >
Trying a few methods, I found this to be the best option - with Izotope’s RX Audio Editor; I can first import the signal I want to affect. Let’s use the snare stem since it’s the easiest to process.
Quick note: if you don’t have this full platform, all you really need is this module pack - it’s a lot less expensive than the full RX suite, so know you have options if you don’t have access to this software.
If we observe the waveform, we’ll notice how much high-frequency energy the transient has, whereas the tonal aspects quickly lose high frequencies but retain the snare's fundamental note.
So, first, let’s isolate the transient.
Using the de-click module, the best results I found for the snare come from using the low latency algorithm, a frequency skew of +5, a higher sensitivity, and click widening as high as it will go, in this case, 5ms.
Then, I’ll enable Output Clicks Only, so I'm monitoring only the first 5ms of the snare’s transient.
With the preview function, I can monitor how well the module isolates the transient and determine whether I need to change the other parameters.
Once I’m happy with the result and feel that the transient is being isolated accurately and with minimal artifacts, I’ll click render. Again, ‘output clicks only’ needs to remain enabled.
You’ll notice that I now have just the snare’s transients in the waveform. At this point, I can export the snare’s transients as a new WAV file, and save it where relevant.
Watch the video to learn more >
Using the History window in the bottom right-hand side, I’ll bring up the “initial state,” which is our original unprocessed snare stem.
You’ll notice our De-click module has the same settings as before. We’ll keep everything the same, except this time disable the ‘Output Clicks Only’ function.
You might be tempted to tweak some settings at this point, but for reasons I’ll explain later, you want these to stay the same as before, except with the transients attenuated instead of isolated.
After we click render, you’ll notice the change in the waveform. The transients aren’t completely gone, but the majority of the signal is now only the tonal aspects. Again, we’ll export the processed file.
Watch the video to learn more >
Once you have exported both the transient and tonal versions, bring them into your session on 2 separate tracks.
Before you start altering anything, be sure that the 2 tracks are in line with the original snare. Since we used the low latency mode, we don’t need to worry about anything being out of time, so long as the original, the transient, and the tonal tracks are all lined up and start at the same time.
Then, mute the original snare if you haven’t already and start mixing!
Here’s what I love about this setup: If I want the snare to have more punch, I can increase the transient’s level.
If I want it to have more tone, I could increase the tone track.
At first, I was concerned about adding distinct processing to each since I thought it might introduce phase cancellation between the 2. But what’s awesome is that it doesn’t!
Typically, when you have a multi-tracked instrument, if you process one and not the other, the phase rotation caused by EQ changes, especially with HP or LP filters, will negatively impact the sound.
But, since we used the exact same settings to create the transient and the tonal tracks, what got attenuated from the tonal track is exactly the transient track, and vice versa.
This means that the signals occur at slightly different times, allowing us to add whatever processing we want without worrying about phase interference.
Before we add processing, let’s quickly listen to these 2 tracks being adjusted and notice how much control it gives us over the snare.
Watch the video to learn more >
Now that we know that we can add distinct processing to both tracks without causing issues let’s process them however we see fit!
I didn’t do too much here, but I added this PSP vintage Warmer to both tracks and brought quieter details forward through its drive and maximization functions.
For the transient, I amplified high frequencies around 8kHz while dipping a little of the unneeded lows around 100Hz.
For the tone, I amplified the low mids to emphasize some of the snares ring and fundamental but left the highs alone. I also used a longer release time to cause more low-level detail amplification with this plugin’s post-compression auto-makeup gain.
Then, I subtly equalized both tracks. This consisted of subtly boosting the fundamental note on both tracks and cutting out more unneeded lows on the transient.
That said, you can literally do whatever you want - there’s no reason to follow what I’m doing here.
The important idea is that you can cleanly separate the transient and tonal elements and then process them distinctly.
Let’s listen to the snare before and after this processing.
Watch the video to learn more >
Now that we understand what goes into this method, we can try it on different instruments. The kick is another great instrument to try this on and has all of the same benefits as the snare.
Bass is another good option. It still augments the sound overall, but it’s more difficult to control artifacts. This is where experimenting with various de-click parameters comes in.
The same could be said about the electric guitar. It sounds better than before, but if you’re not careful, you can add some noticeable artifacts during the separation process.
Just like with the snare, we can create a balance between the transient and tonal aspects of these instruments. For example, if I want the bass to be more aggressive and slightly brighter, I’d emphasize the transient.
Or say I want the kick to be round and subtle, and I’d lower the transient. You get the idea.
I’m going to keep the processing simple, using the same PSP Vintage warmer and some subtle EQ, but again, experiment as much or as little as you want.
Let’s listen one more time, this time to a full A/B as I switch between each instrument’s original stem, and our processed transient and tone tracks.