MS Punch
Mid/side transient shaper plugin for macOS and Windows
Keep the centre punchy and dry the room in the sides.
Launch price until 30 September. Price includes VAT. Licence key by email, straight after payment.
No audio demo for MS Punch.
A drum bus where the kick and snare need more crack and the room mics already take up too much space. In Mid-Side mode the mid gets a few dB of Attack while Sustain comes down on the side, so the centre hits harder and the room between the hits gets shorter. Each lane runs its own detector for that: a transient shaper isn't linear, and one set of settings run on mid and side together would shift the stereo image on every hit. Stereo mode links left and right to one detector instead, so the image holds still. Every hit is split into its attack and its body, and the two always add back up to the whole signal, which means the plugin passes audio through bit for bit until you turn something. Then there is timing. Preshift moves a lane's attack ahead of the beat or behind it while the body stays where it was, Humanize nudges each hit by a few milliseconds and up to 3 dB, and Swing delays the off-beats on a 1/8 or 1/16 grid.
Shapes
Smooth
The default. The detector follows the level within half a millisecond and the gain grows evenly with the hit. A preset on Smooth starts at 25 ms Attack Time and 300 ms Sustain Time.
Snap
The fastest detector, and a curve that reaches most of its gain early, so the very front of a transient takes the boost. Presets on Snap start at 8 ms and 180 ms.
Bloom
A slower detector and a rounded curve that eases in and out, for tails that should swell, like a room or an 808. Presets on Bloom start at 60 ms and 700 ms.
Crush
Snap's timing, with the attack gain driven into a soft clipper instead of applied cleanly. The hit gets louder and denser at once.
What it does
- Stereo mode shapes left and right from one linked detector, so the image doesn't move on a hit; Mid-Side gives the mid and the side their own detector and their own settings
- Attack and Sustain up to 24 dB either way, with Attack Time from 1 to 60 ms and Sustain Time from 50 to 1000 ms
- Four shapes per lane: Smooth, Snap, Bloom and Crush
- Tone, up to 12 dB either way, acts on the transient and leaves the body alone
- Attack Width and Sustain Width, 0 to 200%, set the stereo width of the hit and of the tail separately
- Preshift moves a lane up to 20 ms earlier or later, as the whole signal or only its transient
- Swing delays off-beats on a 1/8 or 1/16 grid and only ever later, so it adds no latency
- Humanize draws a new level and time for every hit from its place in the song, so a loop or a bounce gets the same feel every time
- Velocity lets harder hits take more of the effect while the ghost notes underneath keep their place
- Detect from the input or from an external sidechain, per lane, with Detect Gain to set how hard the detector is hit
- Look-ahead of 1, 3, 5 or 10 ms, reported to the host as latency
- Capture records the output from bar line to bar line, ready to drag into the session as audio
- Limit on and Auto Gain off by default, plus Output and Mix for parallel shaping
- 30 factory presets across drums, groove, mix bus, bass, guitar and keys, with A/B compare and undo
Specs
- Formats
- VST3, AU
- Requirements
- macOS 11 or later (Apple Silicon & Intel), VST3 or AU host · Windows 10 or later (64-bit), VST3 host
- Version
- 1.0.0 · 13 Sep 2026
MS Punch is one of 6 in The Mid/Side Core
All 6 for €149, which is €89 less than buying them one at a time.
How to use it
- Mid/side transient shaping, explained
A transient shaper changes how a hit starts and how long it rings. Split into mid and side, the centre can hit harder while the room gets shorter.
