ModulTone's MS Punch,

Keep the centre punchy and dry the room in the sides.

A drum bus where the kick and snare need more crack and the room mics already take up too much space. In Mid-Side mode the mid gets a few dB of Attack while Sustain comes down on the side, so the centre hits harder and the room between the hits gets shorter.

Each lane runs its own detector for that: a transient shaper isn't linear, and one set of settings run on mid and side together would shift the stereo image on every hit. Stereo mode links left and right to one detector instead, so the image holds still.

Every hit is split into its attack and its body, and the two always add back up to the whole signal, which means the plugin passes audio through bit for bit until you turn something.

Then there is timing. Preshift moves a lane's attack ahead of the beat or behind it while the body stays where it was, Humanize nudges each hit by a few milliseconds and up to 3 dB, and Swing delays the off-beats on a 1/8 or 1/16 grid.

Shapes include:

- Smooth

The default. The detector follows the level within half a millisecond and the gain grows evenly with the hit. A preset on Smooth starts at 25 ms Attack Time and 300 ms Sustain Time.

- Snap

The fastest detector, and a curve that reaches most of its gain early, so the very front of a transient takes the boost. Presets on Snap start at 8 ms and 180 ms.

- Bloom

A slower detector and a rounded curve that eases in and out, for tails that should swell, like a room or an 808. Presets on Bloom start at 60 ms and 700 ms.

- Crush

Snap's timing, with the attack gain driven into a soft clipper instead of applied cleanly. The hit gets louder and denser at once.

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