In this article for Production Expert, Graham Kirkman gives us an overview of oeksound's soothe2 explicitly aimed at those mixing TV documentaries, magazine shows, travel shows, and cooking shows.

oeksound describe soothe2 as a "dynamic resonance suppressor that identifies problematic resonances on the fly and applies matching reduction automatically. soothe2 can be used to reduce harshness, sibilance and mud from the sound source, and excels in fixing a range of problems. 

With soothe2 you can: Remove harshness from close mic'd sound sources. Transparently manage sibilance in vocals and dialogue. Treat uneven tonal balance from suboptimal recordings: clear muddiness, boominess, and proximity effect. Soften overly bright guitar and piano recordings. Tame piercing synth sounds."

Phew. Well, does it live up to the expectations?

Before I went into my experience, I looked online at other users' experiences and found that most people loved it. Still, very quickly I started to see a pattern - they were all music producers, and for music (and musical based FX) it is indeed impressive. Get yourself a resonant recording of a cymbal swell, whoosh, drum kit, overhead mic(s), and it really does smooth the harsh frequencies down nicely, without destroying the timbre of the source. So far, so good.

How does it fare for us TV mixers on the most essential part of our work - dialogues. I don't know about you, but a very (very) high percentage of jobs I work on these days have awful quality dialogues, which means I have to use every noise reduction tool I own (and I own a lot) to make the sound half-decent. By the time I've got it sounding acceptable, nothing much remains for soothe2 to actually do! Resonant frequencies have mostly been tamed. Using soothe2 first doesn't really make sense either as it's not a noise reduction tool.

soothe2 is definitely suited for better quality, recorded audio, than the majority of jobs I mix. Which leads me onto where soothe2 provided incredibly useful for me, and that's voiceovers. Obviously, a voiceover is sonically the same throughout a programme. It is (mostly) well recorded so here soothe2 shines and really helps to dynamically dial down horrible resonant frequencies that may be present. In these days of 'remote record talent in their kitchen' sessions that can end up not sounding bad and need low-end muddiness (from the room) and sibilance (from the £50 mic) removed. Here is where soothe2 shines, really helping me tame any extraneous frequencies I'd rather not hear.

The beauty of soothe2 is that it's very subtle and transparent (although it can be pushed using 'hard' mode.) The GUI is lovely and shows the frequencies currently affecting and how much. It is one of those features that you're best to use just as a reference as what it looks like it's doing and what it actually is doing seem vastly different to me, so do everything by ear and (mostly) ignore the graph.

I'm really struggling to describe its effect without using the word 'soothe' because that's precisely what it does. I guess it sounds as though it's flattening out (or ducking) the resonant frequencies you choose. Note that you can really push it if you so require - which is excellent as it's good to have the ability to go from one extreme to the other because you never know when you may need it, and if you don't - nothing lost.

It has a 'delta' button which instantly lets you hear what it's 'soothing' and is incredibly handy. It can also be set so that when you grab a frequency band selector, that frequency is what you hear. I love this feature and have it set like that permanently. You can adjust the amount soothe2 works by changing the depth and then alter the sharpness depending on the audio you're affecting. The more sharpness you select, the more specific the resonance, roll off the bite, and soothe2's influence becomes more general. You can also use the selectivity to define how selective soothe2 is about what frequencies are targeted. Push the selectivity, and more of the frequencies you've selected get affected and vice-versa. Selectivity determines how selective soothe2 is about the frequencies suppressed, allowing you to fine-tune the responsiveness together with the depth control.

Final Thoughts

I found soothe2 to be a worthwhile addition to your plug-in toolkit, mostly if you work with decent quality source audio and music. And if you're like me, working on, shall we say 'challenging' audio then Soothe2 can still be helpful on your voiceover channel and maybe your audio suite for select dialogue clips.

soothe2 is priced at £175 (UK) and you can get a 20 day trial licence. To find out more head over to oeksound’s website.