Baby Audio Transit 2 review: Haters beware, this plugin is actually awesome$129
Introductory price: $79
Upgrade: $29
babyaud.io
Baby Audio’s Transit multi-effects plugin was designed in collaboration with producer Andrew Huang and originally released in 2023. It aimed to help speed up the creation of transitions, sweeps, and drops, avoiding the need to spend ages programming automation.
But it turned out that Transit was also handy at creating all sorts of other tempo-based effects. The development team at Baby Audio has really leaned into this happy accident with the new and expanded Transit 2. Still, some producers online are unimpressed by its live capabilities, preset selection and even its affiliation with Andrew Huang. Some of these criticisms are fair but, truthfully, we think there’s a lot to love about Transit 2.

READ MORE: Baby Audio Transit breathes life into your transitions, courtesy of Andrew Huang

Version 2 retains a slick, modular design – there’s also a dark mode now – which lets you access controls quickly and efficiently. There are eight slots, the first of which lets you select from six different motion modes to animate your sound, be it a single track or an entire mix. The other seven slots can each contain an effect; to the original selection of 18, version 2 adds a further ten effects for a total of 28.
You can move slots around in the chain and parameters within each effect, left static or linked to the motion section. Slope controls within parameters let them have their own ramp curves, allowing for more syncopated movement. There’s also a halo-style Range setting to set a minimum and maximum range for most parameters, so they don’t simply modulate between 0 and 100 but between whatever range you like. Each effect slot can be swapped to use a different effect and each effect also has a number of presets. Settings can be saved per effect slot or by global patch.

At its simplest, Transit 2 is just great fun to play with, now with over 830 presets neatly grouped by category in its browser, incorporating all the existing presets from version 1. Although these are categorised mostly by artist name, you can tag them so you know which work best for you — you can name and save your own patches too, of course. However, you can’t use CC to switch between preset, which could hinder your live performances.
With so many presets at your disposal though, some of these end up being slightly too similar to each other. The Macro control gives you a big dial to change all linked effects at the same time, to immediately dial in tempo-synced multi-effects with a single control. It’s a blast to use it live like a multi-faceted DJ effect, or for more precise programming using automation in your DAW.
Effects are a mixture of tempo-based, dynamic, distorting, reverb and delays, as well as making liberal use of buffers for advanced real-time warping. Once more, this is DJ-like, as if spinning a track up or down. There’s cool new stuff including Warp, Loop, Reverser and speaker simulation as well as a new EQ, analogue chorus, Shifter, mod filter, a retro reverb and a new compressor.
Version 2 also adds four new motion modes; LFO, Follower, Sidechain and Gate which all feed different kinds of motion to your effects either independently or based on a live input depending on how you set them up.
Transit 2
Although they’re all useful, we turn to a few modes and effects particularly often. Follower mode makes the effects react to the volume or intensity of the source signal so they behave dynamically, while Gate mode lets you punch the effects in and out using a tempo-based grid. Then within the individual effects, Loop is an exciting way to stutter the signal with variable speed curves, Reverser will play back selected parts of a signal in reverse, and Warp is a pitch shifter and time stretcher capable of subtle or extreme changes in speed. All of these can operate at the same time, making for crazy and psychedelic results.
Baby Audio has also included some nifty, inspiration-focussed features. There’s a button to randomise all the modules in a patch and also the ability to lock any module or control that you want to exclude from that randomisation. MIDI learn is particularly valuable in a live performance situation, where you are likely to want to link certain things like the Macro knob to a hardware dial on your controller. And a global safety limiter prevents overloads even if you’re pushing the effects to their extremes.
Describing the tools on offer is all well and good, but this is an effect that’s meant to be played, or at least allowed to do its thing to energise and animate your mixes. The tempo syncing at the heart of the plugin is the key to making everything feel dynamic and involving whether it’s the speed, depth or range with which effects are being modulated. Plus the fact that they can all work at the same time.
Transit 2
Transit 2 is so versatile that it’s not as limited to electronic music as you might imagine, and lives comfortably in the genre-fluid world of today. While demo videos perhaps inevitably focus on the more extreme and striking things you can do by modifying a bunch of different effects all at the same time, it’s also capable of more subtle behaviour. For example, using widening, reverb and compression in moderation rather than going nuts.
This is a tantalising multi-effect that you will get a lot of life from. Over-use is a definite danger, but even when used more sparingly Transit 2 creates engaging transitions, variations, bridges and groovy, complex effects, all without messing about with multiple plugins and automation. Yes, you could achieve similar results with stock plugins and multiple Effects Racks in Ableton Live, for example, but the immediacy of Transit 2 is fun, interactive and inspiring.
For live use too, it’s destined to become a favourite. Hardware controls linked to the Macro dial and other parameters open up advanced DJ-style effects on live stems or whole mixes with ease.
Getting on board couldn’t be simpler. There’s a trial version, introductory pricing, and the upgrade from version 1 is $29. Some current Transit 1 owners are upset by the upgrade fee, which comes just a year after the original’s release. This is understandable but we’re convinced that it’s a reasonable trade for the new features — current owners of Transit 1 are also not being forced to upgrade.
Once you’ve tasted the kind of powerful, uplifting yet easy-to-use live processing of Transit 2, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it.
Transit 2
Key features

VST, VST3, AU and AAX plugin
6 rearrangeable effects slots
6 motion modes
28 freely configurable effects
830+ presets
Quick Macro control knob
MIDI learn
Range and curve controls per effect
Randomise and Lock functions

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