Waves Smack Attack

Waves Smack Attack - Digital Download | The Ultimate Transient Shaper for Precision Sculpting of Your Attack & Sustain

In modern music production, a clear and impactful sound is key to standing out. Waves Smack Attack is a powerful Transient Shaper designed to give you unprecedented control over your Attack and Sustain. Whether you want to make your drums jump out of the mix, make a snare hit crisper and louder, or give acoustic guitar strums more definition, Smack Attack makes it easy. It not only enhances the impact of a sound but can also work in reverse, for instance, by taming an overly aggressive hand-clap to help it sit better in the music, or by tightening a bass's attack to emphasize the thickness of its sustain.

Compared to traditional transient processing tools, Smack Attack offers more refined and powerful processing capabilities, allowing you to precisely sculpt the initial dynamics of your sound. From fine-tuning individual tracks to adding the final polish in mastering, this plugin can inject life and energy into your audio. For rap vocals, it can enhance the power of every word, making them more impactful. For instruments that have lost dynamics during the recording process, such as drums and percussion, it can not only restore their original transients but also enhance them, creating a larger-than-life presence and energy. This is the ultimate tool designed for enhancing drum mixes, boosting percussion dynamics, and achieving precise attack control.

Key Features & Use Cases

Restore Presence to Drums & Percussion
The recording process often fails to perfectly capture all the transient details of an instrument, causing the sound to feel dull and lifeless. Smack Attack not only faithfully restores these lost transients but can also enhance them further, creating an incredible sense of presence and energy, making your drum hits and percussion sound vivid and alive.

Shape Impact on Demand
You can add the perfect amount of punch to any percussive instrument. Whether it's drums, bass, brass stabs, string plucks, or even vocals, Smack Attack can push them to the forefront of the mix. You can even push the impact to the extreme to create stunning sound effects.

Soften Overly Sharp Edges
A bright acoustic guitar tone is pleasant, but the pick noise can sometimes be too harsh. With Smack Attack, you can soften the pick's transient while preserving the guitar's original brightness. Similarly, it can tame instruments like tambourines or other aggressive percussion, making them more comfortable to listen to.

From Precision Repair to Creative Sound Design
Smack Attack allows you to apply different shapes to the attack, from a tight, needle-like spike to a slower, blunter rise, offering a variety of sonic textures. You can boost the Sustain to bring out the room sound of a drum, or decrease it to tighten up any overly long sounds, like a ringing tom. Both Attack and Sustain are equipped with Sensitivity and Duration controls, allowing you to precisely customize the effect.

Flexible and Versatile Processing
The built-in Parallel Processing feature lets you strike the perfect balance between the transient-shaped sound and the original signal. Even when pushing the impact to its limits, you can enable Clipping or Limiting to prevent output level overload and keep your audio signal safe.

Zero-Latency Performance for Live Use
Smack Attack's real-time processing capability features zero latency, making it an excellent tool for live sound. You can even use a MIDI controller, such as a keyboard's mod wheel or a foot pedal, for real-time expressive control, adding more possibilities to your live performances.

Tech Specs

• Latency: 0 ms
• Sample Rates: 44.1 kHz, 48 kHz, 88.2 kHz, 96 kHz, 176.4 kHz, 192 kHz
• Channel Components: Mono, Stereo
• Plugin Formats: VST2, VST3, AU, AAX Native, AudioSuite (Please refer to the latest announcements from Waves Central for specific version support)