The TS-1 is a frequency dependent transient shaper designed to control the attack and sustain of the incoming audio signal. Thanks to the “Compression by Saturation” concept, the TS-1 superbly adds warmth and punch to drum tracks without losing dynamics. The TS-1 has two separate attack and sustain detection circuits, the signal of which can be filtered to improve detection (SC filtering) or to color the processed audio. The soft clipping circuitry will gently saturate and compress your signal, in the same way as ribbon saturation.
Excellent results can be obtained by combining a transient shaper with a saturator. You can create your own processing chain, for example by combining a large transient shaper attack boost with a classic ribbon saturator plug-in to give your attack a louder but classic subtle distorted sound. However, if you want to keep things simple, then the TS-1 plugin from Audiority combines a transient shaper and a saturator in one plugin!