Quick start
- Put Triphammer on your drum bus, or on a single drum track.
- Click the SOURCE that matches what you're feeding it: KIT, KICK, SNARE, HATS, TOMS or ROOM. On a fresh Triphammer this also loads that source's starter preset.
- Turn the six big knobs. Start with Punch and Glue, then add Smash, Drive, Boom and Room to taste.
- Leave AUTO LEVEL on while you work, so louder never tricks you into thinking better.
The window
- Header: the logo, the SOURCE switch, the preset box with < and >, and the power button (bypass).
- Display: about four seconds of your drums scrolling past. The outline is the input and the gold fill the output; teal from the top is Glue's gain reduction, the pink line is Smash's, triangles mark the hits Triphammer detected, and red ticks mark clipping.
- Six cards: Punch, Glue, Smash, Drive, Boom and Room, each with a big knob, an on/off light and a status line.
- Detail panel: tabs for every section's full controls, plus TONE and OUTPUT.
- Master: Input, Output, Mix, meters, AUTO LEVEL (it shows how much it's matching), CLIP and the sidechain light.
Source
SOURCE tells Triphammer what it's listening to, so its detectors listen in the right range and at the right speed:
| Source | Listens to | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| KIT | 30 Hz to 16 kHz | A full drum bus |
| KICK | 25 to 300 Hz | Kick in or out mics, a programmed kick |
| SNARE | 150 Hz to 5 kHz | Snare top or bottom |
| HATS | 3 to 18 kHz, fast | Hi-hats and cymbals |
| TOMS | 50 Hz to 2.5 kHz, long | Tom mics |
| ROOM | 40 Hz to 12 kHz, slow | Room and overhead mics |
Triphammer only counts a hit when it's well above the drum's own decay and close to the loudest hit it's heard lately, so bleed from the rest of the kit doesn't trigger it. On a fresh instance (or a starter you haven't changed), picking a source loads its starter preset. Otherwise it only changes how Triphammer listens.
The six sections
| Section | Big knob | Detail controls |
|---|---|---|
| PUNCH | SOFTEN to PUNCH, -100 to +200% | Sustain (-100 to +100%) turns the tail up or down; Punch Window sets how long the attack lasts. |
| GLUE | OFF to SQUEEZE, 0 to 100% | Stepped Ratio, Attack and Release (AUTO for program-dependent release), Makeup, Mix, and Key: internal or the sidechain. |
| SMASH | OFF to SLAMMED, 0 to 100% | Crush (0 to 40 dB), Attack, Release, Tone and Key. A heavily compressed copy blended underneath. |
| DRIVE | CLEAN to BURNT, 0 to 48 dB | TAPE, TUBE, CRUNCH, FUZZ or FOLD; Tone (tilt before the drive), Damp (smooths the top after), Mix. |
| BOOM | OFF to HUGE, 0 to 100% | RESONATE rings the low end at Freq (30 to 250 Hz) for Decay; SUB adds a pitched sine on each hit. Snap to note tunes Freq to the nearest note, shown on the card. |
| ROOM | DRY to ROOMY, 0 to 100% | ROOM, STUDIO, GATED or REVERSE; Size, Decay, Gate Time (for GATED), Pre-Delay, Tone, Low Cut, Width. |
0 really is off. Each big knob at 0 leaves the sound untouched, so you can add only the sections you need.
Tone
A five-part EQ after the drive and boom: Low Cut, a Low shelf, a Mid bell with Q, a High shelf (each ±18 dB) and High Cut. The tab draws the curve.
Output and sidechain
- CLIP: a clipper at the very end, oversampled 4x, with Push, Ceiling (-18 to 0 dB) and Knee. With AUTO LEVEL on, Push is taken back off after the clipper, so turning it up means more clipping at the same level.
- AUTO LEVEL: compares the output with the input and keeps them the same loudness, within ±24 dB.
- Mix: blends the whole of Triphammer with the dry drums, lined up exactly in time.
- Sidechain: route your kick (or anything) to Triphammer's sidechain input. Glue and Smash can key from it, and Duck turns the WHOLE BUS or the ROOM ONLY down when it hits (up to 30 dB, with Duck Release). Key High-Pass filters what the sidechain listens to.
Presets
34 presets: Default, then KIT (11), KICK (5), SNARE (5), HATS (3), TOMS (3), ROOM (3) and SIDECHAIN (3). Starters are marked. The up and down arrow keys step through them. Presets keep your Input setting.
Save your own from the preset menu; they're stored in Documents\Triphammer\Presets as .triphammerpreset files. Presets saved by earlier test versions (.hammerpreset, in Documents\Hammer) still load.
Tips
- On a drum bus, a little of everything beats a lot of one thing: Punch 30, Glue 30, Smash 20 is a solid start.
- GATED room on a snare is instant 1984. Set Gate Time around 250 ms.
- If the kick gets lost under Smash, set SMASH's Key to the sidechain and feed it the kick.
- Triphammer delays the sound by 2.6 ms; your DAW compensates automatically.
If something's wrong
- Punch or Boom ignores some hits: check SOURCE matches the drum, and that Input isn't too low.
- Ducking does nothing: route a track to Triphammer's sidechain input. The sidechain light shows when it's getting signal.
- It's quieter or louder with Triphammer off: that's AUTO LEVEL keeping things fair while it's on. Turn it off to set the output yourself.