Name: Trans-Box
Brand: Desert Moon Audio
Price: 34.00 USD
Availability: InStock

Trans-Box TB-15 - Desert Moon Audio plug-in

Transient Smack / Girth Box

Smack on the hit, girth under it, and never a clipped peak

Trans-Box is a transient shaper and drum fattener plugin for Mac and PC: more smack on the hit, more girth under it, and a true-peak guard so it never clips.

14-DAY FREE TRIAL

Full version, free for 14 days. No payment details needed.

Works with all major DAWs

AU / VST3 / AAX for Mac · VST3 / AAX for PC

Yours forever — no subscription

Instant download after purchase

Hear the difference

Press play to hear it through Trans-Box. Tap DRY for the original, at the same moment.

Snare

Kick

Full Kit

Room

Where it goes

Four of the places it lives, each with a demo above.

Snare
SMACK forward and the snare cracks without getting louder; GIRTH tunes itself to the drum.
Hear it
Kick
Girth under a kick and the beater stays sharp: weight and attack, both.
Hear it
Drum bus
On the whole kit, smack on every hit, with GUARD holding true peak at −1 dBTP.
Hear it
Room mics
Pull SUSTAIN up and the room blooms behind each hit; pull it down and it dries out.
Hear it

About Trans-Box

Trans-Box is a transient smack and girth box. A snare in a mix template usually gets two sends: one to a transient shaper for the stick, one to a fat compressor for the body. Trans-Box does both in one box, time-aligned, with five knobs and a bypass.

SMACK and SUSTAIN are a transient designer built on level-independent detection: a fast and a slow envelope watch the drum, and the distance between them in decibels is the transient, so a ghost note gets the same shape as a rimshot. A 0.8 ms lookahead has the gain up before the stick lands, the gain moves at different speeds in three bands so low notes never crunch, and the smack leans toward the crack, so more SMACK means more stick rather than more boom. Hi-hat bleed and the noise floor, well below the track's own hits, are left alone.

GIRTH is the fat compressor send, folded in: a band on the drum's own fundamental feeding a fast 6:1 compressor. It tunes itself, pitch-tracking each hit's ring and gliding to it, and its release follows the playing, so fills stay tight and half-time grooves bloom. At the very end, GUARD holds the output under −1 dBTP by riding the whole output down first, so the smack survives, and catching whatever is left with a lookahead true-peak limiter.

Key features

SMACK and SUSTAIN
Up to +15 dB of attack or −24 dB of it, and up to +18 dB of body or −29 dB of ring, with the same shape at any playing level.
GIRTH that tunes itself
A parallel body compressor on the drum's own fundamental, pitch-tracked hit by hit: a snare's shell lands around 190–240 Hz, a kick around 50–60 Hz, a floor tom around 90 Hz.
GUARD at −1 dBTP
A two-layer true-peak ceiling at the very end of the chain, so a smacked snare never clips and never loses its snap to a limiter.
DELTA
Hear only what Trans-Box is doing: the smack it adds or takes away and the girth under it. The fastest way to set SMACK and GIRTH without going too far.
MATCH
Makes BYPASS level-matched, so A/B compares punch, not volume.
MIX and OUTPUT
A time-aligned parallel blend and ±12 dB of output level.
A meter that shows the smack
The edgewise meter's red cursor reads SMACK gain on the lower scale while the pointer reads output peak above it; the GUARD and SQUEEZE lamps show the ceiling and the girth compressor at work.
13 factory presets
Snare Smack, Backbeat Girth, Crack & Tight, Kick Knock, Tom Thunder, Room Blow-Up and Drum Bus Punch, plus Smack Send and Girth Send for templates that keep separate sends.

Trans-Box panel, with its controls numbered

The panel at a glance

Meter The pointer reads output peak; the red cursor reads Smack on the lower scale.
Smack The hit: up to +15 dB of crack, or −24 dB to soften it, the same shape at any playing level.
Sustain What follows the hit: open the ring, or tighten it.
Girth A parallel body compressor on the drum's own fundamental, pitch-tracked hit by hit.
Output Level, ±12 dB.
Mix Time-aligned blend with the dry signal.
Guard & Squeeze Guard lights when the −1 dBTP ceiling catches a peak; Squeeze lights as the girth compressor works.
Delta Hear only what Trans-Box adds or takes away. The fastest way to set Smack and Girth.
Match Makes bypass level-matched, so A/B compares punch, not volume.

More details

Yes — 14 days, fully featured, from the first time the plugin loads. Every control, no interruptions and no signup. When the trial ends, audio passes through dry until a license is entered, so your sessions always open.

Yes. It's a one-off purchase, not a subscription, and there's nothing to renew. Updates to a plugin you own are free — download the current installer and run it over the top.

Every plugin is sold on its own, so you can buy just the one you want.

Your license covers up to 4 computers you personally own — studio desktop, laptop, spares. Enter the same key on each; the first activation on a machine takes one quick internet check; after that it works offline, apart from a once-a-day check for a newer version. Moving on from a computer? Deactivate This Machine in the plugin's preset menu hands the seat back, and if a machine dies before you can, just ask us.

Your download link and license key are in the order confirmation email sent at purchase. Run the installer, open Trans-Box, click the trial notice on the panel, paste the key — done.

Can’t find the email? Check spam, then write to info@desertmoonaudio.com and we’ll resend it.

Yes — after activation. Entering your license key needs an internet connection once; from then on it works offline — the only other time it goes online is a once-a-day check for a newer version.

Tech specs

Mac: AU, VST3 and AAX — universal, native on Apple Silicon and Intel. macOS 10.15 or later.

Windows: VST3 and AAX, 64-bit Windows 10 or later.

DAWs: All major DAWs — Ableton Live, Pro Tools, Logic Pro, FL Studio, Cubase, Studio One, Bitwig, Reaper and Reason.

Engine: level-independent transient detection with a 0.8 ms lookahead and three-band gain, a self-tuning parallel body compressor and a two-layer −1 dBTP true-peak guard, oversampled 4× at 44.1 and 48 kHz and 2× at 88.2 and 96 kHz — 44.1 to 192 kHz.

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