Great video
Danny Great to hear you too. I am glad you showed the use of it to soften things. I had a snare that was very high pitched, over tight sound and it was just way too thin. But after using the transient shaper (Sonar) I got it a much nicer leading edge that ended up way fatter in the final result. It salvaged an otherwise unusable snare track.
But to sharpen up things is also a great use of it. Also think of that final mix where you are hearing absolutely everything and you want to just sharpen the transient edge of something here and there to make any part of a mix more percussive. Now you can go in and do it so easily.
I find if I have done a snare track that was an even velocity all the way through
(real snare drum that is) a good idea is to use a transient shaper in varying degrees along the arrangement tightening it up as you go in the louder more important bits.
Another thing too. When auditioning snare sounds for something like Session Drummer 3 you have to take into account you might hear a snare that sounds a little sloppy in its leading transient edge and at first might dismiss it. But after applying some transient shaping it could easily be reworked into something great.
You have to use your imagination now a lot when auditioning any sounds these days. You hear the way it is of course but need to think about what it could be as well. Changing the pitches in Session Drummer 3 also will have a similar effect to transient shaping. It is speeding up the amplitude envelope. Often a little pitch shift up and some transient tightening will sound excellent.