Can someone tell me the diffrence between Soothe and Spiff, i went to gearslutz and couldn't find a good answer. Whats the Diffrence between dynamic transient shaping and dynamic transient processing ? like ....in easy words. For ex. Use Soothe for everything / Spiff only for bass ?? Thx in advance

 

From what I know, Soothe is used for resonant frequencies and Spiff is for transient processing.
Use soothe to tame resonant frequencies dynamically, and use spiff to shape transients, for say, drums or mids in a bass if you want some more presence.

 

I liked Spiff on squashed to pumping sound track. It can bring back punch, details, transients, attack.... Or cut them....
Soothe is some kind of TBProAudio DSEQ2, a resonance suppressor, deharsher.

So, spiff to boost/decrease attack, punch on certain frequencies. Make kick, snare, percussion, consonants, and percussive instruments stronger or weaker. Less or more T, P, B, K, Ts, D...... Try on squashed skrillex - it gives more boom, punch and stronger beat...

Soothe2 is to decrease resonances and harshness..... Less annoying shh, yeeee, etc... Flatten the annoying frequencies to make them more pleasant.

For example, take one cymbal: one can add/decrease attack, click, hit; another removes ringing, shhh, annoying ear piercing stuff...

Read manuals, under their names you will see: soothe2 is a dynamic resonance suppressor, another - is adaptive transient processor.... Or something like that..... Today I liked Spiff..... Soothe2 is just another DSEQ2.... Slightly another, not worse, not bad.... Same concept, different slightly results..... But spiff is a cool dynamic eq with advanced (de)punchier setting and more

 

What a great Answer, Thank you very much

 

Another excellent quality harshness remover is EndeavorFX UnHarsh. Most people haven't even heard of it, because it is not advertised, but you can find it on sister site and get the full impression. I use it in each of my projects.
https://endeavorfx.com/unharsh.html

Recommended settings:
brighten 21, UnHarsh 16, split.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jan 3, 2021

How do these other VST plugins compare?

TBProAudio - DSEQ

Voxengo - TEOTE

Soundtheory - Gullfoss

 

I did a review on Voxengo - TEOTE Soundtheory - Gullfoss earlier on this site.
Now I'll post some plots. At the moment I am busy, so I can not comment on them.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jan 3, 2021

Very cool plots, thank you.

 

nice.
this is what i wanted to know

 

I have used Soothe2 and Gullfoss, especially soothe I find very helpfull when mixing everything down. I compared it by ear with DSEQ2, but I didn't like that effect at all, as result I do not use it. Gullfoss I can barely hear the effect on my set up, but I once had the privilege to hear it on a really good sound system, and what I remember was experiencing more 'flow' in the music.

 

Hmm I've been toying with Soothe2 and I'm not too sure about it..

Sounds to me like trading Resonance/Fullness for fine-grained phase Distortion.. or something

It does what's advertised tho, cut/control the Resonance,
but is this what you need?

If you've got a very Serious problem with Resonance, yes by all means this could be the tool.

But if it's just a matter of say, Slightly excessive body/resonance on a Voice or cello.. (considering natural reverberation)
I would probably try to tame it first with a Compressor, or a Dynamic EQ.

Surely the compressor would Modify the sound, and add its own thing (depending on the unit),
but the result could be good in terms of Character, etc..

Whereas Soothe will control those resonances strongly and more Surgically,
but add that particular fine grained Distortion in exchange..

And that's my initial opinion.


-I've tried it for controlling a very expressive Synth Oboe from Edirol Orchestral VST,
which somehow has a very Direct and overpowering kind of sound..

It's hard to explain because, even tho Synth Flutes can be dangerous elements sometimes,
this is about the only instrument that sounds so much overpowered like that.

The Timbre, and the level/type of Expression of this Oboe is actually very Good for being a Synth,
but it's so Powerful, like a laser beam cutting through butter, if you know what I mean..

So yeah here's that, It doesn't seem like Soothe is improving it in this particular case,
so I will try to see where I can take it with Compression or Dynamic EQ..

 

Soothe suppresses resonances (i.e. certain frequencies) in order to smooth too high resonance spikes, while Gullfoss is a dynamic EQ working on the whole bandwidth, or a user selected wide bandwidth. Its aim is to (in general, allowing some pretty disturbing user's interventions) conform a given EQ curve to /psycho-acoustically modified/ pink noise curve (like TEOTE or Thimeo AutoEQ). So, in order to do that, it can suppress and/or boost certain frequencies. Gullfoss has a very limited ability just to tame frequencies.
P. S. 'Particular fine grained distortion' is an unavoidable consequence (quantization of dynamics) pestering all auto EQs based on compression. That is the main reason I do not use them, the other one being occasional abrupt gain changes and constant fine gain fluctuations throughout the file.

 

Last edited by a moderator: May 4, 2021

Interesting!
thx for the info..

So I guess other dynamic eq's like Redline EQ, DMG Multiplicity or Fabfilter Pro-Q3,
also fall in the Compressor-based category like all the rest?

 

Last edited: May 5, 2021

Word!!!!!!!!!!!

 

basically, spiff is a transient shaper. soothe is frequency balancer. if you attacky or less attacky sound go for spiff. if you want pleasant sounding go for soothe.

 

A trick I like to use with Gulfoss is to slap it on my mix bus (50% tame and recover, lp @ 10k) and instantly hear what is lacking or what is overdone. I then disable it and go back to track level for adjustments (or not).

The fine grain distortion btw is very apparent with Gulfoss. Watch out with that.

 

I did the trial and asked the dev some questions a while back, who kindly replied.
From what I was informed, soothe2 is designed and intended to suppress unnatural frequencies, not the natural ones unless desired as well, unlike an EQ which will cut or boost both simultaneously. Spiff is the companion which cuts or boosts transients.

P.S - I found soothe2 worked really well with natural recorded instruments rather than samples that were already optimized or pre-mastered.