ChannelStrip vs Transient Shaper
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
ChannelStrip
This app provides essential audio processing tools for music production, including a noise gate, equalizer, and compressor. It offers smooth control for mixing and tonal shaping, with a characterful output stage for adding warmth.
- Noise gate with adjustable envelope
- PEV-modeled equalizer for tone shaping
- Rough Rider-based compressor
- Input/output gain control
- Mute and bypass functions
- AUv3 plugin support
Read full descriptionHide full description
ChannelStrip is, as its name implies, a channel strip app and AUv3 plugin. With a gate, equalizer, and compressor, ChannelStrip can provide a solid and easy-to-use channel control for your iOS mixing needs. GATE: The gate is of our own design, and very smooth. With envelope that vary from nearly instantaneous to ludicrously long, you can use it for both basic noise control and more extreme tonal shaping. EQUALIZER: Modeled on the PEV, a famous German "cartridge" equalizer, the EQ in ChannelStrip is super useful for basic tone shaping. A very smooth and forgiving general-purpose EQ. COMPRESSOR: The compressor in ChannelStrip is, at its heart, our Rough Rider model. We removed all the filtering from Rough Rider to make it cleaner, and changed the times to be more appropriate to general mixing duties. I/O: ChannelStrip has positive gain on both the input and output, to get your levels right. It also has a bit of a personality on the output stage if you drive it hard (with either or both the input and output gains). Nominally very clean, it picks up a bit of dirt with high levels just like a hardware console. Along with that, both mute (which mutes the input entirely) and bypass (which sends the inputs right to the outputs without passing the DSP stages) are available as automatable parameters. In short, ChannelStrip is a general utility mixing tool, with a bit of character and a lot of usefulness. We _strongly_ recommend you use the AUv3 version. The standalone is provided as a courtesy, but ChannelStrip is designed as an AUv3 plugin, and prefers to be hosted in a DAW or modular host like GarageBand, AUM, Cubasis, nanoStudio, etc.
Transient Shaper
This audio plugin offers a simple yet powerful way to shape the attack and sustain of sounds. Its adaptive filters automatically adjust to various inputs, allowing precise control over transient intensity without complex settings. Achieve crisper attacks or soften harshness, and even silence note attacks entirely.
- Adaptive filters for automatic adjustment
- Precise control over transient intensity
- Ability to silence note attacks
- Adjust sustain volume independently
- Simple, intuitive controls
Read full descriptionHide full description
Blue Mangoo Transient Shaper is a high-quality transient designer effect. The key feature is the simplicity of the controls. The plugin's adaptive filters respond automatically to a wide range of inputs, giving you an extreme level of control over the intensity of transient sounds without the need to adjust complicated settings. The unique filters in the attack envelope allow the attack intensity to be reduced much farther than other transient plugins, to the point of totally silencing the note attack, if desired. EXPLANATION FOR READERS WHO HAVEN'T USED A TRANSIENT SHAPER BEFORE A transient shaper allows you to adjust the speed or intensity of note attacks, making them crispier and snappier, or softening them and reducing harsh click sounds. This is useful if you want to make a snare drum cut through the mix (increase attack) or to soften pick noise on a guitar (reduce attack). Additionally, it allows you to adjust the volume of the sustain (or release) part of a note, leaving the attack part mostly untouched. This is useful if you want to reduce room reverberation sound on drums, making them sound tighter. Usually what we call the "sustain" control actually adjusts the volume of all parts of the sound except for the attack, so in many cases it functions more like a release control than a sustain control, if we compare it to the controls with those names in an ADSR (Attack, Delay, Sustain, Release) envelope control on a synthesizer. WHAT UNIQUE THINGS DOES IT DO? - Adaptive filters handle wide variety of signals automatically without user input - Adaptive filters allow the attack adjustment to respond faster, allowing you to silence even the extreme earliest part of the note Note: except for the unusual ability to totally silence the attack, this plugin does basically the same thing that other transient plugins do. If you already have a transient shaper and you are happy with the way it sounds, this one will sound similar. So the only reasons to buy this are: - You don't have a transient shaper yet - You don't have the Blue Mangoo attack softener plugin yet - You do have a transient shaper but you would like one with simpler controls - You love collecting plugins
Screenshots
Verdict
ChannelStrip and Transient Shaper both sit at 5.0 stars, but that hides the real split: 100% of Transient Shaper's written reviews are positive against 39% of ChannelStrip's. ChannelStrip's advantage is price ($3.99 vs $5.99). On rating, ratings volume, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
ChannelStrip costs $3.99 and Transient Shaper $5.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for ChannelStrip against 5.0 for Transient Shaper. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 3 and 2 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 39% of ChannelStrip's written reviews are positive against 100% of Transient Shaper's.
| Parameter | ChannelStrip | Transient Shaper |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $3.99 — better | $5.99 |
| Rating | 5.0 (3 ratings) | 5.0 (2 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 38.9% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 3 — better | 2 |
| Update frequency | Every 66 months | — |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Paid |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 12.0 | 12.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 17 MB | 12 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Audio Damage, Inc. | Blue Mangoo Consulting Company Limited |
Customer experience
ChannelStrip
Transient Shaper
In-app purchases
ChannelStrip
No in-app purchases
Transient Shaper
No in-app purchases









