Auto de-Resonance tools like Soothe2

[Benedict]

I had Soothe2 on my list of plugins to review for HigherHz. I was interested to see what the hype was but at the same time very dubious because:

1. So far I have not heard any positive use of it (or Reso) where I don't just feel like it "gutted" or un-funned the sounds.

2. I tried the oekseound de-clicking tool for podcast work as I have a clicky speaker. While it could do a passable automatic job of de-clicking mouth noises it also made the voice sound "digital cheese grater". While a bit time-consuming, I can remove these sounds better by hand, without making the speaker sound terrible (they manage that well enough with USB Condensation mics they insist on breathing on and bumping).

I tried giving Soothe2 a real resonance courtesy of a Resonator on a violin (yay) and it couldn't do much useful at all. While it was truly an impressive resonance spread Soothe did little to solve it at all. I could kill it with a plain ole Notch set to Kill Em All. Not fully kind to the violin but would have made it mixable at least which the plugin claiming to do that couldn't really do at all.

I have to say that from all I can see, these auto-smoothing things are nothing but a problem invented by the marketing for the plugin that then magically solves the very problem that didn't exist in the first place with an expensive dose of pretty placebo deftly dancing the spectrum spectacular.

I don't think I will be getting paid to make that review. Thanks for the wasted time in finding what seemed obvious in the first place. Such is the downside of having work dictated by a popularity machine (Google search traffic numbers) instead of by merit.



p.s. if you like Soothe or Reso or whatever, please don't feel the need to tell me I am silly and you is Pro and therefore I am silly coz you is Pro. If you have a valid argument, I am happy to consider it but otherwise, let me have the right to my opinion and feelings on this time that has been wasted on what seems to me quite validly to be a false set of tools.

[danc]

You say that for you the end result is a sound that is gutted and un-funned..... I think that it's more down to what you are trying to achieve and how you achieve it.

I use resonance removing techniques when I have a very intentional result that I am going for. Let's take an obvious case study... say I am making a Tech House track and I want there to be consistent open hat hitting away. The problem with hats is that they can over dominate a track, especially if you want them loud and crystal clear. Let's say I want my open hat to be really prominent, but at the same time I don't want it get in the way of the rest of the music. That sounds like a complete opposing request! Well yes - but no. With judicious EQ notching I can get the best of both worlds... a prominent open hat without it clashing with the rest. Once I set the EQ notches just right, the hat kind of "melts" into the music. If it's done carefully - you don't gut it or unfun it.

Think of it like the technique for using a glue compressor: a lot of people get rather confused how to use "glue" compressors properly. You need to learn from mastering engineers that use them to make a thing swing with the groove. It's all down to the timing of the A, H and R.

Anyway - I now use Reso to point me in the right direction and then tweak by hand. This is quicker than starting with a blank Pro-Q3. I'd probably use Soothe 2 instead, but the cost is prohibitive for what it gives me.

No doubt there are many other case studies - but I think my point of melting things into a mix is why a lot of people use Reso/Soothe2 etc. And so no... it's not marketing hype. But no doubt a lot of sales have been achieved to buyers hooked in by some hype, who will never make the most of what they have bought.

[zabukowski]

Using Soothe frequently for snare ringing, deessing, debooming, removing/taming/calming harshness of all kinds from practically all sources possible (overheads/hihats, guitars, vocals, keyboards, strings etc. etc.). If i feel source needs treatment with Soothe, it usually won't dissapoint me. But we know that the best friend could become the worst enemy, so i use it very carefully. The amount of control is great. I find Soothe doing its job tremendously and to me it's very obvious and can be heard clearly.

But putting Soothe on every channel (set&forget) in the mix (as suggested by some excited users) is not really my cup of tea =:)

Another Oeksound gem is Spiff ... highly recommended.

[guitfnky]

definitely didn't experience the 'gutting' thing you've encountered, but I only trialed it (more than a year ago, at that), and I was pretty underwhelmed with it too. not that it didn't work, or sounded bad or anything like that, but it really didn't do much of anything that I couldn't do using a normal EQ. unless you've got something recorded so poorly that it's got bunches of weird resonances going on across the frequency spectrum, it's kind of pointless--especially at the price point (I want to say it was $160 when I was trialing?). and if you're working with sounds that come from inside-the-box (i.e. not recording any audio yourself), it makes even less sense, IMO.

I trialed it mainly because I was trying to find a decent solution to the sibilance on my voice, which is something I've been struggling to figure out for a long time now--several of the reviews I saw that prompted me to give it a try raved about how good a de-esser it is, but...it's not. maybe for certain voices it's okay, but my experience was that it was less than useless in that regard. sure, it tamed parts of the sibilant frequencies, but if you need a de-esser, it's supposed to bring down the entirety of the offending frequency range, not just weird selective portions of it. and if you dial it back to get it to sound more natural, it doesn't do enough--a total lose-lose.

on guitars, again, it didn't do anything I couldn't accomplish with a decent dynamic EQ, for a fraction of the cost.

I do agree this has benefitted greatly from marketing hype. there's a huge psychological component to it, once you've purchased, I think. it's useful in some cases, sure, but not nearly as good as many of the reviews would have you think--but if you spend that kind of money on a plugin, you want to use it a lot, and you're more likely to sing its praises. all aboard the hype train...choo-choo!

[MattLeschuck]

I find Soothe 2 very useful. A gentle amount on the mix bus can help clean things up. When A / B ing with the smart tool in Nova GE, I prefer Soothe's realtime processing.

I think a big part of it for me is it's a time saver. And when used correctly, I generally have good results.

In addition to the deresonance feature, it supports side chain and can turn into a "Trackspacer" type plugin with more bands.

[Benedict]

By "Gutting" a sound I meant that the sparkle leaves. Looking at the Spectrum in the VST and the Spectrum in the F2 window, it seems that what is happening is: the signal is taken in sliced up into bands using FFT, IIR, or similar (this is not that kind of technical discussion) and then every band turns itself down when it gets loud - essentially Dynamic EQ but on a larger scale. Then using the EQ before Compression method to make the "target" areas louder so they get pushed down more. There is no AI happening here as in it is not making any decisions that drinking bird toy does not already. Comparing those spectrum views merely shows that, without weighting, every Partial in a sound is decreased by its level so in effect we are kinda compressing, only with a lot of bands.

The sound may be smoother in Solo (from less sparkle) but the mix will be bland (or gutted) as it is the sparkle that gets the sounds through the rain.

When I made a real tasty resonance with a resonator on an Orkester violin, Soothe couldn't do a good job on it at all. I managed better (if not kindly but it was not a kind resonance) with kHs Slice EQ (or could be anything really).

I found a video from a decent mix engineer who concluded exactly what I had already come to myself: It is a solution to a problem that I did not have and am not sure really exists (outside perhaps of engineers who don't: know how, or want to do this work by hand, or saw the marketing and felt they must have this new problem and therefore need the fix).

Each to their own tho. If it gets you there. Fine. It just didn't take me anywhere useful, leaving me mighty annoyed at the wasted time (not to mention having to say to my employer that I couldn't give him a shiny happy people review).



p.s. I did mention trying Spliff (or whatever) and it was totally cheese grater whilst not doing as good a job as I could by hand. Fast, barely passable, but at a horrible cost that would guarantee the work came back to me to redo.

[zabukowski]

I found a video from a decent mix engineer who concluded exactly what I had already come to myself: It is a solution to a problem that I did not have and am not sure really exists (outside perhaps of engineers who don't: know how, or want to do this work by hand, or saw the marketing and felt they must have this new problem and therefore need the fix).

Can you please share link of that video? I am interested in his conclusions as well.

Thx!

[Benedict]

I found a video from a decent mix engineer who concluded exactly what I had already come to myself: It is a solution to a problem that I did not have and am not sure really exists (outside perhaps of engineers who don't: know how, or want to do this work by hand, or saw the marketing and felt they must have this new problem and therefore need the fix).

Can you please share link of that video? I am interested in his conclusions as well.

Thx!

This is it:

I understand that it may also be a sound or mixing style/approach thing too. Like I understand that someone who likes/works in classic Rock/Country may feel rather differently from someone who works only in modern Pop/EDM where mindsets can be rather different from how I was trained - and choose to approach my craft and passion - music.



p.s. I considered taking the work invested to make a video of my own but honestly, I didn't see it achieving anything (except perhaps a few nasty comments from the morally outraged) thereby sinking more bad time into a thing I don't see a use for and can't recommend.

[PhillipOrdonez]

Well he did think it was cool on rhythm guitars.

[guitfnky]

I subscribe to HMS, so I've seen that one—also after I'd trialed and come to the same conclusion. it really comes down to the source material—if you've got well-recorded material, its use is limited to completely unnecessary. if you're working primarily with electronic sounds, I can't see why you'd need something like this at all.

guitars cane tamed pretty easily with EQ. I think the case he sees here for that is more about speed—he slapped it on and was fairly happy with the result immediately, but he also said it was doing too much. I bet if he'd spent the time to dial it in how he liked, it would take the same amount of time as just finding the right EQ settings, so that's a bit of a wash.

[Zac]

I use soothe when I can hear something I don't like. I then isolate that region using the filters in soothe. Then when soothe is only working on that region I adjust the effect until the problem is reduced enough.

I find it very quick and easy to use and I can render the audio and remove the plugin and move on.

Using it on the full spectrum without filtering or weighting would be close to pointless.

[Djstarski]

I always watch this guy .. He breaks down the parameters of the plugin first , then shows you some examples . .
Not being funny , but the other guy uses the factory default preset on all examples and only moves the depth control .
I wouldn't think many examples would sound any good if you only use it like that .
This guy seems to understand more about the plugin ..

[guitfnky]

HMS didn’t only use the stock preset in the video. and guy has enough mixing credits for professional releases to get a sense for what’s going to work for him. I agree he should have gone into a bit more depth in the video itself, but even if he had, I’m certain his takeaway would have been the same. I put Soothe through its paces and it’s pretty much exactly as described—a nice plugin with an interesting approach, that doesn’t do much you can’t do with basic tools…especially for the exorbitant price tag.

[dvdrtldg]

I think a big part of it for me is it's a timer saver.

This is it for me too. I'm prepared to believe that in many or even most cases, a good dynamic EQ will (eventually) do what Soothe does. But Soothe is so much faster to work with

Admittedly I find that the higher you go up the frequency band, the less useful it becomes. One of its big selling points is that it's supposedly a magical deesser, but I don't get great results in that department. But once you get below around 1K it comes into its own, it's particularly good for taking the woofiness out of a bass track without sacrificing power

It's definitely a less-is-more plugin, depth and sharpness need to be used with care, and it can get a bit artefacty on fast attack setting

Is it too expensive? Maybe. Once I've paid for something I don't usually fret about the price. But I do feel I'm getting good value from Soothe, use it in all kinds of projects. My bread & butter job is in radio/podcasts, I have to deal regularly with voices recorded in non-studio settings, often horrible sounding room spaces, and it's just a huge time saver

[guitfnky]

yeah, I hope I’m not coming across as dismissive about the end results others are getting—if you’re happy with those results, it’s absolutely worth whatever value you place on those results. just for me, it doesn’t do enough to warrant the cost.

I’m also probably annoyingly frugal when it comes to the tools I use.

[Benedict]

The fact that when I gave Soothe2 and Spliff specific things that did need solving, they didn't do as well as I could with normal tools, using either Stock, Preset, or Custom settings is what put me off. Not only was it not a time saver but it was not a problem solver. I wouldn't have kept it even if it was free.

Interesting point about Soothe seeming less capable in the higher registers, that is something I was noticing. A synth had a drive fizz and it didn't get nicer, smoother maybe but that is the "gutted" less sparkle thing. The horrible resonance I set up with kHs Resonator was not kind but again, Soothe had no solution for that at all. Yet rather quickly I realized that a honking Notch would slay it all. The sound was dramatically different but at least usable.

I too don't wish to remove anyone's fun. I do however want to question why this exists and why it commands such loyalty (maybe of the blind variety) when in practical terms it doesn't seem to do anything that basic skills can't do at least as well, if not better seeing I can think about what I am doing left, right and for the future? No point solving a problem only make a larger one for tomorrow - like the client sending his podcast back asking me to fix it sounding funny, which happened after I trialed another de-noiser making wild claims and delivering cheese-grater, thankfully I saw that coming so sent it only as an Are you happy with this solution? so at least the grand-promising tool didn't make a tool of me.

[MattLeschuck]

Whats valuable to some might not be valuable to others. In my case Soothe saves a lot of time and yields good results. And time is important to me.

Soothe can also replicate exactly what Trackspacer does. Im not aware of any stock Reason plugins that can do this to the same degree (or at least without a lot more effort).

And my experience has been the same as dvdrtldg. It's very useful on VO work.

[Benedict]

Fair enough. I am aware that this can be a result of "approach" as I have no interest in, or truck with, Trackspacer and the like either.

[Mataya]

Using spiff and soothe in my day job of dialogue editing and mixing for tv. They do a great job when you have a bunch of different people. Such a time saver.

M

[Djstarski]

I had Soothe2 on my list of plugins to review for HigherHz. I was interested to see what the hype was but at the same time very dubious because:

1. So far I have not heard any positive use of it (or Reso) where I don't just feel like it "gutted" or un-funned the sounds.

2. I tried the oekseound de-clicking tool for podcast work as I have a clicky speaker. While it could do a passable automatic job of de-clicking mouth noises it also made the voice sound "digital cheese grater". While a bit time-consuming, I can remove these sounds better by hand, without making the speaker sound terrible (they manage that well enough with USB Condensation mics they insist on breathing on and bumping).

I tried giving Soothe2 a real resonance courtesy of a Resonator on a violin (yay) and it couldn't do much useful at all. While it was truly an impressive resonance spread Soothe did little to solve it at all. I could kill it with a plain ole Notch set to Kill Em All. Not fully kind to the violin but would have made it mixable at least which the plugin claiming to do that couldn't really do at all.

I have to say that from all I can see, these auto-smoothing things are nothing but a problem invented by the marketing for the plugin that then magically solves the very problem that didn't exist in the first place with an expensive dose of pretty placebo deftly dancing the spectrum spectacular.

I don't think I will be getting paid to make that review. Thanks for the wasted time in finding what seemed obvious in the first place. Such is the downside of having work dictated by a popularity machine (Google search traffic numbers) instead of by merit.



p.s. if you like Soothe or Reso or whatever, please don't feel the need to tell me I am silly and you is Pro and therefore I am silly coz you is Pro. If you have a valid argument, I am happy to consider it but otherwise, let me have the right to my opinion and feelings on this time that has been wasted on what seems to me quite validly to be a false set of tools.

Did you try the presets and tweak to taste ? The user in the video you posted , only used the default setting . The problem he had with the plugin not reacting to the 6k , may have been solved if he made some other adjustments .

[Benedict]

Did you read the whole thread?

Also, while I don't love all that fella's mixes personally, he is not silly, he would know what the plugin was doing as fast as I did. Therefore logic says (if he didn't and I think he did but I am not going back to listen again) he did try more than you mis-indicate here.

If you love these things and they help you to feel more the way you want to feel, great (at least the third time I have said this). Just please don't assume anyone who doesn't feel the same is simply silly/incompetent. It is beneath the kind of Pro-ness you claim to hold.

Yes, I am snippy seeing you did this routine on my personal YouTube too. It is not good manners, let alone professional of you. I am happy to participate in a spirited discussion, but that requires all participants to read and respond to what is said and done not to simply say what they think from a state of self-anointed superiority to make the OP appear silly so they feel superior.



p.s. if you feel the overwhelming need to come back at me, that is allowable with me ONLY if you show some of your own work. So far the several times I have tried to find your work, I find nothing. If you need to prove how great you are compared to me, you have that right, but only if you SHOW YOUR WORK first. That is the number one rule of the kind of pissing contest you seem intent on with me. Or simply put, piss or piss off.