whats your understanding of what soothe does?
is it more than a notching spectral dynamic eq or something else entirely?

 

Very hard to tell. People do euphemism about it, say it's the best tool in the world, Ali, indispensable, talk about the gain in quality of what it's used on, without ever giving audio examples, or technical details about how it operates and what's the point of it.
Sooth is god. Or music theory according to MMJ.
I haven't noticed any gain in the quality of vocals all around since it's out. It's been out a while. And yet resonances and esses are still there ! WTF is Ali doing ?

 

Like every plugin, Unharsh has a sweet spot with least distortion, and here it is at 'brighten' 20.83 and 'Unharsh' 16.09.
Distortion range on these settings is negligible, except from 1kHz - 7,5 kHz where it is set @ -48dB, which is not particularly good, but not terribly bad in the least. The EQ line is straight with just +0.1 dB from 1kHz - 5 kHz, the rest being at zero. Also renders pretty even harmonic spread from 5kHz - 20 kHz. And it deharshes very convincingly, audibly improving ambience, definition and detail.
In effect, if you know how to set it properly, it is better than most other deharshing plugins.
If the level of deharshig is not enough for you at these settings, give it yet another pass.

 

Last edited: Dec 14, 2019

As much as I love Melda plugins, you also have to value the productivity of "plug it and sounds good".

For instance, I saw a video where you can make a Melda plugin behave like Sonible SmartEq. Simply great, but it takes quite some time.

I agree with a fellow, @The Pirate I think, who brought it to the conversation. Sonible plugins are very innovative too. And they know a couple of things about audio programming (co-authors of the ARA standard along with Presonus and celemony).

I can't help but end with a semi-joke: does Gullffoss algorithm reverses the MP3 quality degradation? ;-)

 

To clarify, my mention of Sonible SmartEQ was only referenced to a comment made by @Marcsal regarding plugins that people mention in threads involving Soothe. I never inferred that SSEq or any other of the plugins I listed are substitutes for Soothe.

 

Where did you see this video? Can you give me a link?

 

The mere question: "...something else entirely?" comes out of mythical thinking. Soothe does exactly what any deesser does, but just has additional EQ bandwidths, so it 'deesses' some other voice overshoots except the literal 'esses' themselves. Therefore it is just another dedicated multiband dynamic EQ relying on compression of the 'unwanted' frequency content (whatever it may be in someone's personal opinion).
There is no need to crack Soothe, pro audio designers know the Soothe workings in detail,and how to implement them themselves, and in short time we might have a dozen of its 'clones', some possibly working even better than it.

 

Last edited: Dec 14, 2019

All myths are based on positive reviews, but you should include (overt or secret) payed advertisers, hipsters, snobs, copy/paste bloggers, eager greenhorns and rookies on forums, megalomaniacs, etc. And the latter greatly outnumber the former.
I guess even people form Oeksound did not expect this 'drama' over Soothe. It just got out of control and populace started to huddle up making nonsense about their product.

 

I had Soothe and Gullfoss, and sold Gullfoss because it doing nothing to me. Selling it was huge probem. Because, and I didnt now that, before selling One have to ask permission to proceed. I sold it via iLok transfer, payd fee, but it was frosen. It turns out that all discounted licenses are NFR, all second hand licenses are NFR, all promotional licenses are NFR. Even they use ilok. You can only read this shit in FAQ on their site. But who the fuck ever read that FAQs if we have manual, but that guys still have no. Keeping in secret thei technology, what you cannot say about Oek, everyone know their plugins based on FFT.
So I think Soothe cannot be replaced with any other plugins. But could be compared to ones use FFT as Melda Spectral dynamic, Smartcompressor, Deedger, Cockos Reafir (free) I tried all of them, Soothe simply sounds better.
For ableton Live users there is Spectral Compressor which is works same way, different results of cos, but price!

Another Oek plugin Spiff is also very impressive. It best Transient Shaper, even nothing to compare, maybe Punctuate, but different results.

 

To all of those "sounds better" arguments: - compared to what?
"Closer to":
- To the original sound? no one has ever heard it, except the recording crew.
- To how we imagine the original sound?
- To what pleases (hurts) us (more)?
Or 'compared' to (with/out/ blind tests and more participants):
- To what other 'could be compared' DSP does? There are no two plugins in the world that do not give 'different results' - that nobody can deny. So if you start with Soothe as an objective best, all the others must just let down.

 

Last edited: Dec 14, 2019

So, if you use 'soothing' to remove artifacts, you are restoring. There are technical criteria of success.
If you use 'soothing' to soothe a naturally harsh voice, you are retouching. No criteria, it is just forgery.
If you use 'soothing' to adapt a voice to your liking, you are playing. This is self-indulging, pleasant, but might lead to "Your voice is soothing, but the words aren't clear" (Beatles, 'I'm Looking Through You', 1965).

 

I was oversimplifying and it must not sound the same. If you still interested sadly I don't remember which is. Its level's still out of my league now, when I saw it two years ago I just flipped.

For sure it must be about either MAutoDynamiqEq or MSpectralDynamics. I know, doesn't narrow much the search...

 

Don't overthink it man. Output compared to input.
Reply to your reply: yes, just "to sound better" is a thing in this case.
Next reply: I don't (know). That's why these plugins are useful.

 

Last edited: Dec 14, 2019

To what I hear, somple like that.
Looks like you never demo this plugin, You dont need blind test to Soothe, results are so different.
Im using it on resonant and harsh sounds. Just try.

 

Does not really matter, different is just different. - With different settings of the same plugin, or when using different plugins. -
I was talking about the meaningful usage of the expression "sounds better". The blind test is aimed against placebo effect and biases stemming from prejudices and expectations. Many people realise (some of them very late) that they really need it in order to increase their objectiveness, even for completely personal judgements (with no intention of offering it to the public /debate/).
So it seems to just add to prejudices to think or say that Soothe is 'so exceptional', it is to be exempt from blind testing. Blind testing is a well established technique in any serious evaluation of sound quality among professionals and researchers and should be applied by everyone.

 

Well, the problem is what's the 'problem' in the input you want to solve? - Get back to the original sound? Get the sound you imagine as the original sound? Make the output please you more? So it summs down to with what you are up to compare.
Input and output are just dead 'black box', machine, cybernetics terms.
There is a vast useful space between non-thinking, thinking and overthinking.

 

Soothe web: "gives you the perfect, in control, world class vocal sound you’ve been striving for".
Compare output vocals with input and hear if it sounds like the sound you’ve been striving for.

Sounds to me pretty much like "it just sounds better" to your ears. No other comparison.

Gullfoss web: "listens to a signal and decides how to prepare the audio so that your brain can get the most information out of it"
Compare output sound with input and hear if it sounds so that your brain gets the most information out of it.

Again, sounds to me pretty much like "it just sounds better" to your ears. No other comparison.

Next Reply: Of course you can use Soothe or even Gullfoss for more things. But they've been created for the main use of "make the stuff sound better" with little tweaking from the user.

 

Last edited: Dec 15, 2019

All audio software companies use the same, shabby propaganda - 'it will fulfill your wishes', you'll get the "sound you’ve been striving for" (as if they knew), "you'll get the most". "It just sounds better" to your ears presupposes that they can predict my ears' reaction before any sound was even produced.
As I said previously, most of the DPS audio myths flow out directly from some manipulating-empty phrasing, putrid manufacturer advertising.

 

Yeah as opposed to all those audio tools made to make your sound sound like sh.t.
Obviously.
Fortunately now with Soothe and Gullfoss we have tools that make things better ! What innovators.
Any tools nowadays 1 : are supposed to "make the stuff sound better". Well except bitcrushers, sat and disto. But short of that.
2 : any tools nowadays aim at ease of use. Well short of Reaper. But the whole workflow thing, wasn't invented with "auto" tools.

The only thing vaguely new that I see here is that they sell a product that aim at avoiding pesky editing, and work for the users, who's only role is exactly to do that work (do they dream about unemployement or what ?)

Meanwhile I love editing, pesky tasks, take pride in my work and trust it way more than any "AI" designed with general purposes in mind can offer.
And I love Reaper.

 

Anyway the whole debate is as old as audio treatment. Volume riding tools haven't led to the disappearance of volume automation or compressors, despite many tools promissing to mix and/or master (cause it's a sciency stuff and the robot knows better, nah!) for you the number of engineer keeps rising, chord/scale assistant haven't lead to an explosion of Mozart and theory is still taught for most musicians. Etc.