KVR Audio

Caine123 · Post by **Caine123** » Sat Nov 11, 2017 8:06 am

Where would u use soothe?
I use eg fabfilters de-esser and brainworx refine to tame harsh sounds but what does soothe do maybe better?

Scotty · Post by **Scotty** » Sat Nov 11, 2017 9:21 am

Truly you should demo it. I think you'll be sold on it pretty much instantly. I have bx-refinement, EIOSIS dessers and a few other deharsher type plugins.. Soothe can do more than a dynamic EQ, any desser or deharsher that I have used alone or in combination. And it is quick and easy to get results with it. Workflow, superior results and now a good price... adds up to a no brainer for me.

Caine123 · Post by **Caine123** » Sat Nov 11, 2017 10:33 pm

Scotty wrote:Truly you should demo it. I think you'll be sold on it pretty much instantly. I have bx-refinement, EIOSIS dessers and a few other deharsher type plugins.. Soothe can do more than a dynamic EQ, any desser or deharsher that I have used alone or in combination. And it is quick and easy to get results with it. Workflow, superior results and now a good price... adds up to a no brainer for me.

i really like it, i also put it on some mastering of songs/old songs badly mixed with some harsh sounds! nice.

also on some distorted layers which i never could eq nicely it rounded up the sounds nicely but had still the harsh mid/bottom sound!

i guess i need to get it.... i didnt want anymore vsts....

Scotty · Post by **Scotty** » Sat Nov 11, 2017 10:39 pm

99 Euros on Black Friday according to Oakesound.

Caine123 · Post by **Caine123** » Sat Nov 11, 2017 10:41 pm

Scotty wrote:99 Euros on Black Friday according to Oakesound.

thx for the info, 2 more weeks

got a trial license, seems fully functional till end nov.

plexuss · Post by **plexuss** » Mon Nov 27, 2017 6:30 pm

Does anyone know what the license transfer policy is for soothe?

I will assume license transfers are not allowed based on the T&C unless someone can confirm/deny. No license transfer = no purchase, for me at least.

UPDATE: I reached out to oeksound and they said they would consider offering license transfers for a fee and asked me if 20€ would be fair. I said that's too high - as a customer I want free license transfers because transfers should just be part of offering software licenses - there are enough companies out there offering free transfers that it wouldn't be outrageous. However the T&C's still say transfers are not allowed - i pointed this out to oeksound, that if they are ok to offer licenses transfers, the T&C's should reflect this otherwise depsite what they might agree to in an email, the T&C's are the legal document. So we'll see how it goes. I'd consider buying it if license transfers were official and free-to-low fee.

plexuss · Post by **plexuss** » Wed Nov 29, 2017 3:04 pm

I've been demoing soothe. Does anyone else think soothe makes the audio sound brittle and harsh? I've been trying it on track sources as well as in mastering. On track sources, which I tried first, I liked the range of effect for sound design purposes. Then I moved onto mastering applications and this is where I heard this brittle/harshness. I am sure its doing the same thing on track sources but at the time I wasn't listening that closely, as closely as I do when mastering. I wouldn't want to use use soothe when mastering I dont think.

Here is an AB track where I switch between two versions of the track in real-time, with and without soothe. I am using soothe very subtly on this and even still that brittleness is apparent. The difference between A and B is subtle in this track, but soothe is the one that sounds brighter. I switch between them through the track usually at change in musical phrasing. If I apply soothe more, the brittleness gets worse. This was about as far as I could use it.

Maybe it's not a mastering tool and should only be used for tracking. I will have to try it on tracking and listen more closely for this brittleness.

https://soundcloud.com/plexus-productio ... -mastering

Lesha · Post by **Lesha** » Wed Nov 29, 2017 3:15 pm

Did you try oversampling and changing the resolution?

plexuss · Post by **plexuss** » Wed Nov 29, 2017 4:37 pm

Lesha wrote:Did you try oversampling and changing the resolution?

Yes. Oversampling is set to 4x on that track. I've tried different amounts of resolution - the finer the resolution the more grainy and edgy things sounds. For this track I tried to find a set of parameters that did the best job of correcting some resonances without going over-board but it still sounds edgy and brittle to me.

Scotty · Post by **Scotty** » Wed Nov 29, 2017 5:04 pm

If that image is the settings that you used to master I'd say you have the depth set way to high. I have used it for mastering and there is a just a little ripple in the waves - no deep notches. I would see that image profile that you posted when I was de-essing for sure but not that deep on the master bus. It looks to me that you have some pretty deep resonances that need to be addressed before the mastering bus ... perhaps soothe can help there (inside the mix on group perhaps) but it shouldn't be working that hard on the master bus in my experience.

plexuss · Post by **plexuss** » Wed Nov 29, 2017 6:41 pm

Scotty wrote:If that image is the settings that you used to master I'd say you have the depth set way to high. I have used it for mastering and there is a just a little ripple in the waves - no deep notches. I would see that image profile that you posted when I was de-essing for sure but not that deep on the master bus. It looks to me that you have some pretty deep resonances that need to be addressed before the mastering bus ... perhaps soothe can help there (inside the mix on group perhaps) but it shouldn't be working that hard on the master bus in my experience.

No, that is just the stock image from the website. I have very small notch excursions going on. If I go beyond small dips the audio quality gets even worse. In this mastering I aimed for a slight amount of reduction to help with some resonances but even still find the sound to be brittle as mentioned.

I did read a couple other people with the same opinion of soothe, in gearslutz. I am wondering if its a case of the overt effect soothe being pleasing while psychologically masking the bad artifacts? In other words, people hear the resonance reduction and proclaim soothe to be amazing because they are ignoring the harsh artifacts, as so often happens in audio.

I'll play with it some more but for masting I don't think its going to work. Sure it removes resonances but the brittle harshness negates those benefits. maybe it will find use in tracking and mixing or sound design. maybe.

plexuss · Post by **plexuss** » Thu Nov 30, 2017 4:47 am

I've just spent a number of hours working with soothe, Acon Defilter, frei:raum and MSpectralDynamics. Testing on various sources: vocal, acoustic guitar, synths, drums, synth drums...

So far I am finding that soothe and MSpectralDynamics pretty much do the same thing however MSD has many more parameters and things you can do. I have been trying to get either one to stand out both in terms of efficacy and sound quality and they are pretty much neck and neck. frei:raum and defilter have a different sound in that they are static where-as the other two are dynamic. Even for sound design MSD and soothe are pretty similar. I am looking for reasons to justify a $150 (Canadian) purchse of soothe while its on sale, but so far there is just too much over-lap with MSD, which I already have. that and the brittleness soothe imparts...

Scotty · Post by **Scotty** » Thu Nov 30, 2017 11:47 am

Interesting observations. I am not disputing your ears but I am questioning mine. I find soothe to be really smooth and transparent. I only rarely and lightly apply it to the master bus but I when I hear unpleasant artifacts I back it off and it for me vocals always sit better in a mix with soothe than with any de-esser that I have owned and I have a few.

I usually hit the worst resonances with a dynamic eq before it gets to soothe if I find I am asking soothe to do more than it can without breaking up. But I do find it remarkably tolerant and pleasing to the ear.

bmanic · Post by **bmanic** » Thu Nov 30, 2017 12:01 pm

Soothe can indeed be supremely transparent. If it isn't, I don't hesitate to blame the user in this case (sorry plexuss).

Also, Soothe is nothing at all like the melda plugin. Doesn't sound anything like it and doesn't operate anything like it either. Yes, I have both.

plexuss · Post by **plexuss** » Thu Nov 30, 2017 5:06 pm

bmanic wrote:Soothe can indeed be supremely transparent. If it isn't, I don't hesitate to blame the user in this case (sorry plexuss).

Also, Soothe is nothing at all like the melda plugin. Doesn't sound anything like it and doesn't operate anything like it either. Yes, I have both.

I totally disagree on both points. But then, thats the fun of audio.

I think people are being "fooled" by the effect of soothe and not listening close enough in order to hear the brittleness it imparts even when used sparingly. This is a pretty common "miss" by people - the best example is loudness where people will prefer a louder track even though there is more audible distortion and less PLR. The human brain is funny that way.

It's a shame that so many masters will be subjected to soothe's brittleness. Alas. So many masters have less than 4dB PLR and tons of intermodulation distortion because of the misuse of loudness.

But I get where you are coming from. Soothe is psychoacoustically... well.. soothing, despite the harsh artifacts.

Our ears just work very differently. I am 100% ok with that because I really like the results I get with my music and audio quality and I don't want to comprimise that. I am glad I listened closely however to soothe and looked beyond its psychoacoustic benefits.

I may still buy it. It can be useful for sound design. I just have to find out if and where it differs from MSpectralDynamics. Right now the differences are not $150 worth.

Here is another perspective on soothe from a guy with equally discriminating ears on gearslutz.

"Right, so first of id just like to add that this is not how I would think about this plug. I look at it as a "cleaner" plug. Like Soundsoap, a plug that removes static noice etc from samples, but Soothe removes resonance peaks only. Its a compromize as it also will remove other stuf from the sample in the same frequency range as the unwanted noise. So the trick is to "sneak" it in, blend it so that the positive outcome overshadows the negative. With Soundsoap when removing whitenoise some hf is also removed from the sample itself. Its about finding the sweetspot of the obviouse compromize.

"In a mix I would only use Soothe on very dificult single tracks, not groups or the master. This gives no damaging effect on the rest of the song.

"In mastering I would be very carefull with using it. Generelly speaking dont use destructive degrading fx in mastering unless the improved outcome overshadows the destructive cost! So for me that means only in extreme situations. Only 1 or 2 tracks I have mastered was this nessesary. Those were heavy psychedelic synth compositions with multiple ear shattering resonances all over the place. The obvious problems came from frequency sweeping synth filter/resonances that would be hard to track with static eqs.(crazy reaktor drones etc) Before Soothe I would use multiple soft eqs and "chase" these frequencies with automation. A huge job that could take hours.. With Soothe now I can just slap it on, fine tune a little, and its done. I would also automate the dry/wet so it only works in the problem era of the mix, and dont stay active all throughout the song.

"If anything you should be experiencing less details not more from using Soothe. I would also recomend to try all the different settings it has and find what works best for you.

"To make a sensible AB test of this plug I would first find a track or sample that highly needed resonance removing in the first place. Then you can AB vs the unprocessed file. I usually do this anyway: Have 2 tracks one with Soothe and one duplicate without, then I just solo back and forth between them until the Soothe track becomes an improvement. If it cant improve the sample or the song for me, aka if it is not able to tame the unwanted resonances without also degrading the sound too much, then I simply dont use it. If it does not improve then it will only degrade so it does not make any sense to slap it on just in case it might help..

I always do an AB test while I use it. Either loop a short section in the mix and just mouse click the vst on and of/bypass as an AB test, or make a duplicate track if mastering etc."

soothe by oeksound