Transient Designer is limited to 3 stereo instances, or 6 mono - or any combination not exceeding 6 channels.
It's undersrtandable, as the device needs almost no DSP power - it's a custom (DSP) module btw.
You probably could load 24 on a Luna and the difference to the hardware unit is marginal if at all noticable.
SPL did this to protect their hardware sales - the CWA plugin is still a tremendous value for the price
by over-using it you may risk to inflate it's value - if everything is cutting through a mix then where's the mix then ?
to make things more punchy is of course the most obvious application, but it's also stunningly able to remove the 'ambience' part from signals - I once used it on some late 60s vinyls which had really nice vocals but that à la mode (of the time) shatter-verb. I still have to repeat that with a mid-side settup, could be very interesting.
catscratch wrote:[quote="
SPL did this to protect their hardware sales
True enough. I think I paid nearly 1000 $ for my hardware spl vitalizer some 10 years ago.
The loudness war is raging and it sounds like most moder rock has zero dynamic range these days (ie "American Idiot "). Hip Hop is no different. Love it or hate it, clients will demand / expect this kind of sound. Till now I have been using Waves (L3 etc) which is limited only by processor power (but more expensive for sure). Most if not all orther CW pugs are unlimited instances far as I remember.
Catscratch
You cannot excatly compare L3 with SPL. From what I know L3 is a loudness maximizer, which is slightly different to the SPL TD. The SPL models the length and envelope of the single sounds.
The L3 tries to maximize without minimum audible side effects.
At least thats my undertanding. L3 is more comparable to something like Optimaster or d-mute compressor( which I use very often, because its nice).
I aggree that the results in some cases may be the same.
I think you get decent results with Opti or d-mute without the L3, maybe even better.
moreover: a limiter (L2/3) will (just) cut the peaks only when the threshold is passed, the TD has no threshold, and it will cut every peak it detects, in attack-cut mode that is.
Hifi has right, you can't really compare both plugs, as they have a different function.
A limiter will make the total level louder without breaking a certain (max 0 db) level, so it will limit the dynamics (at least regarding the 'spikes').
The TD is meant to push individual instruments to the back- or, mostly, to the forground in the mix, or to spice up a flat sounding overly compressed totalmix.
Or indeed, as Astro says, to remove the reverberated part of the sound by reducing the sustain, which actually does the opposite of what a limiter does...
