When I try to teach what compression is and how to use it, I'll always use the "shape of a waveform through time" as a way to explain what compression can do. In the synthesizer world, this is referred to as the "envelope," which includes four stages of modulation: Attack, decay, sustain, and release (ADSR). Newfangled Audio's Articulate is a plug-in that provides control over the ADSR of a sound, allowing for detailed transient reshaping. There have been other transient shapers before, notably SPL's Transient Designer hardware [Tape Op #21] and Universal Audio’s UAD plug-in version, products I use often. Articulate is similar in idea but gives us much more control, breaking the audio into bands of Attack (Smack), Decay (Punch), Sustain (Body), and Release (Air), adding a mix (Separation) between dry (Smooth) and wet (Focused), a Sidechain input, and a bonus peak Limiter ("artifact-free") in case you push everything too far. The ADSR bands can be muted or solo’ed, which helps immensely in understanding how Articulate breaks down sound components.
Articulate has over 70 presets for a variety of sources, but it was easy to dive in and make my own settings, as there are not that many controls, and the ADSR format made a ton of sense to me. On an inside kick drum mic, I found myself gravitating towards an almost gated sound, removing the ring of a front head and snare bleed, and going for an 80 to 100 percent blend of the effect. I favored the Attack, with less Decay and none of the Sustain or Release: A combination that created the gated sound. On an outside kick mic, I used Attack only, creating a quick, deep thud to blend in with the inside kick. I compared my results by simply filtering all the high end out with a stock EQ, but Articulate worked far better, as there was no phase shift from the EQ – the tracks were at the same exact level, but the EQ was far thinner sounding. On snare, I used a 50/50 blend of the effect and added Sustain and Release back in for a more natural sound. I was impressed that with Articulate a fantastic drum mix was coming together before any use of EQ or traditional compression. On bass guitar, I could increase Attack when the tone was too soft and non-articulate. For those sometimes-too-plucky basses (Danelectro!), the plug-in performs wonders in taming the initial pick hit via less Attack. It does the same for electric guitars that have similar issues, especially on a track that I was sent with a clicky tremolo effect. The ability to place focus on the recorded instrument’s tonal content instead of its clicky picking was a mix saver. I'd be hard-pressed to think of a vocal use for this plug-in, and trying it on a track recorded with a cheap mic made me want to open up iZotope RX [Tape Op #164] and get to work instead.
When using Sidechain from a kick to a bass line with Articulate in order to tuck in the bass attack when there was a kick present, the plug-in generated clicking artifacts in time with the kick. Then again, on a looped midrange-y sample, the Sidechain allowed me to pulse the instrument in sync with the beat when the drums entered, which was super cool. It would be handy if the ADSR bands could feed four auxiliary tracks for individual processing. I experimented with duplicating tracks in order to process the Attack and DSR parts of a snare drum separately, and sending them to reverb only from the DSR created a softer room sound. Then I put Articulate before a room plug-in on an aux and loved the control I had over the resulting sound, varying the ADSR to get splatty reverbs or soft spatial ambience. This opens up a lot of wild options, and reminded me that there is likely a connection between Articulate and Eventide Audio's Physion [Tape Op #123] – it’s no coincidence that Newfangled Audio's founder, Dan Gillespie, wrote DSP code for Eventide for 15 years, and they market his plug-ins now. Constantly looking for new solutions, Dan told me that Articulate "uses a totally different technique" than Physion does.
We have entered an era where plug-ins are giving us more and more control over the building blocks of sound. I love it, as many of these parameters are what I constantly think about and understand in depth. Why smash a snare drum with a compressor if all that’s required is to reinforce the leading edge transient in order to make it pop in the mix when you can simply increase the Attack with Articulate? However, this deep level of control will also be misused by some users, so be careful with snappy snare drums or clicking bass guitars, and always A/B and listen to all the tracks together in your mix. Articulate will get plenty of use on my mixes and productions, as it solves problems and opens up many new creative doors.