Released - TransReckon

Transient Shaper from EarReckon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL2rbde4JIc

€39 intro price, and there's a demo: http://www.eareckon.com/en/products/transreckon-transient-shaper.html
 
I'd intended to test it today, but it appears the zip file is corrupt. Downloaded it twice, both times it couldn't be opened. I won't be buying it, but I would like to check it out.
 
At the risk of sounding like a Meldaproduction pimp, MTransient has more features and is currently going for $25.

bitflipper
€39 intro price, and there's a demo: http://www.eareckon.com/en/products/transreckon-transient-shaper.html
 
I'd intended to test it today, but it appears the zip file is corrupt. Downloaded it twice, both times it couldn't be opened. I won't be buying it, but I would like to check it out.
 
At the risk of sounding like a Meldaproduction pimp, MTransient has more features and is currently going for $25.

No problems downloading and installing the demo here.  And I must say, after a quick compare with a few other transient shapers -- including MTransient -- this is a really impressive plugin.  It can give kicks and snares a lot of punch, which MTransient excels at as well, but the way you can dial in and out the room sound using the Sustain knob is really something.  I haven't been able to do that with MTransient without getting weird artifacts -- maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I had no such trouble with the eaReckon plug.  NI's Transient Master is also good at this, but I don't like it as much for cranking the attack.
 
eaReckon has some very cool stuff in their line.  Everyone should at least download their free bundle, which includes some useful tools:  http://www.eareckon.com/en/products/freebies.html
 
Cheers,
Eddie
 

Well, I finally got my hands on this plugin and have spent the last hour experimenting with it.
 
The first obvious negative, and not a real big deal, is that attack and sustain values are displayed and entered as percentages rather than decibels.
 
Normally, I'd note the highest peak in the track and that would tell me how much headroom I've got for boosting the attack. With TransReckon it's trial-and-error, as I haven't figured out how to convert percentage to decibels. A kick peaking at -7 dB peaks at -5.2 dB after applying a 10% attack boost. What's the relationship between -7 dB, 10 percent and 1.8 dB of boost?
 
Fortunately, there is a built-in limiter that seems to be fixed at -0.5dB, but I may be missing an adjustment somewhere. Unfortunately, with the limiter engaged there are weird and clearly audible artifacts happening that disappear when I turn the limiter off.
 
But I've just gotten started beating this one up. I'll have a better idea of what it can do after a few days of use. I do want to give it a fair shake, and you can't do that in an hour.
 
Another small negative: bothersome C/R authorization. Requires creating an account, replying to an email, obtaining a hardware-specific key from the plugin upon installation, then re-visiting the vendor site to register the hardware ID and obtain an authorization code that you enter into the plugin.
 
A minor hassle but it took half an hour. Mainly I'm just not a fan of license files based on hardware because you never know what you can and cannot change in your system without breaking the plugin and having to re-authorize it. The good thing is that you don't have to have your DAW online.

First of all, many thanks for creating this thread!
 
@bitflipper
Thanks a lot for giving TransReckon a chance.
 
Authorization procedure
I'm sorry about the eventual confusion related to your first purchase at eaReckon.
Some users may not like it the first time, but they usually love it after then :-)
 
There are two ways to authorize a plug-in.
 
The first one is accessible to anyone immediately after the registration of a serial number.
It is a classic Challenge/Response procedure.
It works as you described it (you have to create a user account, validate it, register your serial number, download/install/load the plug-in, register the provided hardware ID and finally enter your serial number and the obtained authorization code in the plugin).
Even if many audio software companies use this kind of authorization procedure, it is not a fun process and most of all, it is not reassuring to know that the plug-in authorization is hardware-dependent.
 
This is why a second option has been implemented.
The "Key File" option is manually activated on user accounts after a basic verification of user details.
This option is very permissive and you will probably understand why it is not granted straightaway to new users.
Once this option is activated, you do not have to register any hardware ID, etc.
Here is the procedure:
- Download your (watermarked) key file from your user account.
- Load the plug-in and press the 'LOAD KEY FILE' button.
- Select the downloaded file and press ok.
You do not have to enter any serial number/authorization code once you have a key file at your disposal.
Also, the authorization via key file is handled differently and it is not hardware-dependent.
Then you can be sure that you will have the possibility to authorize the plug-in forever, whatever happens to eaReckon.

By the way, the option is now activated on your user account.
Should you want to "over-authorize" the plugin, please click on the eaReckon logo on top of the plug-in's interface to access the about box and the 'LOAD KEY FILE' button.
Then you will not have to worry about the authorization state if something changes in your computer in the future (except if your hard drive is formatted).
 
Attack/sustain values being displayed as percentage
I thought a lot about it while working on the plug-in but finally ended up with percentages instead of dB.
I'm going to focus on the attack circuit to explain that.
When a transient is detected, it is given a value by the detection circuit (which does not work as a peak detector). The VCA can then reacts differently depending on the characteristics of a detected transient.
Finally, the applied gain is not always the same and this is why I thought it would be confusing to display a dB value indicating the "maximum possible boost" (this maximum value will never be reached by some instruments generating "weak" transients).
However, it could be interesting to get this value... I will think twice about it.
 
Limiter
The limiter is disabled by default so the plug-in reports a null "initial delay" to the host when it is loaded (it is important in the context of some DAWs).
When it is activated later, a very short latency is notified to the host so it can be compensated.
If the plug-in latency is not compensated, some weird things may be heard (phasing issues, ...) especially if a specific track (snare top microphone, for example) is processed by TransReckon while other tracks related to the same instrument are not (overhead/room/snare bottom/...).
I'm not sure the problem you pointed out is related to this but if it is, could you please tell me if everything works as expected when TransReckon is added to all tracks related to this same instrument (with the Attack/Sustain knobs eventually set to 0%, the limiter 'on' and the 'power' button of TransReckon 'on')?
For my part, I will double-check everything and perform some tests in the context of Sonar.
I will come back to you with results.
 
Thanks again!
All the best,
Philippe

As for the problem I illustrated above, I've had some difficulty reproducing it consistently.
 
I normalized the sample to 0dB so the limiter would engage with the attack gain at zero. SONAR shows the limited peak value at -0.1dB. But after bouncing, the peak is -1.6dB. There does seem to be an inconsistency between playback and rendered clips.

I'll see if I can get a recording of the artifacts, but it's intermittent and I haven't figured out how to reproduce the problem consistently. If I do manage to capture it, I'll email it to your support address.