Woah this was a really helpful video. I love how you quickly throw in other little tips too. Based off this video I think I'm gonna stick with Soothe 2 when it comes to eliminating harshness and then use Sculptor whenever I feel like I need help shaping the tone. One thing I'll add is that based on the title I expected the video to only be about what the title was about so bringing up smooth operator and other plugins, although helpful isn't what I was expecting or even wanting to know about. But of course thanks again!
Thanks so much, glad you enjoyed it! Yes, that's fair. I might tweak the title to better fit it. But you know, you gotta keep it short! Haha. Thanks for watching!
I find most izotope products disappointing TBH. Just because the competition is so good. When the competition wasn't as good as now well I was a fanboy back then... Hope my opinion helps
@@SuperIZL Your opinion always helps! I think you make a good point. They are an industry leader, especially in spectral audio correction, but there are many competitors now. Bertom Denoiser and Accentize DeRoom come to mind. Thanks for watching!
omg thanks Oscar! I'm very grateful you posted this, I was kinda disappointed with Sculptor because of the lack of precision... till I read your comment!
Don't forget that you can just insert various instances of Spectral Shaper. Such as one for 3k-8k upper harsh stuff and another for 800k-2k nasty midrange peaks.
You could! I would just be concerned about overprocessing, i.e., you have spectral crossovers overlapping. Could lead to phasing or pre-ringing. But that's a great idea: if it sounds good, it is good! Cheers!
I have Neutron and from using it for almost a year now, I usually use it in a similar way. Tame a problem resonance or for thickening up/thinning out things like a poorly recorded kick, overheads or piano. I find sculptor is surprisingly good on brass and for adding some life to high string arrangements. Sometimes it just sounds horrendously bad though. I never spend more than a minute or two with it. If its not in the ballpark of what I'm after and I cant quickly tweak it, I find it best to abandon ship and go the traditional route of taming the problems.
Oh, it's hard to resist, eh? Haha. It's actually good that you have them all, you can find the one that works best for you! Let me know what you liked the best. Thanks for watching!
soothe does an amazing job! For the izotope sculptor I would have loved to hear it with a lowpass enabled ( I think you can drag a thing from the left to only let it affect the mids/ highs)
I'm so happy I could help! Sometimes I think Izotope makes it tough to discover some of their plugins, because they name everything with "Ozone..." at the front, and they all look the same! Haha. Just a thought. Again, glad you found that. thanks for watching!
Excellent video - never been here before. You've explained Sculptor better than Izotope! I have Neutron 3 Advanced (includes Sculptor) RX9 and Soothe2. I have to say the latter is class, but as you suggest, if you use your ears Sculptor can get you off to a good start.
Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed the video. I would totally agree with this. If you've shelled out for an Neutron, then you probably don't need to shell out for soothe2 if you take the time to tune it in. Thanks for watching!
I can't wait to check this out. I was actually wondering about this already! I have both already, but hopefully I'll find out if there's difference or if I should just stick with one or the other.
Hi Onesto! I'm glad you're looking forward to it! I tested them out on guitar and vocals, I tried to keep it concise. Hopefully enough information to help you decide!
First, thank you for making this video. It's very helpful and I definitely learned a few things. Since you asked if you missed anything, there is one; Gulfoss.
On that harsh note in the vocal, Soothe 2 nailed it perfectly! I've seen enough to justify the crazy price OekSound is asking for Soothe 2. You may rest friend... your job here is done.
Thank you so much! Put it this way: the video game company I work for picked up soothe 2 because it helped so much with voiceovers being recorded during lockdown at home studios. It's an indispensable tool, if you can handle the price. Thanks so much for watching!
@@palebluedotstudios I went and purchased my license right after writing that comment. Story time! I have a track that I've been working off and on with for almost a full year. This track is in the style of I guess ska jazz or big-band pop. Lots of brass horns and a really distorted piano lead. Like a resonance nightmare to eq through. I've tried using a plethora of EQ plugins trying to isolate the harshness of these instruments to no avail; including Gulfoss, FabFilter's Q3 and even Ozone 10 Advance's spectral shaper. I am not joking when I say, Soothe 2 on DEFAULT removed the resonance harshness in my mix. I laughed out loud when I heard what it did to that mix. 🥲 I played around with its settings and got the mix FINALLY where I like it. They should've sent a poet instead, ... so beautiful... so so beautiful.
@@Bronwyn031 Wow, what an amazing story! I guess that's why soothe 2 is the industry standard! It can be really worth it to spend a bit on a plugin that saves you hours and hours and HOURS of work. Thanks for sharing your experience! :)
soothe 2 nailed it to me it didn't just remove that problem frequencies it also remove that odd almost double track sound in the lower registers it really did sound smoother. Yeah im getting that for sure
Chanced upon your website serendipitously; always refreshing to find a sensible voice amid the RUclips rabble. It often happens that synchronicity plays a part here. I was wondering what Izotope was doing under the hood of Sculptor recently. I'm ambivalent about these types of plugins. Yes, I did buy the Izotope bundle in the Black Friday Sales. Needed to gear match with a band on an album project so I picked it up during pre-production. The singer has a specific bespoke preset he uses. By week two it was off the Vox chain. Enough said. Merry Christmas, from London.
Cheers, my friend! Always great to hear from the U.K.! For me, I find the one thing that really sticks around from Izotope for me is the RX stuff. I know they rose through the ranks initially from the Ozone mastering suite, but their spectral correction stuff for audio post became their true killer feature! Glad you found the channel and enjoyed it! Stay tuned for more!
Great! Just the video I was waiting for! Very interesting indeed. I could certainly hear the differences. Oddly enough, on the last example with the female vocals when you put the soothe 2 video, to me it sounded like it was doing some weird shifting of frequencies, didn't sound as natural, only on that example. By the way, Sculptor also has handles at the sides, they're not too obvious and you can easily miss them, but you can also narrow the frequencies, just like spectral shaper, one high cut and one low cut. You could've probably gotten a better result with those, since you mentioned you felt sculptor was muffling the rest of the frequencies too much. Spectral Shaper has also a tone control which you could've tried also since you mentioned it needed some more eq'ing. Great comparison , I guess they are all similar technologies but different if you get what I mean hehe. Thanks for the comparison!
You are most welcome! I'm so glad you enjoyed it! I did completely miss the handles on Sculptor-my bad! Thanks for pointing that out. And you're right about soothe2! The example had pretty strong settings, and one has to be careful with these spectral correction plugins. Too much, and you have something that sounds...off. You're just listening to digital FFT adjustments. As for Spectral Shaper, whoops. I think I did neglect the tone. I had it in the script but I might have cut it. For what it's worth, I found the tone control to be a little too basic, but did help sometimes. All in all, they're good plugins that get better with time and familiarity! Thanks for watching!!
@@palebluedotstudios let's what we can expect from the next version of Ozone or Neutron, I think they could really improve on those based on what the competition is doing, should be interesting. And yeah, I got those tools, this video helped me understand their uses and strengths better, so thanks a lot man! 🔥 🎶
That is the exact intent of my videos! And also to educate myself, and you guys help to educate me further on them! I'm looking forward to the next iteration of these, especially with their embrace of AI.
I feel like gullfoss is also amazing at smoothing and giving a sheen to audio. Will look into soothe2 if its any different- Edit: just watched your gullfoss video, wasn't really a side by side comparison but still a great review!
Awesome! Yes, they not quite the same thing. You're right: I would say "sheen" would be more the domain of Gullfoss, and soothe2 is more about pure correction. Thanks for watching!
I like to leave it up to the viewer, but I think DSEQ is the best out of all of these, as it provides much more control over the EQ filters. And I find the Izotope stuff gets artificial-sounding more quickly.
in this example i liked the sound of sculptor most. yes, it did not do anything against your 3k resonance, but i really liked the way it interpreted this signal. it gave the guitar a good body that had a shimmering tone to it. i'd say that is the sweet spot of the guitar actually. also liked how it rolled off the highend softly. i usually like soothe most, but in this example not so much. however i think it's because you used it in a way that i wouldn't use it. for example you did not use the lowcut on the pre-eq. i know oeksound did their best to extend the spectral range to the lower frequencies in soothe2 compared to soothe1 but i still think that's not its strongest selling point. cutting resonances off lowmids can easily remove body on a signal. dseq and smooth operator did almost nothign in your example. maybe you'd need to turn it up some more? comparing anything with cubase' built-in multiband compressor is pointless btw. it is one of the most ugly sounding mb compressors i ever used so it can barely be referenced to any proper plugin.
Thank you for the detailed response! I did like Sculptor on the guitar too, but you are right: I believe I neglected to find the high-/low-shelf filters on this plugin! DSEQ and Smooth Operator were a little more subtle. And yes, Cubase's default multiband is not the best in the world! Maybe next time I'll use Fabfilter MB. Thanks so much for watching!
Thank you! I'm so glad you enjoyed the video. I actually love and use DSEQ all the time! I think it's better than soothe2 is some ways. You can watch my review (with soothe2 comparison) here: ruclips.net/video/73yXr0Tn-sY/видео.html
I have iZotope Sculptor, Sonible SmartEQ 3 and also MSpectralDynamics and in most cases I combine those, but MSpectralDynamics can do all of that except it does not have any profiles, but for spectral processing it is best I had ever have
@@crowkangi It's usage is not as straightforward as other tools but in addition you have much more control over result, because you can define different attack, release, EQ and threshold for whole spectrum, so you can make practically spectral magic. I agree that using presets is simpler, but once you find how it works and what it does, you can find in it features provided in separate plugins which are really expensive, like maximizer, flattener, de-esser, compressor, expander, all is possible, I would use it on all my tracks, if I would have enough CPU and GPU power for it. I must say that for long time I was un-supporter of the Melda plugins due ugly UI, but once I tried trials, I loved it and bought many of them. Funny part is that now they have nice UI and I want to stay on old one as I am already used to it.
I already have spectral shaper, it didn't seem like soothe 2 is worth the price for me personally. I'd rather spend the money on other plugins like vocalign, But if I had neither I'd go with soothe 2.
Makes sense-Vocalign is a killer tool. Ozone has a new Stabilizer plugin that does more of the same, plus DSEQ...a lot of options out there now. And Pantera rules!
It is exceptionally powerful, cheaper, and I found it better than the others on many occasions. Everyone should consider it when looking for spectral balancers! Thanks for watching!
It is doing something similar to soothe2, but Spectral Shaper is a little more like a traditional dynamic EQ that operates in a single, specified range, then adjusts the FFT spectral bands in that range only. Whereas soothe2 starts plotting and applying dynamic spectral processing right away, using a complex engine that tries to determine the spectral balance and with things like "phase vocoder and equalization". Both soothe and DSEQ offer much more EQ nodes and control over the sound. It's hard to say for sure because they all have their proprietary processing happening under the hood, but I would say Spectral Shaper is nice to have but limited. soothe2 or DSEQ will get you there more quickly and handle more than one resonance at a time.
Good one! Just a constructive remark: the timestamp links call Spectral Shaper incorrectly Spectral _Sculptor_. The cause is clear, and it doesn't really matter, but you might want to correct them for the sake of clarity. Should you decide to do so, feel free to delete this comment!
Oh, thank you for catching it! I love it when viewers find things like that, sometimes all these "S" names get mixed up in my spectral domain! Thanks for watching!
Technically, you could. But remember that you’re adding spectral processing on top of spectral processing, with potential phasing and artefact issues. But it’s worth a shot, especially with really tough recordings! Cheers!
I'm kind of confused why it seems that just about all of the engineers I see reviewing plugins or giving tutorials never seem to deess their audio on their videos. It is piecing. Maybe that's an engineer thing? Seriously wondering why.
Hmmm. It is a rather subjective thing, but I can say on my end, I have a very strong "esch" that microphones pick up on, and can be hard to control. I try to avoid any boosting at all, but I may have been adding a touch of exciter back in those days. Probably too much. Thanks for watching!
Soothe2 is a different tool than Neutron Sculptor. If you record Distorted Guitars, you are supposed to use Soothe immediately after a hpf in the chain to remove resonances.. and Sculptor after your EQs to help get a better eq curve, as sculptor is not a Resonance suppressor like soothe2.. it analyses your audio and alters the frequency spectrum and knows how a distorted guitar is supposed to sound (cause you select the profile) and alters the eq curve in a way that matches their profile. A similar tool would not be Spectral Shaper.. but "Match EQ"..
@@iamjiroe That's a good point. I don't mean these comparisons to be apples-to-apples, more like these are all plugins exploring EQ correction in the spectral domain. But you're right: smart:EQ and Sculptor would be a closer match, for example (no pun). Thanks!
@@palebluedotstudios I will give you that it may not cover all the tasks shown here, but for the tasks I typically have, even on full mixes, its BUS mode is performing very well and sounds really good.
I hate the izotope mix/mastering assistant on soo many layers. Stopped using izotope almost entirely at this point. There are just better alternatives out there and If you know what you're doing the assistant is completely useless
I agree about the assistant. I don't find it much better than doing it myself. There's no replacing good technique! But it can be a good starting point for some. Thanks for watching!
Thanks for watching! What do you guys think of Izotope Sculptor & Spectral Shaper? Let me know in the comments below!
Woah this was a really helpful video. I love how you quickly throw in other little tips too.
Based off this video I think I'm gonna stick with Soothe 2 when it comes to eliminating harshness and then use Sculptor whenever I feel like I need help shaping the tone.
One thing I'll add is that based on the title I expected the video to only be about what the title was about so bringing up smooth operator and other plugins, although helpful isn't what I was expecting or even wanting to know about.
But of course thanks again!
Thanks so much, glad you enjoyed it! Yes, that's fair. I might tweak the title to better fit it. But you know, you gotta keep it short! Haha. Thanks for watching!
I find most izotope products disappointing TBH. Just because the competition is so good. When the competition wasn't as good as now well I was a fanboy back then... Hope my opinion helps
@@SuperIZL Your opinion always helps! I think you make a good point. They are an industry leader, especially in spectral audio correction, but there are many competitors now. Bertom Denoiser and Accentize DeRoom come to mind. Thanks for watching!
@@palebluedotstudios thank you making the content! Subbed
In sculptor you can adjust the band the plugin acts on. That way you could take care of the 3k resonance you wanted to.
Yes. This is very disappointing, as other plugins are processing limited bandwidth, which makes the comparison flawed.
Yes exactly
omg thanks Oscar! I'm very grateful you posted this, I was kinda disappointed with Sculptor because of the lack of precision... till I read your comment!
Cheers! Thanks for pointing this out! I wish it had more bands, though...
Don't forget that you can just insert various instances of Spectral Shaper. Such as one for 3k-8k upper harsh stuff and another for 800k-2k nasty midrange peaks.
You could! I would just be concerned about overprocessing, i.e., you have spectral crossovers overlapping. Could lead to phasing or pre-ringing. But that's a great idea: if it sounds good, it is good! Cheers!
I have Neutron and from using it for almost a year now, I usually use it in a similar way. Tame a problem resonance or for thickening up/thinning out things like a poorly recorded kick, overheads or piano. I find sculptor is surprisingly good on brass and for adding some life to high string arrangements. Sometimes it just sounds horrendously bad though. I never spend more than a minute or two with it. If its not in the ballpark of what I'm after and I cant quickly tweak it, I find it best to abandon ship and go the traditional route of taming the problems.
I think that's a great rule of thumb: if you can't quickly dial it in, it's probably not the best tool! Great advice. Thanks for watching!
Spectral Shaper is my go-to for vocals, guitars, and keys. But in conjunction with a dynamic EQ, it's powerful.
Good idea. You can definitely do a lot with both! No reason to use just one tool.
I have all of these. I went a bit plug-in crazy over the last 2 years when I put together my studio for the first time. I’m still learning.
Oh, it's hard to resist, eh? Haha. It's actually good that you have them all, you can find the one that works best for you! Let me know what you liked the best. Thanks for watching!
@@palebluedotstudios Will do. 😊
soothe does an amazing job!
For the izotope sculptor I would have loved to hear it with a lowpass enabled ( I think you can drag a thing from the left to only let it affect the mids/ highs)
Good call! Yes, someone else pointed out the pass-filter handles that I missed. That can help control the signal more!
Thanks for letting me know that Spectral Shaper existed ... I have 9 Advance and use a ton of their tools but somehow overlooked this one ( :
I'm so happy I could help! Sometimes I think Izotope makes it tough to discover some of their plugins, because they name everything with "Ozone..." at the front, and they all look the same! Haha. Just a thought. Again, glad you found that. thanks for watching!
Excellent video - never been here before. You've explained Sculptor better than Izotope! I have Neutron 3 Advanced (includes Sculptor) RX9 and Soothe2. I have to say the latter is class, but as you suggest, if you use your ears Sculptor can get you off to a good start.
Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed the video. I would totally agree with this. If you've shelled out for an Neutron, then you probably don't need to shell out for soothe2 if you take the time to tune it in. Thanks for watching!
man I was looking for such a comparison for such a long time. thanks for this
My absolute pleasure! Glad to be of help. I'm going to review Izotope Ozone's Stabilizer very soon. Stay tuned. Thanks for watching!
I can't wait to check this out. I was actually wondering about this already! I have both already, but hopefully I'll find out if there's difference or if I should just stick with one or the other.
Hi Onesto! I'm glad you're looking forward to it! I tested them out on guitar and vocals, I tried to keep it concise. Hopefully enough information to help you decide!
First, thank you for making this video. It's very helpful and I definitely learned a few things. Since you asked if you missed anything, there is one; Gulfoss.
Glad you enjoyed the video! And thanks for your feedback. I did do a video on Gullfoss! You can find it here: ruclips.net/video/XGOe48KnA1Q/видео.html
Thanks for comparing these! Great and informative as hell!
My pleasure, Paul! I'm so glad you enjoyed it, and thanks very much for watching!
On that harsh note in the vocal, Soothe 2 nailed it perfectly!
I've seen enough to justify the crazy price OekSound is asking for Soothe 2.
You may rest friend... your job here is done.
Thank you so much! Put it this way: the video game company I work for picked up soothe 2 because it helped so much with voiceovers being recorded during lockdown at home studios. It's an indispensable tool, if you can handle the price. Thanks so much for watching!
@@palebluedotstudios I went and purchased my license right after writing that comment. Story time! I have a track that I've been working off and on with for almost a full year. This track is in the style of I guess ska jazz or big-band pop. Lots of brass horns and a really distorted piano lead. Like a resonance nightmare to eq through. I've tried using a plethora of EQ plugins trying to isolate the harshness of these instruments to no avail; including Gulfoss, FabFilter's Q3 and even Ozone 10 Advance's spectral shaper.
I am not joking when I say, Soothe 2 on DEFAULT removed the resonance harshness in my mix. I laughed out loud when I heard what it did to that mix. 🥲
I played around with its settings and got the mix FINALLY where I like it.
They should've sent a poet instead, ... so beautiful... so so beautiful.
@@Bronwyn031 Wow, what an amazing story! I guess that's why soothe 2 is the industry standard! It can be really worth it to spend a bit on a plugin that saves you hours and hours and HOURS of work. Thanks for sharing your experience! :)
Thanks for showing all this stuff
Literally my pleasure. Thanks for watching!
soothe 2 nailed it to me it didn't just remove that problem frequencies it also remove that odd almost double track sound in the lower registers it really did sound smoother. Yeah im getting that for sure
Good call. Yes, the more I use soothe, the more I hear it effortlessly clear up problems. DSEQ is the only one that comes close. Cheers!
Chanced upon your website serendipitously; always refreshing to find a sensible voice amid the RUclips rabble. It often happens that synchronicity plays a part here. I was wondering what Izotope was doing under the hood of Sculptor recently. I'm ambivalent about these types of plugins. Yes, I did buy the Izotope bundle in the Black Friday Sales. Needed to gear match with a band on an album project so I picked it up during pre-production. The singer has a specific bespoke preset he uses. By week two it was off the Vox chain. Enough said. Merry Christmas, from London.
Cheers, my friend! Always great to hear from the U.K.! For me, I find the one thing that really sticks around from Izotope for me is the RX stuff. I know they rose through the ranks initially from the Ozone mastering suite, but their spectral correction stuff for audio post became their true killer feature! Glad you found the channel and enjoyed it! Stay tuned for more!
Great comparison and video
Thank you so very much! That means a lot; glad to help out. Thanks for watching, cheers!
Great! Just the video I was waiting for! Very interesting indeed. I could certainly hear the differences. Oddly enough, on the last example with the female vocals when you put the soothe 2 video, to me it sounded like it was doing some weird shifting of frequencies, didn't sound as natural, only on that example.
By the way, Sculptor also has handles at the sides, they're not too obvious and you can easily miss them, but you can also narrow the frequencies, just like spectral shaper, one high cut and one low cut. You could've probably gotten a better result with those, since you mentioned you felt sculptor was muffling the rest of the frequencies too much.
Spectral Shaper has also a tone control which you could've tried also since you mentioned it needed some more eq'ing.
Great comparison , I guess they are all similar technologies but different if you get what I mean hehe. Thanks for the comparison!
You are most welcome! I'm so glad you enjoyed it! I did completely miss the handles on Sculptor-my bad! Thanks for pointing that out.
And you're right about soothe2! The example had pretty strong settings, and one has to be careful with these spectral correction plugins. Too much, and you have something that sounds...off. You're just listening to digital FFT adjustments.
As for Spectral Shaper, whoops. I think I did neglect the tone. I had it in the script but I might have cut it. For what it's worth, I found the tone control to be a little too basic, but did help sometimes. All in all, they're good plugins that get better with time and familiarity! Thanks for watching!!
@@palebluedotstudios let's what we can expect from the next version of Ozone or Neutron, I think they could really improve on those based on what the competition is doing, should be interesting. And yeah, I got those tools, this video helped me understand their uses and strengths better, so thanks a lot man! 🔥 🎶
That is the exact intent of my videos! And also to educate myself, and you guys help to educate me further on them! I'm looking forward to the next iteration of these, especially with their embrace of AI.
Is Ozone Spectral Shaper designed to do the same job as Soothe 2? IE Cutting Harsh frequencies?
I feel like gullfoss is also amazing at smoothing and giving a sheen to audio. Will look into soothe2 if its any different- Edit: just watched your gullfoss video, wasn't really a side by side comparison but still a great review!
Awesome! Yes, they not quite the same thing. You're right: I would say "sheen" would be more the domain of Gullfoss, and soothe2 is more about pure correction. Thanks for watching!
Wow I really enjoyed this video! Definitely a new subscriber.
Glad you enjoyed! And welcome aboard! Thanks for watching :)
Which plugin is best? Your videos leaves us with more questions than answers.
I like to leave it up to the viewer, but I think DSEQ is the best out of all of these, as it provides much more control over the EQ filters. And I find the Izotope stuff gets artificial-sounding more quickly.
Yay! Thanks for this 😀
My pleasure! I'm so glad you enjoyed it, much more to come! Thanks for watching!!
in this example i liked the sound of sculptor most. yes, it did not do anything against your 3k resonance, but i really liked the way it interpreted this signal. it gave the guitar a good body that had a shimmering tone to it. i'd say that is the sweet spot of the guitar actually. also liked how it rolled off the highend softly. i usually like soothe most, but in this example not so much. however i think it's because you used it in a way that i wouldn't use it. for example you did not use the lowcut on the pre-eq. i know oeksound did their best to extend the spectral range to the lower frequencies in soothe2 compared to soothe1 but i still think that's not its strongest selling point. cutting resonances off lowmids can easily remove body on a signal. dseq and smooth operator did almost nothign in your example. maybe you'd need to turn it up some more? comparing anything with cubase' built-in multiband compressor is pointless btw. it is one of the most ugly sounding mb compressors i ever used so it can barely be referenced to any proper plugin.
Thank you for the detailed response! I did like Sculptor on the guitar too, but you are right: I believe I neglected to find the high-/low-shelf filters on this plugin! DSEQ and Smooth Operator were a little more subtle. And yes, Cubase's default multiband is not the best in the world! Maybe next time I'll use Fabfilter MB. Thanks so much for watching!
Thx for the video. I recently got the Smooth Operator and I really like it. Low CPU.
Great to hear! Yes, it's very well-optimized. Watch out for the latency, if that's a consideration! Thanks for watching!
Loved the comparison. Thank you. What do you think about DSEQ as you didn't mention it in the conclusion (as it is more affordable than Soothe2)?
Thank you! I'm so glad you enjoyed the video. I actually love and use DSEQ all the time! I think it's better than soothe2 is some ways. You can watch my review (with soothe2 comparison) here: ruclips.net/video/73yXr0Tn-sY/видео.html
I have Ozone 9 and was thinking of getting Soothe 2 but I can't afford it so Spectral Shaper it is for now for me
Yeah, can't go wrong with Spectral Shaper! soothe is really expensive, so you have to really need it too. Cheers!
U sounded like the calmest plugin psychologist when u said it's cheap as hell.
That should be my new profession: plugin psychologist...
@@palebluedotstudios I love it!! Ur videos are good references. Much appreciated 💯💃🏽
@@NUANCEZONRISE Cheers! Thank you. Always great to hear! :)
I have iZotope Sculptor, Sonible SmartEQ 3 and also MSpectralDynamics and in most cases I combine those, but MSpectralDynamics can do all of that except it does not have any profiles, but for spectral processing it is best I had ever have
I forgot about MSpectralDynamics! I am going to have to check that out, and do a video on it! Thanks for that!
MSpectralDynamics is awesome but im sure that I barely know how to use it. I usually just mess around with presets.
@@crowkangi It's usage is not as straightforward as other tools but in addition you have much more control over result, because you can define different attack, release, EQ and threshold for whole spectrum, so you can make practically spectral magic. I agree that using presets is simpler, but once you find how it works and what it does, you can find in it features provided in separate plugins which are really expensive, like maximizer, flattener, de-esser, compressor, expander, all is possible, I would use it on all my tracks, if I would have enough CPU and GPU power for it. I must say that for long time I was un-supporter of the Melda plugins due ugly UI, but once I tried trials, I loved it and bought many of them. Funny part is that now they have nice UI and I want to stay on old one as I am already used to it.
@@crowkangi Cool. I'll have to test it out and do a video on it! Thanks!
@@palebluedotstudioswhen??))
That vocal has the all the sound of a tiny room
Good call. That's a scratch vocal!
OZONE ISOTOPE..,. ALWAYS 🤗
Ozone rules! I'm going to review Ozone 10 soon. Thanks so much for watching!
I already have spectral shaper, it didn't seem like soothe 2 is worth the price for me personally. I'd rather spend the money on other plugins like vocalign, But if I had neither I'd go with soothe 2.
Makes sense-Vocalign is a killer tool. Ozone has a new Stabilizer plugin that does more of the same, plus DSEQ...a lot of options out there now. And Pantera rules!
DSEQ3 sounds the best to me. The price is also better. Im considering a buy but gotta compare against soothe some more.
It is exceptionally powerful, cheaper, and I found it better than the others on many occasions. Everyone should consider it when looking for spectral balancers! Thanks for watching!
Soothe2 sounds like it removes the nasty frequencies whilst keeping everything nice and bright. All the others seem to just dull the sound.
There's a reason why it's the gold standard! Thanks for watching!
@@stephenr2434 It sure does! 💰
man, I almost died while watching and listening to these ~2500 hertz
Oh? Was it bad at ~2500 hz? Thanks for watching!
I wonder how Stabilizer stacks against soothe 2
I'm working on that video now! Cheers!
Can Izotope's Ozone Spectral Shaper do what Soothe 2 can do for cutting out harsh frequencies? Or is soothe 2 more efficient?
It is doing something similar to soothe2, but Spectral Shaper is a little more like a traditional dynamic EQ that operates in a single, specified range, then adjusts the FFT spectral bands in that range only. Whereas soothe2 starts plotting and applying dynamic spectral processing right away, using a complex engine that tries to determine the spectral balance and with things like "phase vocoder and equalization". Both soothe and DSEQ offer much more EQ nodes and control over the sound. It's hard to say for sure because they all have their proprietary processing happening under the hood, but I would say Spectral Shaper is nice to have but limited. soothe2 or DSEQ will get you there more quickly and handle more than one resonance at a time.
@@palebluedotstudios Brilliant, thanks very much for the in depth reply, appreciate your time!
@@DarrenCampbellmusic My pleasure! Thanks so much for watching!
Good one!
Just a constructive remark: the timestamp links call Spectral Shaper incorrectly Spectral _Sculptor_. The cause is clear, and it doesn't really matter, but you might want to correct them for the sake of clarity. Should you decide to do so, feel free to delete this comment!
Oh, thank you for catching it! I love it when viewers find things like that, sometimes all these "S" names get mixed up in my spectral domain! Thanks for watching!
maybe you can chain many sculptor to get that multiband?
Technically, you could. But remember that you’re adding spectral processing on top of spectral processing, with potential phasing and artefact issues. But it’s worth a shot, especially with really tough recordings! Cheers!
@@palebluedotstudios yeah thx !
Which Cubase is this
This video would be Cubase 11. Cheers!
👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👍🏾
Thank you for watching! 😃
I'm kind of confused why it seems that just about all of the engineers I see reviewing plugins or giving tutorials never seem to deess their audio on their videos. It is piecing. Maybe that's an engineer thing? Seriously wondering why.
Hmmm. It is a rather subjective thing, but I can say on my end, I have a very strong "esch" that microphones pick up on, and can be hard to control. I try to avoid any boosting at all, but I may have been adding a touch of exciter back in those days. Probably too much. Thanks for watching!
Better recordings have better outcome when processing... Law of nature. 😉
The wisest thing I've heard all week!
Soothe 2 winner
I think so too. Thanks for watching!
Soothe2 is a different tool than Neutron Sculptor. If you record Distorted Guitars, you are supposed to use Soothe immediately after a hpf in the chain to remove resonances.. and Sculptor after your EQs to help get a better eq curve, as sculptor is not a Resonance suppressor like soothe2.. it analyses your audio and alters the frequency spectrum and knows how a distorted guitar is supposed to sound (cause you select the profile) and alters the eq curve in a way that matches their profile. A similar tool would not be Spectral Shaper.. but "Match EQ"..
@@iamjiroe That's a good point. I don't mean these comparisons to be apples-to-apples, more like these are all plugins exploring EQ correction in the spectral domain. But you're right: smart:EQ and Sculptor would be a closer match, for example (no pun). Thanks!
i thought i was the only one who didnt like the ui of ozone
Good to hear! I find the preset system really annoying. Cheers!
@@palebluedotstudios true hehe
HOFA IQ-Series DeEsser persistently creates better sounding results here compared to iZotope Spectral Shaper.
Interesting! HOFA stuff is world-class, but I haven't tried it in years. I'll check it out, thanks. And you say it's good for this type of correction?
@@palebluedotstudios I will give you that it may not cover all the tasks shown here, but for the tasks I typically have, even on full mixes, its BUS mode is performing very well and sounds really good.
@@hjorte. I will definitely check it out! I've had my eyes on some HOFA stuff for awhile. I do wish they'd improve those designs, though...thanks!
Good review, terrible constipated vocal
Noted, haha! Thanks!
I hate the izotope mix/mastering assistant on soo many layers. Stopped using izotope almost entirely at this point. There are just better alternatives out there and If you know what you're doing the assistant is completely useless
I agree about the assistant. I don't find it much better than doing it myself. There's no replacing good technique! But it can be a good starting point for some. Thanks for watching!
SOOTHE 2 IS TOO EXPENSIVE
I agree, I feel it's a little too high. Cheaper alternatives: DSEQ, Smooth Operator, and bx_refinement.
You dont need soothe when you have sculptor. It does the job fine and dandy.
No need to purchase something else if one has invested into izotope, as the tools cover all needs. When used correctly of course.
@@fredraputznik2313 Use what ever gets the job done.
It should be fine for most things! I did the deeper controls in soothe. Thanks for watching!
@@thegroove2000 A good rule!
@@palebluedotstudios Enjoy man.
Worth watching just for the punch clowns comment
Haha! Thanks for catching that! Not a fan of those preset menus... And thanks for watching!
I found the comment to be problematic, as it implies that one need be really aggravated before it's deemed justifiable to punch clowns ;)