Flux:: BitterSweet II for Mac OS X v.2.2.0.7094 Turning the central button to the sweet side decreases the transients amplitude. To the bitter side, the transients amplitude is magnified. BitterSweet also features a control for processing the signal. BitterSweet v3. Flux:: legendary BitterSweet Transient Designer, used by hundreds of thousands of users, with intuitive hands-on audio transient management for.

“Turning the central button to the sweet side decreases the transients amplitude. To the bitter side, the transients amplitude is magnified. BitterSweet also features a control for processing the signal. When the main position is selected, the process affects the stereo signal. If Center is selected, only the M signal of the internal MS matrix is processed. If stereo is selected, only the S signal from the MS matrix is processed. Three transient detection modes can be selected. Varying periods of integration for transients can be accessed. A Link function is available to compensate the output gain with respect to the transient processing setting.

Like all Flux:: plug-ins, it features 64 bit floating point processing, up to 8 channels and up to 8 FS (384 KHz). Center and Stereo Modes are only available in stereo processing (2 channels).

Signal Processing Features

• Output Gain, controlling the gain at the end of the processing.
• Bypass routes the incoming signal direct to the output for a true smooth transition between processed and clean signal.
• Three different transient processing modes:
  • Main, using a regular stereo signal scheme for the processing.
  • Center, processing the Mid channel only, very efficient for snare and kick drums.
  • Stereo, processing the Side channel only, very efficient for panned rhythmic/transient instruments.

Processing Specifications

BitterSweet, as all Flux:: plug-ins, provide

• Up to 8 channels Input/Output.*
• 64-bits internal floating point processing.
• Sampling rate up to 384 kHz DXD (Pyramix DSP based).
• Sampling rate up to 384 kHz for native (AU/RTAS/VST).

*Not when using Center and Stereo mode, as they are M/S modes requiring stereo operation.

Compatibility

All major native formats are supported

• Windows – XP, Vista, 7 all in both 32 and 64 bits.
  • VST (2.4)
  • RTAS*
• Mac OS X (Intel) – 10.5, 10.6, 10.7 in 32 bits.
  • VST (2.4)
  • AU
  • RTAS*

*The RTAS version requires ProTools 8 or later.”

Source : Flux

Whatevermusic you make (maybe with the exception of some ambient styles), havingbalanced transients is super important for a good mix. Transient shapers can giveyou more control over the dynamics of your transients by changing their amp envelopeshape. This could be in the form of increasing the transient and adding morelife to a sound or by decreasing it and tucking the sound more into thebackground, for example.

Unlike compressors, there are only a handful of free transient shapers available. For this article, I tested several different free transient shaper VST, AU and AAX plugins and made a few awesome discoveries. Here’s the list – download links included:

Free Transient Shapers (VST, AU, AAX)

Flux: BitterSweet v3

Format: VST, AAX, AU; 32 bit + 64 bit
OS: Windows + Mac

Audio Examples

Dry:

Wet – “Bitter”:

Wet – “Sweet”:

FluxBitterSweet was created with simplicity in mind. This becomes clear from justlooking at the user interface. A big knob in the middle lets you choose ifyou’d like your sound rather “sweet” or “bitter”. Turning the knob towards“sweet” will reduce transients in volume and will put your audio materialfurther into the background, while turning it towards “bitter” will increasetransients and make your material more percussive.

To make thetransient shaper work with any type of material, you can choose how fast theplugin detects transients (fast, medium, slow). With the “period” slider, youcan adjust how fast the transient declines again.

But what ifyou want to only affect the transients in the middle or on the sides of thestereo field? No problem – BitterSweet has a dedicated slider that lets youchoose which signal should be affected: main (everything), center (the middle)or stereo (the sides).

The output levelcan be adjusted manually or linked to the main knob. If you link knob andoutput level, the overall volume will decrease when you’re increasingtransients. This is super convenient because it means you don’t constantly haveto adjust the volume while playing with your transient levels.

Flux BitterSweet is probably the most popular free transient designer out there, and there is a reason for that: It’s very hard to mess up with this one. Getting results with the bitter/sweet knob is easy and doesn’t really lead to extreme results, even if you turn it completely up or down. However, this also means that BitterSweet is a lot more subtle than other free transient shapers. Whether that’s good or bad will depend on your taste and project. However, for general mixing purposes, this plugin is definitely worth a try.

To use Flux BitterSweet v3, you first have to install Flux Center, which you can get here. When you open Flux Center, simply choose BitterSweet for installation.

Auburn Sounds: Couture

Format: VST2, VST3, AU, AAX
OS: Windows + Mac

Audio Examples

Flux Vst Plugins Free Download

Dry:

Wet – “Sharpened”:

Wet – “Softened”:

Here’s how the developer Auburn Sounds describes its level-independent transient designer Couture: “COUTURE’s goal is to get exquisite control over your dynamics, and particularly attacks. It solves a surprisingly huge range of mixing problems, with very low effort.”

Flux Vst

In Couture,the main transient adjustment can be done with a big knob that’s labeled “Sharpen”.Turning this to the right will sharpen (increase) attacks and deemphasizereleases, while turning it to the left does the opposite. This effect can bedramatically heightened by using the x1 / x2 / x3 buttons, which affects howmuch the shaping is applied. To have maximum control over your material, youcan adjust the speed knob, which controls the decay level of your transients andthe front/back knob, which tells Couture where in the transient it should startwith the desired shaping effect.

The choicebetween different detector modes is a useful feature, which allows you toeither treat all transients the same way or depending on harmonic content. “Sybil”targets harsh frequencies and “Human” is supposed to even out the perceivedlevels of the transients, while “Flat” processes all transients the same way. Youcan also decide how much Couture should react to bass frequencies. This can beuseful when you only want to shape your snare sound in a kick and snare loop,for example.

In this free version of Couture, the built-in saturator does not work. However, even without it, Couture is a very useful tool that makes it easy to get control over your transients quickly. I found it very intuitive and the results sounded very musical to me.

You can get the free version of Couture on the Auburn Sounds website.

Digital Fish Phones: Dominion

Format: VST; 32 bit
OS: Windows + Mac

Audio Examples:

Dry:

Wet – more attack, less sustain:

Wet – less attack, more sustain:

Dominion, created by Sascha Eversmeier from Digital Fish Phones, is actually quite an old tool as it was released in 2002! Still, I found it very useful and loved how easy it was to shape sounds to my liking.

What’s niceabout Dominion is that you have dedicated sliders for attack and sustain. Aftersetting the level of attack and sustain, you can set each one’s “length”parameter, which controls the decay of each setting. If you need more dramaticresults, you can switch on the x2 button and affect the level even more.

But this isnot Dominion’s only feature. The VST plugin also has a built-in saturator thatcan add harmonics to transients and therefore emulate analog equipment. Thesaturation can be further affected with a filter section (“hf details” in theuser interface). I found the saturation rather subtle (which I’m sure was thegoal), but pleasant and interesting.

If youchoose to download Dominion, make sure to take a look at the included manual. Notonly does it lay out the signal flow of the plugin, it has in-depth descriptionsof how each element works and can teach you quite a bit about transient shapingin general. It’s really cool that the developer put so much effort into makingthis plugin easy to use.

Warning:Trying out the “mono” switch created a very loud glitch signal for a second orso. Avoid switching this on while it’s processing sound.

Since Dominion is an older plugin, only a 32 bit VST version is available (for both Mac and Windows). You can get the plugin here.

Sonic Anomaly: Transpire

Format: VST (Windows) – 32 + 64 bit; JSFX (Windows + Mac)
OS: Windows + Mac

Audio examples:

Dry:

Wet – more attack, less sustain:

Wet – less attack, more sustain:

Are you looking for a simple transient shaper with transparent sound and easy controls? Then you might want to check out Transpire by Sonic Anomaly. Transpire comes with just four controls: attack, sustain, sensitivity and output. This means that you have less control over your transients than with other plugins, but it also means that Transpire is somewhat easier to use – especially if you’re a beginner.

Thedevelopers from Sonic Anomaly stress that Transpire “does not operate linearly,which means small transients are being affected relatively stronger than largetransients. This is good for bringing up smaller details while not overloadingon large hits. As a result, percussive tracks can sound more steady andcontrolled compared to traditional transient enhancers.”

I foundthat this plugin can change signals in pretty extreme ways. More musicalresults can be achieved with more conservative settings – although this will,of course, 100% depend on your source material.

One feature that should be mentioned is that Transpire’s GUI is scalable – which is very helpful to anyone with a larger screen. A downside is that the VST version only works in Windows (although there is a JSFX version that is compatible with Mac).

Alternatives

• Transient Shaper Ableton Rack (Ableton Live)
• ATKTransientShaper (VST2 / VST3/ AU / AUv3 / Windows / Mac / 32 bit + 64 bit)
• Sleepy Time DSP Transient (VST / Windows / 32 bit + 64 bit)

Over to you…

Flux Bittersweet Vst Free Download

Did weleave out any free transient shaper plugin that you love? Let us know in thecomments!