Attack Softener vs Quinta Pitch Machine

Attack Softener is an effect that fades the beginning of each note you play to remove the attack transient. This allows you to make synth-like sounds with almost any instrument (guitar, bass, piano, etc.) HOW DOES IT WORK? It functions similarly to a transient shaper. Unlike a transient shaper though, it can bring the volume of attack sounds down to near zero quickly enough to silence the pick sound of an electric guitar in very fast music. WHAT IS IT USED FOR? It works with any instrument but we really like to use it with electric guitar. We recommend the following effect chain: Guitar -> Attack Softener -> Compressor -> Reverb. The combination of the attack softener and compressor is especially nice because the compressor keeps the volume balanced when playing clean solos but heavy compression intensifies the pick click noise, making it inappropriate for many styles of music. With the Attack Softener placed before the compressor you can get a nice, even clean solo tone that doesn't have punchy hard pick sounds. This allows you to play solos with a clean tone, where normally you would have to use distortion or overdrive to get sustain, now you can get that distorted "light touch" feel without the harshness of distortion. MORE TECHNICAL EXPLANATION OF HOW IT WORKS A transient shaper creates two volume envelopes. One rises immediately and falls slowly; the other rises slowly and falls slowly. The difference between these two envelopes indicates how far the volume should be reduced to silence the attack. However, changing the volume very quickly usually causes noise in the sound because of volume changes that happen naturally during the sustain part of the notes. This plugin is different from ordinary transient shapers because it combines several new methods to help it differentiate between real attack transients and other volume changes, and it uses dynamic filters that adjust the response time to ensure that it can respond quickly without introducing audible clicking sounds when the volume changes. IS THERE ANY OTHER EFFECT LIKE THIS OR IS IT SOMETHING NEW? EHX makes a pedal called Attack / Decay that does something similar. There are several other pedals that also do swell effects. All of them are designed for long fades and slow playing except the EHX one, which can operate faster by separating each new note onto its own audio channel using spectral processing. That spectral note separation distorts the tone signficiantly. This Attack Softener plugin is the only effect we are aware of that handles fast picking while preserving the original tone of the instrument.

The Quinta Pitch Machine is more than your standard octave in that it not only gives you notes an octave up and an octave down, but also gives you a fifth up. Each of the three intervals is dialled in proportion with its own knob, and you get a mix knob to blend dry and pitch-shifted sound, this runs from totally dry to totally pitch-shifted. Your Quinta Pitch Machine comes with 4 knobs. Three of these are used to add in the extra notes. The +1 OCTAVE knob adds a note that is 1 octave higher than the note you play on your instrument. The -1 OCTAVE adds a note that is 1 octave lower than the note you play. The +1 FIFTH adds a note that is a fifth higher than the note you play on your instrument. The last control on your Quinta Pitch Machine is the MIX control. This adjusts the balance between the natural signal coming from your instrument as you play it and the whole configuration of added octaves and fifths you have set up via the other knobs on your Quinta Pitch Machine. SONIC POSSIBILITIES - Octave up, octave down, 5th up - Individual volume controls, plus master mix - Replicate organ, synth or 12-string sound - Play power chords on a single note Works as a standalone app, AudioUnit v3 effect, or Inter-App Audio effect