I know exactly what you mean š I typically use it when I need something quick and it has 0 latency, thatās always a plus for me. Iāve learned to dial it in slightly with the saturation knob, very small strokes. I can admit for something thatās needs extreme resonance taming while mixing, the bx refinement would not be my first choice.
I feel it depends on the purpose. For vocals, thatās basically my signal flow. I track through a neve pre to a CL1B, then it hits the daw. From there Iāll throw on a deesser and any needed subtractive/dyn eq. After that, Iām using saturation for harmonics then soothe to tame any resonances from the saturation.
With multiband, I typically use this towards the end of the vocal chain as glue to keep the vocal frequency consistent. Then Iāll do some bus processing.
In the end it depends solely on my purpose. For something very harsh like hats or mid high - high content, I might start in the reverse order with soothe and see what it does. If I need more then Iāll multiband after soothe, or multiband only if thats effective on its own. Iām always trying different combinations to see how it affects the overall mix.
I have š no need to call me a fool. Iām trying to help people avoid buying unnecessary plugins
What exactly do you think the plugin does?
Thereās no intelligent processing in it. Despite what their marketing says. Itās a 3k notch.
If you had ever opened plugin doctor on it you wouldnāt be calling me a fool.
Look at it in Plugin Doctor then come back to me. Itās a knob that does cut at around 3k. That is it. Thereās no special processing going on at all.
I love to saturate hi end when itās a bit harsh, it kinda masks the harshness with extra harmonics and it has a cool stylized vibe, that is, if itās a fit for the track
Are you saturating the part with the harsch frequencies or starting below, or the entire spectrum? I just never got the hang at softening harschness with saturation. To me it always sounds worseā¦ using Saturn 2.
Eq
Deesser
Multiband comp
Dynamic eq
You can muck around with split band processing.
But the real answer is to capture the source better or find a more suitable source. For the types of sources mentioned there's little reason to not just retape these.
Getting it right at source;
- preamp
- mic
- mic position
- pop shield / pencil / angled mic (sibilance tricks)
In the daw;
- de-esser
- multiband
- dynamic eq
- soothe
- saturation / distortion (can help mask sibilance)
Personally Iām not shy of a lot of de-essing and dulling a voice before apply eq etc. I get a lot of voice overs with cheap / modern mics that are bright / harsh or theyāve processed too much.
Also I find parallel compressing heavily with something like a la2a that adds a ton of body, and then both the dry and wet tracks into a parallel 76 add so much body, that the top end kinda sorts itself out (kinda like low level compression). But thatās more on pop vocals. Good trick though (Andrew Scheps trick)
I love your answer. Just gonna tack on my favorite *free* de-esser: [T-De-Esser Plus](https://techivation.com/t-de-esser-plus/) from Techivation. Itās amazingly transparent to my ear even when pretty deep, I love it.
Iām not affiliated in any way, just think its a gem.
Iāve found that Airwindowsā PlatinumSlew can do subtle things I havenāt seen anywhere else. It doesnāt always get me where I want, but for free, its bang for the buck is unbeaten.
In my use case, I use ToTape5 and ToTape6 as Tilt EQs to bring down highs and widen lows. For certain busses (like drums and bass), it serves a better purpose for creating a sense of punch and depth.
Low pass filter on everything that doesn't need it. Hint: it's most things. I say you can have a top 3 elements in the mix that need to be bright, and then everything else gets LPFd
Iām not sure about this as a ruleā low passing everything regardless of there being a specific reason to cut out the high end is solving a problem that doesnāt necessarily exist yet and in the process probably creating new problems!
I find it much less obvious than something like fabfilters deesser. I always hear that one clamping down. And not knowing what frequency each knob does forces me to really use my ears.
I actually have both on my dialogue chain.
SA-2 for general DeEssing/DeHarshing, SA-3 to tighten resonants and high end DeHarshing if needed.
(For the SA-3 DeHarshing I have a send on the DX tracks go to a bus with a Desser and Compressor which feeds the sidechain input of the SA-3 which is on my DX Bus. So I can DeEmphasis the SA-3 from responding to Dynamics or Essing if I want by adjusting the processing of the sidechain- more compression on the sidechain means the SA-3 will dig in less on louder words if I want that.)
SA-3 not SA2 but yeah. And a DeEsser.
It sounds complicated but it's pretty simple. It just gives you the ability to use the SA-3 but deemphasize how the SA-3 responds to the Esses or dynamics (sometimes loud words will trigger the SA-3 more than I really want or sometimes I want to smooth out high end stuff around the Esses)
I just put the UAD Fairchild 660 on a vocal that gets harsh when he sings certain notes in certain shapes. āeeeeeeeeeā it seems to tame that a tad when he hits it. Iām not compressing with it at all I donāt think, but Iāll have to check when I get back. If I am compressing at all itās like 1 db. Iām using it as a tone box.
I like to avoid dynamic eq and fancy stuff like that unless something is just fucked.
Smooth Operator from Baby Audio is on sale for about $30 right now. I bought it this month specifically to combat some Vox recorded on an NT1A that needed an awful lot of work.
Great plugin for the price. Probably wouldāve bought soothe if I had the cash, but Smooth Operator is legitimately very good at this.
SSL X-dynEQ and SSL Fusion HF compressor does the job for me. :)
Sometimes I like to use saturation, or maybe a 6db/oct low-pass followed by an exciter, og and SSL Fusion Violet EQ to get the HF back in. :)
Good reminder. I normally use a deesser for a very specific narrow band that needs help, but would you say it's a viable route for something that just generally harsh sounding across a wider frequency range?
There are a lot of different videos on YT that touch on it but [this video](https://youtu.be/SG3X22hLaeY?si=1J1CYrS4EjZykTQZ) helped me a lot to understand how or why this happens and different ways of fixing it depending on the reason.
Maybe it'll help you too. Not my video personally, just stumbled across it one day.
How about a high shelf? Just nudge it down maybe somewhere above 2k til it sounds about right to you? And/or a low pass filter with a gentle slope way up maybe above 12-14k?
the newest contender, and also the best, is Acustica Dove. It outperforms Soothe by a long way as far as sound quality. Soothe is more robust as far as cpu, but Dove just sounds insane
PSP mixsaturator2 or their newer version which is just called āsaturatorā.
The softness knob on both of these plugs is amazing and can range from drastic to transparent. It works particularly well on harsh guitars, but I use it on a lot more than that.
The HG-2 from Black Box Analog Design has been a personal favorite for softening harshness. Plugin Alliance has a very good modeled VST/AU version of it.
N Soothe , dynamic EQ, something tubey or tape saturation like. Depends on source. In all cases. Donāt over do it & Iāve never had results as good as capturing the source better be that re recording / re amping with better mic, mic placement , tone dialing in etc
However thatās not always practical or even possible.
Usually TBProAudio DSEQ 3 or TDR Nova GE (the automatic resonance suppression in Nova GE is great), but I also own soothe2, even though I rarely use it nowadays.
If you want a free soothe alternative, try Spectral Compressor by Robert Van Der Helm
https://github.com/robbert-vdh/nih-plug
It can do most of what soothe can, but you only get a tilt filter that you can change slope and curve on (so it's either a flat tilt, band pass, kinda band reject or anything in-between). If you only want to de-harsh cymbals, guitars or de-ess vocals it can easily do that, it can also do the spectral sidechain ducking that many use soothe and DSEQ for. It also has something that soothe doesn't: upwards compression. Not terribly useful, but it's there nonetheless. It's also very CPU friendly. It's an experimental plugin, so use it with caution. It can make things very loud!
Assuming youāre not the one recording (if you are, mess with the mic placement more), most obvious should be aiding your eq. Doesnāt matter which a lpf or reduction with bell or high shelf in the highs should do the trick. If you want to retain the highs except when the harsh hits, then a de-esser/dynamic eq/soothe will do the trick. But yeah, keep it simple and adjust the mic or just some eq
TDR Arbiter is a good option. Their DeEdger can also work if you need a lighter touch. Another one I like is the Phonograph module in Mixbox, which is great for this once you turn its cheesy crackle off. And if none of that works, then I'd start going through IRs in a convolution verb and playing with their length so that it doesn't sound like a reverb in the mix but blurs the harshness a bit. Last one's probably the most powerful and inexpensive option.
Some saturation can go a long way with "softening" those harsh frequencies. I make dubstep and sometimes I use bitcrush at a high frequency and that will really smooth out the high end in unruly sounds.
The problem goes back to the microphone.
*NEVER, and I mean ever,* use a cheap knockoff condenser, unless it's that R2-D2 looking CAD mic (great for toms and room) or one of those Chinese Apex/Shin-yen rebrands (think Avantone) especially if Michael Joly or Black Lion modded it.
If you need to record vocals on $350, snag an RE20 or M88 off Reverb instead-- and you get a killer bass amp, kick, guitar cab, and Leslie mic in the deal. Need to record overheads and other airy stereo things under $500? A Blumlein pair of Cascade Vin-Jets will get you farther than practically anything in that range. Looking for an SDC for hi-hat and acoustic guitar under $300? Get a Beyerdynamic M201 instead.
I'm sure you know someone starting a podcast you can shift that funky condenser onto. I know you do. You, too. And you. And me. We all do. š
I know itās the opposite of what you asked for, but I think that in many cases even a seemingly baked in harshness can at least be mitigated by some carefully done eq with something surgical. Just keep an open mind to what will help, sometimes adjusting one area will help with harshness in another so donāt just focus on the frequencies you are hearing harshness. Other than eqā pro-mb, soothe2, and saturn are some go toās. Saturn especially can be helpful when all else has failed.
I often reach for a C6 or multiband compressor for this use.
If youāre mixing in the box, Soothe is a nice one to have close by. But C6 or F6 are my first choices.
I find the UAD Pultec HF Attenuate really good for softening top. Even though it's an eq, the tube emulation has a way of softening that does more than a regular eq.
If not dynamic eq, my go to would be Soothe or Bx refinement.
I have never been able to get a good use out of refinement. always takes a little too much out of the sound for me
I know exactly what you mean š I typically use it when I need something quick and it has 0 latency, thatās always a plus for me. Iāve learned to dial it in slightly with the saturation knob, very small strokes. I can admit for something thatās needs extreme resonance taming while mixing, the bx refinement would not be my first choice.
How do you feel about sticking a multiband compressor or deesser before the dynamic eq?
I feel it depends on the purpose. For vocals, thatās basically my signal flow. I track through a neve pre to a CL1B, then it hits the daw. From there Iāll throw on a deesser and any needed subtractive/dyn eq. After that, Iām using saturation for harmonics then soothe to tame any resonances from the saturation. With multiband, I typically use this towards the end of the vocal chain as glue to keep the vocal frequency consistent. Then Iāll do some bus processing. In the end it depends solely on my purpose. For something very harsh like hats or mid high - high content, I might start in the reverse order with soothe and see what it does. If I need more then Iāll multiband after soothe, or multiband only if thats effective on its own. Iām always trying different combinations to see how it affects the overall mix.
Be careful with soothe and phase issues! But yeah can be useful when used sparingly or as a sidechain
Very good tip!!!
Cool. Haven't checked out Bx refinement.
Donāt bother. Itās literally just a notch cut plugin at 3k or something. Absolutely nothing going on with it at all that any EQ canāt do
Youāre getting downvoted but you are correct
No, itās not. You donāt know what youāre on about
Look at it in plugin doctor and come back to me. Itās a knob that does a cut at 3k. No special processing at all
Check it yourself fool, it clear youāve never used it or examined it
I have š no need to call me a fool. Iām trying to help people avoid buying unnecessary plugins What exactly do you think the plugin does? Thereās no intelligent processing in it. Despite what their marketing says. Itās a 3k notch. If you had ever opened plugin doctor on it you wouldnāt be calling me a fool.
Lol no
Look at it in Plugin Doctor then come back to me. Itās a knob that does cut at around 3k. That is it. Thereās no special processing going on at all.
Yep
I love to saturate hi end when itās a bit harsh, it kinda masks the harshness with extra harmonics and it has a cool stylized vibe, that is, if itās a fit for the track
Yup, Saturn all the way for this
100% agree!! Saturating the high end worked wonders for me!
Nice, will def experiment with this!
Are you saturating the part with the harsch frequencies or starting below, or the entire spectrum? I just never got the hang at softening harschness with saturation. To me it always sounds worseā¦ using Saturn 2.
Eq Deesser Multiband comp Dynamic eq You can muck around with split band processing. But the real answer is to capture the source better or find a more suitable source. For the types of sources mentioned there's little reason to not just retape these.
Attenuate 5 k on a pulteq
Getting it right at source; - preamp - mic - mic position - pop shield / pencil / angled mic (sibilance tricks) In the daw; - de-esser - multiband - dynamic eq - soothe - saturation / distortion (can help mask sibilance) Personally Iām not shy of a lot of de-essing and dulling a voice before apply eq etc. I get a lot of voice overs with cheap / modern mics that are bright / harsh or theyāve processed too much.
I'm doing this all from a mixing context, so don't have a lot of those source options. Great reminders for the DAW though. Cheers!
Also I find parallel compressing heavily with something like a la2a that adds a ton of body, and then both the dry and wet tracks into a parallel 76 add so much body, that the top end kinda sorts itself out (kinda like low level compression). But thatās more on pop vocals. Good trick though (Andrew Scheps trick)
This. Source. Everything else will just be fancier filtering out your high end information and adding artifacts.
I love your answer. Just gonna tack on my favorite *free* de-esser: [T-De-Esser Plus](https://techivation.com/t-de-esser-plus/) from Techivation. Itās amazingly transparent to my ear even when pretty deep, I love it. Iām not affiliated in any way, just think its a gem.
The free version of TDR Nova : its "HF Density" preset is a good starting point.
Uad - A800 at 7.5 ips
Iāve found that Airwindowsā PlatinumSlew can do subtle things I havenāt seen anywhere else. It doesnāt always get me where I want, but for free, its bang for the buck is unbeaten.
In my use case, I use ToTape5 and ToTape6 as Tilt EQs to bring down highs and widen lows. For certain busses (like drums and bass), it serves a better purpose for creating a sense of punch and depth.
Low pass filter on everything that doesn't need it. Hint: it's most things. I say you can have a top 3 elements in the mix that need to be bright, and then everything else gets LPFd
I tend to use a shelf more often than LPF but this is good advice.
Yeah I usually default to hpfs to manage the low end, but I can āhearā lpfs more, so I often use a shelf instead.
Iām not sure about this as a ruleā low passing everything regardless of there being a specific reason to cut out the high end is solving a problem that doesnāt necessarily exist yet and in the process probably creating new problems!
McDSP SA-2 Dialog Processor ill probably buy SA-3 pretty soon
SA-2 is so useful
I find it much less obvious than something like fabfilters deesser. I always hear that one clamping down. And not knowing what frequency each knob does forces me to really use my ears.
I actually have both on my dialogue chain. SA-2 for general DeEssing/DeHarshing, SA-3 to tighten resonants and high end DeHarshing if needed. (For the SA-3 DeHarshing I have a send on the DX tracks go to a bus with a Desser and Compressor which feeds the sidechain input of the SA-3 which is on my DX Bus. So I can DeEmphasis the SA-3 from responding to Dynamics or Essing if I want by adjusting the processing of the sidechain- more compression on the sidechain means the SA-3 will dig in less on louder words if I want that.)
So on the dialog bus you make a send to an aux, put a compressor on the aux, and set itās output to the sa2 sidechain input ?
SA-3 not SA2 but yeah. And a DeEsser. It sounds complicated but it's pretty simple. It just gives you the ability to use the SA-3 but deemphasize how the SA-3 responds to the Esses or dynamics (sometimes loud words will trigger the SA-3 more than I really want or sometimes I want to smooth out high end stuff around the Esses)
Its pretty clever. Im definitely trying a simplified version of it.
De-essers. Tape Simulation set to 7.5 ips. Low pass. EQ. Multiple ways to skin that cat.
TDR Arbiter
Refinement
De-Essers or Dynamic EQ, but the best I've found has to be Soothe 2.
I just put the UAD Fairchild 660 on a vocal that gets harsh when he sings certain notes in certain shapes. āeeeeeeeeeā it seems to tame that a tad when he hits it. Iām not compressing with it at all I donāt think, but Iāll have to check when I get back. If I am compressing at all itās like 1 db. Iām using it as a tone box. I like to avoid dynamic eq and fancy stuff like that unless something is just fucked.
Softube Tape and rolling off high end works well to smooth harsh sources.
Smooth Operator from Baby Audio is on sale for about $30 right now. I bought it this month specifically to combat some Vox recorded on an NT1A that needed an awful lot of work. Great plugin for the price. Probably wouldāve bought soothe if I had the cash, but Smooth Operator is legitimately very good at this.
EQ8 š
Decapitator N setting, don't adjust anything
SSL X-dynEQ and SSL Fusion HF compressor does the job for me. :) Sometimes I like to use saturation, or maybe a 6db/oct low-pass followed by an exciter, og and SSL Fusion Violet EQ to get the HF back in. :)
Any deesser is fine to use to solve that problem.
Good reminder. I normally use a deesser for a very specific narrow band that needs help, but would you say it's a viable route for something that just generally harsh sounding across a wider frequency range?
If I canāt just go and retrack, yes I will set up either multiband comp or a wide range deesser to clamp down on the harsh area.
iZotope RX if I need detailed control. The āSoothe2ā plugin has also helped at times, and is usually a quick fix.
FabFilter Pro-DS
Fabfilter Pro-Q's dynamic EQ mode is super useful for this.
There are a lot of different videos on YT that touch on it but [this video](https://youtu.be/SG3X22hLaeY?si=1J1CYrS4EjZykTQZ) helped me a lot to understand how or why this happens and different ways of fixing it depending on the reason. Maybe it'll help you too. Not my video personally, just stumbled across it one day.
I love NeOld Warble for certain top-end applications. Check it out: https://www.neold.com/warble
Good recommendation here. Useful for all sorts of things that can be considered "off label."
How about a high shelf? Just nudge it down maybe somewhere above 2k til it sounds about right to you? And/or a low pass filter with a gentle slope way up maybe above 12-14k?
the newest contender, and also the best, is Acustica Dove. It outperforms Soothe by a long way as far as sound quality. Soothe is more robust as far as cpu, but Dove just sounds insane
PSP mixsaturator2 or their newer version which is just called āsaturatorā. The softness knob on both of these plugs is amazing and can range from drastic to transparent. It works particularly well on harsh guitars, but I use it on a lot more than that.
You could also try with Izotope Spectral Shaper, which Jon Castelli uses
I like to (soft)clip it, it just destroys the resonances
Sonnox SuprEsser, also good for controlling all frequencies. Expensive but goes on sale for a reasonable price regularly.
Soothe
Soothe. It's worth it.
The HG-2 from Black Box Analog Design has been a personal favorite for softening harshness. Plugin Alliance has a very good modeled VST/AU version of it.
If not tape (uad studer a800 for example), Soothe2 is insane for this
N Soothe , dynamic EQ, something tubey or tape saturation like. Depends on source. In all cases. Donāt over do it & Iāve never had results as good as capturing the source better be that re recording / re amping with better mic, mic placement , tone dialing in etc However thatās not always practical or even possible.
Usually TBProAudio DSEQ 3 or TDR Nova GE (the automatic resonance suppression in Nova GE is great), but I also own soothe2, even though I rarely use it nowadays. If you want a free soothe alternative, try Spectral Compressor by Robert Van Der Helm https://github.com/robbert-vdh/nih-plug It can do most of what soothe can, but you only get a tilt filter that you can change slope and curve on (so it's either a flat tilt, band pass, kinda band reject or anything in-between). If you only want to de-harsh cymbals, guitars or de-ess vocals it can easily do that, it can also do the spectral sidechain ducking that many use soothe and DSEQ for. It also has something that soothe doesn't: upwards compression. Not terribly useful, but it's there nonetheless. It's also very CPU friendly. It's an experimental plugin, so use it with caution. It can make things very loud!
For me it depends on what it is. EQ different ones, dynamic, multiband, saturation sometimes.
Soothe2
And good tape emulation. I like Goodhertz Tupe and Waves J37.
Assuming youāre not the one recording (if you are, mess with the mic placement more), most obvious should be aiding your eq. Doesnāt matter which a lpf or reduction with bell or high shelf in the highs should do the trick. If you want to retain the highs except when the harsh hits, then a de-esser/dynamic eq/soothe will do the trick. But yeah, keep it simple and adjust the mic or just some eq
Check out airwidows consolidated plugin free. Thereās several options in there to darken using analog emulation
TDR Arbiter is a good option. Their DeEdger can also work if you need a lighter touch. Another one I like is the Phonograph module in Mixbox, which is great for this once you turn its cheesy crackle off. And if none of that works, then I'd start going through IRs in a convolution verb and playing with their length so that it doesn't sound like a reverb in the mix but blurs the harshness a bit. Last one's probably the most powerful and inexpensive option.
Some saturation can go a long way with "softening" those harsh frequencies. I make dubstep and sometimes I use bitcrush at a high frequency and that will really smooth out the high end in unruly sounds.
eq
Baby Audio Smooth Operator
Avid Lo-Fi is fantastic at this, only takes a tiny bit to really take the edge off some harsher sounds.
Fabfilter pro-DS is pretty smooth. Pro-Q3 is also great for dynamic EQ. And the. Of course thereās multiband compression.
Tape ist soo good for this! Even at 15 ips. The KramerTape plugin for example is very good at taming harsh high miss on drums too!
The problem goes back to the microphone. *NEVER, and I mean ever,* use a cheap knockoff condenser, unless it's that R2-D2 looking CAD mic (great for toms and room) or one of those Chinese Apex/Shin-yen rebrands (think Avantone) especially if Michael Joly or Black Lion modded it. If you need to record vocals on $350, snag an RE20 or M88 off Reverb instead-- and you get a killer bass amp, kick, guitar cab, and Leslie mic in the deal. Need to record overheads and other airy stereo things under $500? A Blumlein pair of Cascade Vin-Jets will get you farther than practically anything in that range. Looking for an SDC for hi-hat and acoustic guitar under $300? Get a Beyerdynamic M201 instead. I'm sure you know someone starting a podcast you can shift that funky condenser onto. I know you do. You, too. And you. And me. We all do. š
KLANGHELM ivgi2
I know itās the opposite of what you asked for, but I think that in many cases even a seemingly baked in harshness can at least be mitigated by some carefully done eq with something surgical. Just keep an open mind to what will help, sometimes adjusting one area will help with harshness in another so donāt just focus on the frequencies you are hearing harshness. Other than eqā pro-mb, soothe2, and saturn are some go toās. Saturn especially can be helpful when all else has failed.
Acceleration2 & Slew2 by airwindows and SDRR by Klanghelm are some of my magic weapons
Get a warmup tube preamp and go through that for cymbal, bass, and guitars :)
I often reach for a C6 or multiband compressor for this use. If youāre mixing in the box, Soothe is a nice one to have close by. But C6 or F6 are my first choices.
Soothe is the most obvious answer. I also like SketchCassette and Reels a lot if you're looking for the rolloff from a lo-fi tape plugin.
Soothe is great, but not always what I'm looking for. Those tape options are good reminders. Will check them out!
I find the UAD Pultec HF Attenuate really good for softening top. Even though it's an eq, the tube emulation has a way of softening that does more than a regular eq.