New Toys: Nanopulse by JMG Sound/United Plugins

Nanopulse is a three-band transient modifier and is the most comprehensive tool I've seen with global level controls for both the Enhanced and the Original transients.

The Shaper section has three frequency bands each having controls over the level of the attack itself and the length of the remaining sustain portion. Shaper includes a Listen button for soloing the individual bands' Attack and Sustain components although this function is a little "fiddly" to operate in the large, resizable GUI. 

Powerful controls allow the ability to change the exact crossover frequency between the bands and there are switchable filter slopes of 6, 12, and 24dB/octave to dial in the exact width of the processing. 

Nanopulse's Enhancer section offers 64 transient types captured from snare skin, woodblock, kick beater, glass ping, string pluck, cymbal tap, and more. You may replace the original attack of an instrument with one of these available in a list. The default is Alpha Strike and works well on most sources. There are Global controls for the pitch (+/- 24 semitones) of the transients, Tone, anywhere from bright to dark, and a Resonance control for adding ringing resonant peaks.

I found Nanopulse to be indispensible for any percussion instrument with individual drum tracks a "natural" for the biggest benefit. I found the three modes in the Detector section essential for setting up the process properly. The default Smart mode works to detect any transient while Spectral worked well for keyboards and synths. The Fast detector seemed better at tracking a drum loop with 1/16th note accents.

What a fantastic tool to enhance or even restructure the percussive impact of any instrument in your mix. Highly recommended! There are free trials and intro pricing. Nanopulse sells for $82 MSRP as a download.

unitedplugins.com/nanopulse