when is SMACK/Transient too much?

[Caine123]

hi guys, i sadly am back in 1-2 days in the studio so i cannot put my file online now. what i mean is i use for snares mostly EQ, Compression, saturation and a lot of times a transient designer to give it some extra SMACK. but i found while listening to a song that maybe it is too much for ear fatigue? every time the snare hits you also hear some small transient which gives it some great click but listening in 3 minutes to it maybe 100 - 200 times could get tiresome. i hope you know what i mean, do you try to not use too much punchiness/transients?

[vurt]

too much smack will probably kill you.

[Benedict]

too much smack will probably kill you.

Too much smack will always kill you. Best not to be in any way vague about that. I have known people who have tried that path. Never works out. Or maybe it works out perfectly, hard to ask them now.

Seriously tho it seems to me that you answered your own Q:

some great click but listening in 3 minutes to it maybe 100 - 200 times could get tiresome

This is why we listen to our work outside of the studio in places like the car or in bed whilst reading a book. The reason is that we get to listen to the music as music - as tho we were listening to "Dark Side Of The Moon" or the first STEPS album for the joy of music. If our own mix/music doesn't deliver a similar sense of feel & engagement, then it is time to adjust. This gets easier with experience.

So the simple answer is: Unless it is a deliberate effect like Cher Belieeeeieeeeveeiingggg in life after looooooooaaoooovveeee you almost always want processing to be subtle. Enough to have the listener feel what you want them to feel (driven by the Scene & Story of the Song of course) and not a pico-db more.

[chagzuki]

Make the track 20 seconds long, problem solved.

Jokes aside, there's a risk of things getting out of hand with a lot of 'enhancer' type FX. E.g., if you have drum bus compression allow transients through, plus mix bus compression allowing transients through, with transient shapers on the individual percussion sounds. And you might have clippers or limiters in the signal chain to control transients, which could mean that you don't notice how much you're boosting transients somewhere in the path, and it becomes hard to figure out what's going on. Probably best keep it simple, make sure the compression is well-chosen first to provide the right vibe/bounce/punch, and allow that to effect transients in a desirable way. Only add a transient shaper if a specific percussion sound really needs it.