It’s been a while since the last Ableton Rack. I’ve been busy with my school. We’re about to move to a bigger space and open 2 new classes. Been taking a lot of my time. But…. we are back again with another free rack!

This time I decided to finally build a transient designer. Such a useful tool that is missing from the factory effects the Ableton comes with.

A Transient Designer is a very smart but very easy-to-use dynamic effect. It usually comes with two controls. One to boost or reduce the attack (punch/snap) of the sound. And the other is for boosting or reducing the sustain (body) of the sound.

A transient designer can be used to add punch to drums, basslines, leads, and vocals. But can also make things tighter if they are too busy and dense.

For this rack, I used opposite gates to isolate just the attack and sustain of the sound and then boost or cut volume using the Saturator.

 

Setting Up

 

To set up the Transient Designer to work with any sound you throw at it. You need to follow these 4 simple steps

  1. Show the devices in the rack
  2. Solo the Attack Chain
  3. Adjust the Threshold until you only hear the transients (beginning of each sound)
  4. Use the Transient Adjust to fine-tune the isolation of transients

Now you can use the Attack and Sustain macros to add more punch or make everything tighter

 

Macros

 

Attack (Snap) – Cut or Boost the attack of the sound. Can add or remove punch from the sound.

Sustain (Body) – Cut or Boost the sustain of the sound. Can make the sound fuller or tighter.

Thresh – Set the threshold of both gates.

Transient Adjust – Adjust the release of the gates for finer control over transient isolation

Limiting On/Off – There is a Limiter at the end of the rack. You can turn it on or off using this macro.

 

Installation

1. Double click on the downloaded file to open it up in Ableton Live

2. Click on the Save button at the top right corner of the device to save to your User Library

**You need Ableton Live 9.7 or above for this rack to work

Transient Designer

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