KVR Audio

Fourstepper · Post by **Fourstepper** » Sat Jun 30, 2018 2:36 pm

Hey there folks,

I have a bit of a cheeky question for y'all...

Could a plugin like Sibalance be used for the same purposes like Soothe, in cases of very ringy nasty hi-hats or cymbals? To me it seems like Soothe is just easier to use, but Sibalance just as useful.

I am asking because I already own Sibalance from when I bought their Buss Tools 3 bundle not even really caring about it back when I was buying it

Happy discussing and thank you for your replies

Bodhisan · Post by **Bodhisan** » Sat Jun 30, 2018 7:09 pm

I don't have Soothe, but I do put Sibalance on my Master - believe it or not. To my ears, it takes away any harshness with a nice sheen - a glue, if you will. I realize it could be said it's a bandaid, and that I could deal with any harshness track-by-track, but it's almost magical, the cohesiveness I feel I get from it.

Fourstepper · Post by **Fourstepper** » Sat Jun 30, 2018 9:31 pm

Sounds interesting using it on the master

Agility · Post by **Agility** » Sun Jul 01, 2018 9:53 pm

Bodhisan wrote:I don't have Soothe, but I do put Sibalance on my Master - believe it or not. To my ears, it takes away any harshness with a nice sheen - a glue, if you will. I realize it could be said it's a bandaid, and that I could deal with any harshness track-by-track, but it's almost magical, the cohesiveness I feel I get from it.

Same, though remember de-esser on master isn't uncommon. BTW, try acceleration by airwindows which emulates classic HF limiters(used in vinyl mastering) which is basically de-essing.

OP: Yeah, de-essers can be used on any sound that needs those uppermids/highs tamed dynamically.

Fourstepper · Post by **Fourstepper** » Mon Jul 02, 2018 1:02 pm

So basically soothe is just a spectral dynamic processor simillarly to sibalance..

Aight, thanks a lot!

andymcbain · Post by **andymcbain** » Tue Jul 03, 2018 9:21 am

Fourstepper wrote:So basically soothe is just a spectral dynamic processor simillarly to sibalance..

Aight, thanks a lot!

Essentially, though Soothe's process of detecting resonances is a little more automated, and is especially useful when resonances crop up unpredictably. I have both plugins and find a use for both. Sibilance is still my de-esser of choice

soulone82 · Post by **soulone82** » Tue Jul 03, 2018 9:34 am

Bodhisan wrote:I do put Sibalance on my Master - believe it or not.

I believe you because I am doing the same.

an-electric-heart · Post by **an-electric-heart** » Tue Jul 17, 2018 1:58 am

You can use a de-esser on anything. It's used in mastering (as already mentioned), but I used one to fix a guitar solo the other day, that was a first. One high note was super harsh and piercing, so a de-esser was the solution.

badass_billy · Post by **badass_billy** » Tue Jul 17, 2018 2:31 am

Soothe seems to think everything is a resonance.

Honestly, you could achieve what soothe does by just adding some white noise in the background of your track. That's all it's doing. Turning your audio in to white noise.

Mathematics · Post by **Mathematics** » Tue Jul 17, 2018 9:54 am

Interestingly enough, I actually tried Sibilance, Soothe, and compared them to MSpectralDynamics this last week. Sibilance, IMHO is very much like Soothe. Essentially, all three are spectral dynamic processors or spectral dynamic compressors. With that said, no sense spending twice on getting Soothe if you have Sibilance, but to honest, the sound quality on Soothe sounds a little better. It also has a nice EQ for selecting the focus of attenuation...kind of like Waves L3-16.

By the way, Ozone8 has something called Spectral Shaper. It's basically the same thing but you can only select a limited frequency range if I remember correctly. I don't use that since I have MSpectralDynamics.

Sibilance is my personal choice for a De-esser if I needed one. As mentioned, you could use it, like you would Soothe, on the Master Buss. The only thing I don't like about Soothe is that it's frequency range attenuation is not really focused on the lows, just the mid's to hi's. Sibilance, is somewhat the same thing. It's processing more of the same as Soothe.

This brings me to MSpectralDynamics from Melda. That is a also spectral dynamics processor and you get the same results with it as you would both Sibilance and Soothe. It's pricey though. It will process the entire frequency range from 20Hz to 20kHz. I use on every project for ducking frequencies. I don't want to sound excited but I was blown away at how well it ducks frequencies for the kick. There is nothing as transparent as that. It's almost magical the way it works. I'll never use a simple compressor again (unless I want that pumping effect). For taming harshness: cymbals, sibilance, harsh vocals or voice-overs, and anything that has irregular and too large of a dynamic range, it will take care of that actually...better than Soothe and Sibilance. I tried it on several types of material and MSpectralDynamics just bombs all over all of them...well, except for Soothe. They were tie for attenuating resonances that just kill your ears in the hi's.

As an insert for the Master Buss, MSpectralDynamics is awesome. It will actually "level" the peaks throughout the spectrum. In fact, it's probably something I bet all the EDM guys will start using right before the Limiter to get that extra 0.2-0.5 of clean headroom. Who knows. I can say for vocals, it amazing.

That's my 5 cents because I didn't have change. I just gave my 2 cents a little while ago to another post.

So, yea...if it's just hi's, Sibilance is going to give you similar results.

Scotty · Post by **Scotty** » Tue Jul 17, 2018 10:10 am

Can you demonstrate this or is this speculation?

badass_billy wrote:Soothe seems to think everything is a resonance.

Honestly, you could achieve what soothe does by just adding some white noise in the background of your track. That's all it's doing. Turning your audio in to white noise.

Bouroki · Post by **Bouroki** » Tue Jul 17, 2018 5:59 pm

Mathematics wrote: Sibilance, IMHO is very much like Soothe. Essentially, all three are spectral dynamic processors or spectral dynamic compressors. With that said, no sense spending twice on getting Soothe if you have Sibilance,

I got absolutely gang violated on GS for suggesting the same thing. Over there they seemed to believe it was God himself in plugin form and all I wanted was to calm them the **** down

Mathematics · Post by **Mathematics** » Tue Jul 17, 2018 6:51 pm

Sometimes, people default to shooting down the guy with logical sense merely to justify the money spent on something which lacked their own.

Scotty · Post by **Scotty** » Tue Jul 17, 2018 7:59 pm

That is not my MO... I continually refer people to more affordable alternatives for UA plugins despite owning much of the catalog. When it comes to soothe I haven't heard a single example where it was "bested" by any other desser plugin when used moderately. That is just my experience. I own quite a few de-essers. When it was released I remixed two albums where getting the vocal to sit properly was a real challenge due to some complex arrangements. I spent hours with other plugins (the closest anything got to Soothe in my attempts was Eiosis E2 de-esser followed by a Melda dynamic EQ - post manual gain reduction on problematic sibilance) Nothing I had could do the job as transparently or as simply as Soothe. I won't argue and leave the last word to others. It would take a lot to convince me that what is under the hood of Soothe could be easily replicated. YMMV.

Mathematics wrote:Sometimes, people default to shooting down the guy with logical sense merely to justify the money spent on something which lacked their own.

plexuss · Post by **plexuss** » Tue Jul 17, 2018 8:00 pm

TL;DW. but....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IthiwPIC378

Toneboosters Sibalance vs. (?) Oeksound Soothe