I'm just wondering here. What is the purpose of softening the stick's presence in the tom hit sample? 

I'm kind of thinking that I might actually want to keep the hit but what does softening actually do here?

trimph1


I'm just wondering here. What is the purpose of softening the stick's presence in the tom hit sample? 

I'm kind of thinking that I might actually want to keep the hit but what does softening actually do here?

It would depend on the sample, trimph. Me personally, I like more stick presence in toms. But, if a tom had a bit too much of this, it's easy to take some away if you absolutely need to or even curb out some high end where the stick presence hits. But it depends on the sample really as well as what type of music it's being used for. :)
 
-Danny

I believe most higher quality software compressors have very fast attack / release rates as well as look ahead features that will allow you to tame transients - if a transient shaper isn't available. I remember a number of years ago being able to radically change a very aggressive ride cymbal stick attack transient using only the sonitus compressor. It was a bit of a different challenge in that the cymbal sustain could make pumping susceptible...but with a bit fine tuning it came out pretty decent.

ultimately, you don't want to have to fix these things with fx after the fact...
you want to find samples that do exactly what you need, and then you don't have to mess with the sonics at all.