SPL Transient Designer 4

Differential Envelope Technology

SPL's Differential Envelope Technology is the first analog solution for level-independent shaping of envelopes allowing transients to be accelerated or slowed down and sustain prolonged or shortened. The degree of dynamic processing required to do this couldn't be duplicated even using a chain of several conventional compressors, yet only two controls per channel are required to allow the user to completely reshape the attack and sustain characteristics of a sound. Attack can be amplified or attenuated by up to 15dB while Sustain can be amplified or attenuated by up to 24dB, enabling weak drum sounds to be made much more percussive and powerful, or for over-percussive transients to be softened. All necessary time constants (Attack, Decay and Release) are automated and optimised adaptively in a musical manner according to the characteristics of the input signal. This results in natural sounding signal processing and fast operation.

How does it work?

The Transient Designer uses envelope followers to track the curve of the natural signal so that optimum results are guaranteed regardless of the input signal's dynamics. Because of the level-independent processing inherent in Differential Envelope Technology (DET), manual threshold adjustments are not required.

Sound benefits

• The attack of a bass drum or a loop can be emphasised with a single control to increase the punch and the penetration in the mix
• Sustain of a snare or room-sound can be shortened very musically to clean up the mix for more transparency
• Acoustic or electronic instruments become "in the face" sounds or can be smoothened with lower attacks
• De-verb capability! Less Sustain shortens reverb flags of any sound (more elegant than gates do)
• New panorama effects based on different dynamic effects per channel – try this with loops for example

Other features and connectivity

For stereo operation the Link function connects channel pairs (1 and 2 and/or 3 and 4). Linked channels are controlled by the same side-chain voltage so as to maintain a coherent and stable stereo image. When operating in Link-mode, the control elements of the first (or third) channel, including the Active switch, control the second (or fourth) channel, too.

Each channel is equipped with a relay hard bypass circuit to ensure a minimum signal path when the process is bypassed and to provide power fail safety. The Signal-LEDs allow to quickly monitor the signal flow, which is particularly important if the four channels are connected to a patchbay. The Transient Designer is fitted with XLR-connectors for balanced operation. To improve signal quality, SPL has developed a new hybrid-component balanced input/output stage using all laser-trimmed resistors with a tolerance of 0.01%. This approach has resulted in an exceptionally high CCMR (common mode rejection) better than -80dB at 1kHz.