Using Transient Shaping to Enhance Your Drum and Bass Productions

Tutorial | Thu Jan 20 2022 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

In this video, I showed two examples of how I use the transient shape tool on a daily basis. I showed how I use it to glue together multiple drum loops, and how I use it in conjunction with an FX2 or FX3 device to make drum sounds more punchy and aggressive. I also discussed how it can be used to bring out the attack of a kick drum, or to remove the sustain of a snare sound. I hope this video gave you some ideas on how to use the transient shape tool in your own productions.

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Questions & Answers #

Maybe you dont watch the video, here are some important takeaways:

What is a transient shape and how can it be used? #

A transient shape is a type of compressor that is used to shape and control the attack and sustain of a sound. It can be used to make sounds thinner, more punchy, or to make them fit together better. It can also be used to bring out the attack of a sound, such as the kick and snare in a drum loop.

What are the advantages of using a transient shape over a compressor? #

The advantages of using a transient shape over a compressor are that it is easier to dial in the settings, as there are fewer settings to adjust. It also allows for more control over the attack and sustain of a sound, as it can be used to bring out the attack without needing to adjust the threshold or ratio of a compressor.

How can a transient shape be used in conjunction with an FX2 or FX3 device? #

A transient shape can be used in conjunction with an FX2 or FX3 device by using the transient shape on the individual channels, such as the kick, snare, and highs, and then adjusting the attack and sustain of each channel.

Transcription #

This is what im talking about in this video. The text is transcribed by AI, so it might not be perfect. If you find any mistakes, please let me know.
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[00:00.000] Hey folks, welcome back to another video.
[00:02.360] Today it's all about the transient shape of Bix Studio.
[00:06.560] And I already made a video about this some years back.
[00:10.400] When I want to show you some two examples how I use the transient shape on a daily basis.
[00:18.600] Because I really think how you can look at it is that the transient shape is a robust
[00:24.280] compressor.
[00:25.280] But sometimes when I need a compressor, I reach for a transient shape and step.
[00:30.400] I'll show you how I use this in some examples and then maybe you can use also in your
[00:37.320] productions.
[00:38.320] So in this example, I have a drum bass loop and I try to bring a drum loop, which I get
[00:46.240] or got from a sample library.
[00:50.480] And some main drums I made here with XO and E kick.
[00:54.840] So this is my main drum set.
[01:00.040] And I try to bring in here this random drum loop and this shaker loop.
[01:09.320] And I want to bring them together.
[01:10.960] So I want to glue them together and usually use a compressor dial in the threshold, dial
[01:16.080] in the ratio and attack in the K times until it sounds like it's vibrating together.
[01:23.240] And what I use or what I do most of the times is instead of having here the drum loop at
[01:32.200] the same volume as the main drums.
[01:40.560] And then using a compressor and bringing this vibrating stuff, I dial down the drum loop
[01:46.120] and take a loop your way down to minus eight or something, I don't know.
[01:55.800] You can clearly hear my main drum set, but the drum loops sway in the background.
[02:03.000] And then use a transient shape on the bass, managing control on the bass.
[02:08.600] And then bring everything in between the main hits, the kick and the snare.
[02:13.560] So bring it up every time the kick and the snare doesn't play.
[02:17.360] And this sounds like this, so I switch off the transient control now.
[02:41.000] And you can see on this graph here, when I freeze this visual, every time the kick plays,
[03:00.800] the volume stays normal as I dialed in the drum loop and the audio and the shaker.
[03:07.320] And then every time in between the kick and the snare, the transient control raises the
[03:12.120] volume, which gives you this pumping volume, right?
[03:18.800] And when I try to do drum bass, I do this all the time when I bring take our loops and
[03:26.840] add some random drum loops together, or want to do them together, because it's easier
[03:32.160] to just put on the transient control and bring up the sustain.
[03:35.760] And then maybe play around with the timing setting, instead of, you know, dialing in all
[03:41.640] the settings for a tech decay threshold ratio on the compressor.
[03:46.440] So sometimes this is just faster and has the same effect.
[03:49.960] It's maybe not exactly the same sound, but it does a job sometimes.
[03:56.200] Okay?
[03:57.200] So I want to give you this here also the same thing in a new project here, where I just
[04:07.880] made it get a kick drum, maybe.
[04:12.120] Let's just make a quick small loop here, so this is a kick drum, maybe it's too slow,
[04:20.120] maybe do some side trends.
[04:21.600] I heard a lot of people actually like side trends, so let's make a nice kick drum here.
[04:29.200] It's something like this.
[04:48.800] And then maybe you have a bass line that you want to, you know, tap down every time the
[04:56.120] kick drum place.
[04:57.600] And you can also do this exactly the same way as we did before with drum loops.
[05:08.200] I think side trends has this vast bass lines, right?
[05:35.280] So then instead mixing the bass in and using side chain compression or compressor on
[05:44.960] the bass, I use just the trends in shape on the bass.
[06:08.840] And you have just, you know, two knobs you have to play around with, so not so many changing
[06:14.640] parts, so maybe also at here, some of these mid-range sounds, maybe a random delay
[06:34.320] delay here, hold, hold.
[06:51.360] And here you can do the same.
[06:52.560] You basically bring down the volume, but because we have on the bass here the trends in
[06:56.720] shape on everything in between the kick goes up.
[07:04.800] Just to show you what I mean by this, just to make some examples.
[07:14.560] And you can play around with the timing here, so you can get it feel for the groove.
[07:37.120] So without the trends in control it sounds like this.
[08:03.880] The second way how I use the trends in control is in conjunction with the FX3 or FX2 device
[08:21.920] a lot by maybe when you do drum bass and you have a kick drum, maybe a snare sound.
[08:37.640] And also I had, I had here, and we'll be going to one on seven two, and then some high
[08:51.760] at here, maybe also a snare, maybe a kick, maybe a hard clip on there.
[09:21.560] And if you like this, and here also FX2, just watch it.
[09:51.120] Here also we can use of course the trends in control on this one.
[10:20.480] But I have to use here the FX2, FX3, and then put the trends in control in each of these
[10:31.240] things, or maybe just on in the middle here, and bring out the knock, for instance here
[10:39.320] like this drum loop sounds like this, right now on in the middle frequency, I introduce
[10:50.080] this attack, this heart attack here.
[10:59.800] And maybe in the top here you can also use the trends in control to bring down the sustain,
[11:07.800] kick it more dry, or bring out the high heads more and down in down here.
[11:24.080] And then after the drums I use of course a hard clip here, so I drive the transients into
[11:31.240] a clip bar, and maybe use EQ here.
[11:58.320] And because you have this on the bus, you basically also increase your attack transient from
[12:14.160] the kick drum also, the kick the snare and the higher the bits of die at because you can
[12:18.680] hear the kick come here, some tops of the kick you can hear, of course, in this frequency
[12:29.280] range.
[12:30.280] You can bring really out this snappy attack when you want to do some drum and bass.
[12:39.120] So this is without here everything, right, it sounds like not really punchy and in your
[12:48.280] face aggressive, this is like much better.
[13:00.840] Then maybe you need drum loop here, I don't know how to mix it in.
[13:11.720] This is probably nice, now let's play the last one, so I tone this down here and mix it
[13:37.520] together with the kick and the snare and you don't even need to, sometimes you don't
[13:42.760] need to add the low cut or anything because it's so quiet, because the low cut is only
[13:50.320] needed if you want to, you know, bring out the kick every time, or bring the kick out
[13:57.400] of this drum loop and the kick plays for your original drum set.
[14:10.320] So without, you can really play around here.
[14:25.320] And sometimes it's enough to, instead of pushing the attack, just removing the sustain,
[14:55.320] it's almost missing.
[15:11.400] And there you have it.
[15:12.400] Basically two examples, how I use the trends control is, instead of compressor to make
[15:18.840] it everything pumping and killing together, and then using it conjunction with the multi-band
[15:25.800] FX3 to make, I think you can't hear it, to make it pop, to make it snap, to make drum
[15:34.640] snapier in the mid-range, where it needs to be.
[15:39.040] So in some examples here, I really all would do the effect, but just to make it clear
[15:45.880] what I mean and what, how it should sound or what I mean by that, right, so it's just
[15:52.600] an example.
[15:53.600] And you can also use this, I think, with the snaps, snap-ins, the kilohertz plug-ins,
[16:01.760] I don't know if this works, and of course with the transient shaper of your liking, maybe
[16:08.800] that awesome multi-band trends in controls, and yeah, it's not limited to Bitwig.
[16:18.000] Okay, thanks for watching guys, see you in the next video, please subscribe to the channel,
[16:22.920] leave a thumbs up if you liked the video, and until next time, see you, bye.