Smack Attack

Emphasize, tame, and shape drums and percussion

Shape Your Drums’ Punch
with the Ultimate Transient Shaper

Make drums leap out of a mix. Help the snare crack instead of thud. Get strummed acoustic guitar to sound crisper. Enable percussive rap vocals to hit hard. Or, go in the other direction—tame hand percussion to sit better in the mix, or pull back a bass’s attack to emphasize sustain.

Compared to traditional transient shapers, Smack Attack’s powerful processing provides more detailed control over the initial attack. From tracks to masters, your sound comes alive.

Emphasizes percussive peaks for more punch and presence
Controls attack characteristics more flexibly than ever before
Customize attack levels, and how much of the attack to process
Softens peaks to place instruments further back in the mix
Selectively tighten or extend transients and sustain
Sensitivity control for selective transient shaping
Advanced features—parallel processing, MIDI control
Limiter/clipper to drive your sound to the limit
Real-time graphic display makes it easy to optimize settings quickly
Zero latency for live sound mixing in real time

Watch It in Action

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What Top Pros Are Saying

[{"itemID":2569,"itemGUID":"9f839577-1df8-4236-9e57-82bdcbc9dd3a","artistName":"T-Minus","artistTitle":"Music Producer","credits":"Drake, J. Cole, Kendrick Lamar, Nicki Minaj","artistImage":"/images/artists/1280/t-minus.png","quote":"I use Smack Attack on my drums to get them hitting harder, it sounds amazing on the kick and snare.","isMainQuote":false,"sortID":1},{"itemID":1730,"itemGUID":"142584f8-0468-4784-9518-5b15622835e4","artistName":"Chris Rakestraw","artistTitle":"Producer \u0026 Mixing Engineer","credits":"Megadeth, Deftones, Danzig, Parkway Drive","artistImage":"/images/artists/1280/chris-rakestraw.png","quote":"I\u2019ve been waiting for a transient shaper like Smack Attack. I\u0027ve been using it to deal with problematic samples in mixes, for instance 808s that have too much clicky attack, or 808s that fade out too quickly.","isMainQuote":false,"sortID":2},{"itemID":2123,"itemGUID":"f458bd6a-f43b-4b38-812b-0b9e6896a8cb","artistName":"The Glitch Mob","artistTitle":"","credits":"","artistImage":"/images/artists/1280/the-glitch-mob.png","quote":"For dynamics in our mellower songs, we lean nowadays on Smack Attack. if the song is more mellow or seductive, and we are looking to create a soft kick, Smack Attack can help take the edge off our drums and reduce the transients of kicks.","isMainQuote":false,"sortID":3},{"itemID":1877,"itemGUID":"eb7c4bbc-1397-4bb4-8b13-79c2ef05eaf9","artistName":"Jeff Juliano","artistTitle":"Mixing Engineer","credits":"Dan \u002B Shay, Chris Janson, Michael Ray, Hunter Hayes","artistImage":"/images/artists/1280/jeff-juliano.png","quote":"Total lifesaver for anything drum, percussion or anything programming related. It\u2019s not just a transient shaper \u2013 it gives you the creative ability reshape the entire vibe and feel of a mix.","isMainQuote":false,"sortID":4},{"itemID":1737,"itemGUID":"6031a77b-114a-40c5-a92e-480c3c781b57","artistName":"Lu Diaz","artistTitle":"Mixing Engineer \u0026 Producer","credits":"DJ Khaled, Pitbull, Beyonc\u00E9, Jay Z","artistImage":"/images/artists/1280/lu-diaz.png","quote":"Smack Attack makes shaping my kick and snare transients super-easy. I use it to do a ton of ducking work \u2013 it sounds great and is very versatile.","isMainQuote":false,"sortID":5},{"itemID":3224,"itemGUID":"9b41f91e-387f-40c4-a6c6-75c307f6da7e","artistName":"Jeff Hoeppner","artistTitle":"Record Producer, Composer, Arranger","credits":"Ariana Grande, Zendaya, f(x), Allee Willis","artistImage":"/images/artists/1280/jeff-hoeppner.png","quote":"I often employ Smack Attack in parallel to my drum buss near the final touches of a mix\u2026it\u2019s\r\nlike adding a touch of citrus to a dish at the end of cooking. Explosions of color and flavor!","isMainQuote":false,"sortID":6},{"itemID":1738,"itemGUID":"de71c184-3bda-44db-8347-ef5bf9f920c3","artistName":"Ben Fowler","artistTitle":"Producer \u0026 Engineer","credits":"Eric Clapton, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Taylor Swift","artistImage":"/images/artists/1280/ben-fowler.png","quote":"I\u2019ve been using Smack Attack mixing a new Kris Kristofferson DVD and record. It is resuscitating many lead vocals, adding attack and excitement. And of course, it\u2019s handy on the drums \u2013 a great multi-purpose tool.","isMainQuote":false,"sortID":7},{"itemID":2660,"itemGUID":"dcaccf7e-1f5f-4ee2-b624-5ff70041c892","artistName":"Irvin Washington","artistTitle":"Keyboardist, Producer, Engineer","credits":"Bas, J. Cole, Vivian Green, Fast \u0026 Furious","artistImage":"/images/artists/1280/irvin-washington.png","quote":"Smack attack is tailored toward drums, but try it on your synth pads. Reducing the sustain on a synth can open up space that was once clouding your mix. Adding attack can make your synths snappy and help them not get lost.","isMainQuote":false,"sortID":8},{"itemID":2451,"itemGUID":"2da300c8-1eaa-4bdd-aaf0-77b3d065841b","artistName":"Ernest Shaw \u2013 DJ Clue","artistTitle":"Producer, DJ, Engineer, Mixer","credits":"Mariah Carey, Lil\u2019 Mo, DJ Clue Ft. Future, Nicki Minaj","artistImage":"/images/artists/1280/dj-clue.png","quote":"Torque \u0026 Smack Attack are the new wave. In a world of producers who tend to use the same drum sounds, these two plugins let me shape \u0026 mold drums into amazing unique sounds of my own! Saying that they are groundbreaking would be an understatement.","isMainQuote":false,"sortID":9}]

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Control Percussive Sounds
with Total Detail

Restore Presence for Drums and Percussive instruments
The recording process can’t always capture transients faithfully, which dulls the sound. Smack Attack not only restores transients, but can emphasize them to produce hyper-realistic presence and energy.
Pick Your Punch
Add as much, or as little, punch as you want to any instrument with a percussive attack. Bring drums, bass, brass stabs, string attacks, even vocals closer to a mix’s forefront. Or, push the punch hard—and set sounds on stun.
Take the Edge Off, Too
Bright acoustic guitars sound great—but the pick noise can be overwhelming. Use Smack Attack to soften the pick transient, but keep the brightness. Or, take the edge off tambourines and other aggressive percussion.
From Surgical Fixes to Creative Effects
Apply different shapes to the attack, from tight spikes to blunt shapes with a slower rise. Raise sustain to bring up room sound on drums, or lower sustain to tighten up any sound (like a ringing tom) that overstays its welcome. Both Attack and Sustain come with Sensitivity and Duration controls to tailor the effect with precision.
Flexible and Versatile
Parallel processing lets you dial in the right blend of transient-shaped and original sound. And even when pushing punch to the max, you can enable clipping or limiting to guard against excessive output levels.
Zero Latency for Live Sound
Smack Attack’s real-time operation has no latency, so it rocks your sound in live shows as well. You can even add real-time expressiveness with MIDI controllers, like a keyboard’s mod wheel, or footpedal.