Better transients with Nanopulse by United Plugins

United Plugins is proud to announce availability of founding partner JMG Sound’s Nanopulse plug-in — pitched as being a unique transients treatment tool to add power and punch to tracks so they can cut through the mix, morphing the character of those transients via various impulse response and frequency profiles taken from drums, percussion, instruments, noises, objects, and more besides to subtly enhance existing transients or completely transform them.

Treating transients well means treating them with Nanopulse. Needless to say, well-treated transients add power and punch to tracks so they can cut through a mix, and Nanopulse achieves this like never before by taking the profile of other expertly-crafted attack sounds and applying them to the transient of the sound being worked on by users of the plug-in, providing them with an amazing ability to morph the character of that transient or replace it altogether.

At the heart of Nanopulse is its unique attack ENHANCER section with no fewer than 64 transient types on offer there. They have been captured from a wide variety of sources, such as a snare skin, woodblock, kick beater, glass ping, string pluck, cymbal tap… the list goes on. Simply select from the lengthy list to make the transient of the sound being worked on take on the character of those profiles. PITCH, TONE, and RESONANCE controls are also available, respectively shifting the pitch of the selected transient type by -24/+24 semitones — use this to tune the frequency profile to fit well with the ORIGINAL TRANSIENT; changing the balance of low and high frequencies to make the ENHANCED TRANSIENT darker or brighter; and controlling how much the frequency profile will be smoothed — at 0% the profile will be smooth while still taking on the tonal character of the source and at 100% the profile will be extremely detailed with resonant peaks that ring out.

On top of that, there is a SHAPER section where Nanopulse users can sculpt and shape the overall dynamic balance of their sound using a transient shaper with three — LOW, MID, and HIGH — bands, each with control over ATTACK (affecting the level of the transient signal) and SUSTAIN (affecting the level of the remaining signal — everything minus the transient, in other words), while CROSS controls the frequency at which the bands will be split; SLOPE selects the crossover type from 6dB, 12dB, and 24dB per octave, while LISTEN lets users solo single or multiple parts of the divided signal — useful for checking things. The easy-to-use six sliders involved promote precise control over sound sculpting and shaping at lightning speed.

Thankfully, three different DETECTOR modes are also available for detecting transients — SMART is able to detect transients regardless of their level to generally give the best results, SPECTRAL takes into account tonality to offer very musical results but incurs a little latency in doing so, and FAST is slightly less accurate at low levels but can detect multiple transients in quick succession better than the other modes while least taxing the CPU (Central Processing Unit) in doing so. Such unique sound properties and benefits plainly provide Nanopulse users with welcomed flexibility to suitably work with their audio material as deemed appropriate.

Additionally, Nanopulse’s INPUT and OUTPUT offer control over their respective gain levels by -24 to +24 (dB), while JMG Sound saw fit to provide an output LIMITER feature for safety alongside a handy RANDOM feature for generating random values in the ENHANCER — especially useful for drumming up unexpected inspiration, although an UNDO feature is always available to revert back to the original sound, so no need to panic if the unexpected proves unappealing.

Transients treatment uniqueness notwithstanding, Nanopulse shares several admirable attributes with fellow family members now numbering 25 plug-ins, each playing their part in United Plugins’ proliferating product portfolio, providing maximum audio quality by using internal 64-bit audio processing as well as being able to handle any sampling rate — why not try it at 192 kHz (or even higher)? — and also the fact that it intelligently detects whether it makes sense to perform any processing at all; if not, it temporarily turns on sleep mode, meaning it requires virtually no CPU power at all, thereby saving computing resources for other processes. Putting a photorealistic 3D yet flexible GUI (Graphical User Interface) to the test with Nanopulse, likewise, leaves its users with the impression that they are working with real world hardware; however, it easily adapts to their needs since they can always drag the arrow at the bottom-right corner to change its size — smaller to save precious ‘screen estate’ or larger to make it easier on the eye and, as a result, even easier to use than it already is.

It is fair to say, then, that those interested in enhancing and shaping their transients in an innovative new way clearly owe it to themselves and their music to seriously consider adding JMG Sound’s Nanopulse to their plug-in collection — quite literally a sound move that their DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) will also thank them for since United Plugins constantly keeps on top of current OS (Operating System) and DAW developments, so users can always update to the most recent version of any partner’s plug-ins for free!

JMG Sound’s Nanopulse is available to purchase for a time-limited introductory promo price of only €19.00 EUR until June 30, 2022 — rising thereafter to its regular price of €79.00 EUR — as an AAX-, AU-, VST-, and VST3-compatible plug-in (using internal 64-bit audio processing capable of handling any sample rate) directly from its dedicated webpage (United Plugins – Nanopulse/), where a 15-day, fully-functional trial version for macOS 10.10 and newer and Windows 8/10 can also be downloaded for free.

Note that no iLok, dongle, or internet access is required for Nanopulse activation. (All United Plugins software uses license files for activation and owners can freely use purchased software on all their computers as long as they are the user.)

See and hear Nanopulse in action while watching United Plugins’ illuminating introductory video here: