Review: Transit from Baby Audio

Join us for an insightful review of Transit by Baby Audio, where we navigate through its features and sonic possibilities, offering a glimpse into this dynamic audio plugin.

Andrew Huang is undoubtedly one of the most influential YouTubers in the audio/music tutorial space. He has inspired many people, and his videos are always full of extremely useful content that has been helpful to an entire generation of bedroom producers. He has now teamed up with Baby Audio to create his first plugin.

Baby Audio is a relatively new company, but they have already produced some excellent plugins. Celebrity collaboration plugins often make me a little wary, because many of them are just generic tools wrapped in fancy skins. Baby Audio Transit aims to be different from other celebrity collaboration plugins. Let’s find out if it lives up to the hype.

Creative transitions between song parts play a vital role in keeping listeners engaged and excited. To make them, producers rely on multiple tracks and plugins – and a suffocating amount of automation lanes. Transit simplifies this process down to just one plugin. It hosts 18 powerful effect-modules, freely loadable across 7 slots. All effect parameters can be linked to a global Macro Control, which you automate to create complex FX transitions with one knob movement. The result: More engaging, less static, mixes.

Baby Audio

One Window, Many Panels 

The UI maintains the overall style language of all other Baby Audio plugins. However, this plugin is set up to function like a carrier for many smaller micro-plugins. It is almost akin to a digital pedal board.

There are 7 distinct slots to place effects into. Each of these effects is self-contained and has its own controls and everything you need. There is one significant Transition Control knob at the very beginning that serves as the macro controller for the entire plugin.

We will discuss the 18 individual effects shortly, but before that, we have a few small controls placed around the main modules. You have a global Mix control for the entire plugin as a slider in the bottom left, and on the right, you have an Output trim control. The tiny bar at the top of the plugin has small buttons to allow you to choose between Light Mode and Dark Mode.

There is a comprehensive preset dropdown and 4 small buttons that are more interesting than they appear. The small infinity icon is there if you want the FX chain to be ON even when the Global Macro is at 0%. Normally, this is OFF to ensure the effects do not affect the audio outside of actual transitions. However, there may be times when you want all effects to remain ON throughout a track while using the Macro for additional motion. For those purposes, you can engage the Infinity Icon ON.

Then you have the Eraser to reset the chain, and Random Lock lets you decide which effects – and effect ranges – you want to randomize. Finally, we have the Dice button, which randomizes everything.

The 18 effects include Auto Pan, Bitcrusher, Chorus, Delay, 2 different sets of filters, a Flanger, Noise module, Oscillator, OTT (multiband compressor), Phaser, Pitch shift, Pump (Ducking effect), Spread (Stereo tool), Tremolo, and Utility (generic module with controls like gain, pan, and tone).

The way Transit is set up allows you to either use it as a multi-effect rack and add whatever individual effects you want for sound design purposes OR use it as one large effect rack that automates everything with a single knob. In the second scenario, you use the big macro Transition Control knob.

Basically, in each and every module, you have these small yellow dots in the middle corresponding to a parameter. Enabling this yellow dot assigns that parameter to the macro controller. You can then set a range (both positive and negative for most) with the tiny slider around the knob, and you are done! Now all you have to do is automate the one Macro! That’s all there is to it.

One Knob DJ

There are many multi-effect and effect rack plugins that I have used. These are usually great tools to help you overcome small production writing blocks and create interesting moments. Transit changes the game completely by being so easy to use. It took literally no time to learn and understand how this plugin works.

You basically just throw in all the FX you want, assign them to the macro, and you’re done! This plugin has just saved you hours of automating. No more assigning tiny knobs on MIDI controllers, turning them, and writing automation data over and over again. This is such a fuss-free way to do it.

A tool should not only make a job easier but also open up new possibilities, and that’s exactly what Transit does! It lets you think of, stumble upon, and execute transitions you could never have done before. For example, having stuff like the OTT on this rack allows you to add a squeeze before you open up the song to a chorus or a drop.

Not only that, you have the ability to have tons of other stuff happening in tandem as well. If you’re not into using this for transitions, you basically get 18 effects to play around with. They all sound fantastic and, more importantly, all have the right amount of controls—not too much, not too little.

Personal Thoughts 

I’m a really big fan of time-saving plugins. This one is the very definition of someone finding a task tedious to do and coming up with a solution that makes it a joy again. It’s a great production tool, and I also find myself using it on client mixes to just spice things up. I normally wouldn’t do this because of the time it would take, but using this is so fast that you’re willing to take the risk and try things out. The sequencer is also one of the easiest-to-use sequencers ever.

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