"All the money is in the transients!" That's not our line. It's a quote from mixing engineer Jaycen Joshua (Justin Bieber, Rosalía, Camila Cabello, The Weeknd), who reckons clients are paying for the transients more than anything.
What are transients?
Transients are the attacks of sounds. They give a track depth and clarity and make every element of the mix feel like it's in the right place. They're the first thing beginners lose when they squash the master with a limiter and a clipper chasing loudness.
When there's no attack at all
Sometimes the transients aren't in the track to begin with. Say someone sends you an EDM track to mix and the kick sounds low and boomy. You can try to dig the attack out with EQ, but if there's no high-frequency information there, EQ won't help. Even if you manage to pull some top end out of the kick, it will most likely be smeared in time and noisy.
So how do you get clear attacks in a case like that?
Option 1: Snapback by Cableguys
Snapback lets you blend in a high-frequency click without changing the instrument's tone much. What sells it is how much control you get: you can shift the added click and match its phase so everything fits the way you want.
It's basically the same transient layering that skilled electronic producers like Noisia, Koan Sound and Skrillex have used for years. You take a deep, powerful drum with a weak attack and put a separate layer on top that only does the click. That used to take ages: messing with samples by hand, lining up the start and fixing the phase. Snapback does the same thing quickly and easily, and not only in production but in the mix too.
Option 2: a transient shaper with delta
If the instrument does have an attack and it's just quiet, there's no need to bring in an outside click. Boost the one it has:
- Send the kick, snare, toms, bass or really any instrument to a separate channel.
- Put a transient shaper in delta mode on it, so it plays back only the difference between "before" and "after".
- What comes out is the instrument's clean transients. Blend them in with the main signal.
We use IQ-Transient for this.
Bonus: transients buy you loudness
A less obvious upside: once the transient is blended in, you can turn the kick down 3–4 dB. It already reads easily in the mix, so there's no reason to keep it loud in the balance. The headroom you free up converts straight into loudness: you can push the limiter on the master 2–3 dB harder and get a louder track at almost no cost.
If you like the crunch of a squashed demo
Loud demos at around −5 or −6 LUFS have the same problem: the limiter is clamping down nonstop, flattening the peaks the track needs, which are the drum attacks. And if the artist likes the way the demo crunches, you can add that crunch to the kick with a separate sample. You get the feel without losing the transients. Why demos come in that loud in the first place is a story of its own.
Transients in our work
On Husky's track "Сколько стоят деньги?" (Skolko stoyat dengi?) the main goal was big, expressive transients, because the track hits hard. On "Лимонка" (Limonka) we were after a dry sound in the style of Pharrell Williams and N.E.R.D., with crisp transients and lively percussion.
And if the kick is also booming along with the bass, that's a bass problem.
FAQ
What are transients?
The attacks of sounds. They give a track depth and clarity and make every element of the mix feel like it's in the right place. Mixing engineer Jaycen Joshua reckons clients are paying for them more than anything.
How do I bring out a kick's attack if I can't hear it?
If the kick has no high-frequency information to begin with, EQ won't help: we layer a separate click, for example with Snapback. If there is an attack but it's quiet, we send the kick to a separate channel with a transient shaper in delta mode and blend in the transients it gives us.
How do I make a track louder without losing punch?
Blend transients into the kick and turn it down 3–4 dB; it will still read. The headroom you free up lets you push the limiter on the master 2–3 dB harder at almost no cost.