Soothe2, on the other hand, does so in seconds. If you have something like an electric piano playing multiple chords and you’re trying to rein in specific resonances, it would be near impossible (or at least terribly time-consuming) to do so via EQ notches and automation. You may already have a multi-band, dynamic EQ or De-esser that can be used to help smooth out unwanted frequencies, but the precision you get from Soothe2 is unique. We wouldn’t want to go into battle without it. Though Soothe was already an excellent plug-in, these new additions help to widen its applications, with a bunch of additional presets showing off how it can be used on individual tracks, on the master and even as a sound-design tool. Despite the CPU improvements, using multiple Soothe2 instances across a project can prove a drain on resources, so the new Eco mode is especially welcome, as is the ability to set Offline rendering to higher settings. It all adds up to a versatile plug-in that you can bend to your will and more precisely aim at your track.

There are also several new EQ band shapes to refine where you place your processing, and a Balance control (which can be set globally or per band) that lets you focus more on the Left or Right, or Mid or Side portion of the signal. This allows you to carve out space in your mix by reducing competing frequencies, so you could put Soothe2 on a piano track and feed in your vocal so that it ducks the specific frequencies in real-time. Stay on tragerĮlsewhere, there’s now a welcome Sidechain input, as well as a Mid/Side mode for more targeted suppression, which is especially useful for mastering purposes. So you could, for example, let a snare transient through but reduce the resonance that rings out afterwards. Other useful new features include Attack and Release parameters so that you can control how fast the processing reacts to the audio. We find the Soft mode easy to use, and achieve effective smoothing results in seconds. There are now two algorithms to choose from: a Soft mode that’s more transparent and forgiving for general smoothing tasks, and a Hard mode that operates like the first iteration of Soothe. Where before it was aimed at taming harshness, it can now process the full spectrum, so it could potentially be used to balance out differences in the low-end. For the new version, Oeksound gave Soothe a complete rewrite, resulting in up to 40 per cent lower CPU usage, faster GUI rendering and lower latency.

Oeksound soothe download