so if you have an instrumental and you want to mix in some vocals. You got all your vocal chain and at the end, you got an equalizer. Let’s say you have a boost at 250 hz on the lead vocals and you want to fit in those lead vocals in your instrumental. You set up the frequency plugin on the instrumental bus to make space for the lead vocals at this certain frequency. You define the lead vocals to be the side chain to make the frequency react to but the frequency plugin acts on the instrumental bus to make space there in subtle <2db order. So, in the attachment, you can see there that the arrow shows that the sidechain, namely the lead vocal chain, defines how much of the full eq reduction comes in (here at 1.8khz).
the threshold there, the peak. Does the frequency, when it reacts to take down the 250Hz, measure the side chain / input of the side chain at the certain frequency 250Hz or the general amplitude of that channel?
Where would be the advantage if using soothe 2 as explained in this video here:
One advantage of Soothe2 is that it can dynamically duck many frequencies simultaneously. It would be hard IMO to dial all those frequencies in manually with Cubase’s Frequency, or any other EQ.
I’d think it would be using whatever criteria you’re defining in the bands you’re using with the sidechain since the band settings govern what is being process. The sidechain just uses a different signal to control it than the signal on the channel in that band.
I haven’t used Soothe, but I have used Waves Curves Equator in a similar way. As @alexis suggested for Soothe, the advantage is it is detecting what is going on in the vocal in real time at lots of different frequency levels, thus being able to be more refined with how it is affecting the channel that is using the vocal as a sidechain. Like the video does, I’m tending to use it on the instrumental submix. Before that came along, I was often using Waves F6, which also has dynamic EQ similar to Frequency 2 occasionally. But Curves Equator was just a lot quicker for achieving results (and assumedly Soothe would be, too).
Thanks a lot for these responses. I will just invest the 200$ then.
I have one last question. Would you rather sidechain the lead vocals only or all vocals (lead vocals and all backing vocals on a bus) into that Soothe 2 or Waves Curves Equator plugin?
For about the same money as Soothe2 you could buy Izotope Neutron 5, which has an unmasking module that addresses the problem in a similar way as Soothe2, but gives you a whole mixing suite as well.
I haven’t compared the two in terms of quality.
If you’re interested in Soothe2 I’d also recommend looking at FabFilter ProQ4 which offers a similar function.
I’ve used Soothe2 a fair amount, it does well what it says it would. I’ve been surprised how subtle the side chain effect is (vocals in the side chain of a piano track, e.g.) - the Delta listen function is very revealing.
Neutron Unmask is definitely worth checking out. I’ve used that extensively over the last couple of years.
For what its worth, recently I’ve been using Fuser from Mastering The Mix. It isn’t as dynamic across multiple frequencies, but has the advantage of being able to analyse the phase and adjust automatically if needed.
I’ve found it particularly good on stacked vocals and samples - a much better reveal than just using Unmask.
My 2 cents on this one:
They are definitely different from one another. E.g., a Pro Q 4 aims at the same thing like Soothe 2, maybe, but is limited in its options. Nonetheless, very useful in some situations.
There are more alternatives out there and they all behave and sound differently because they apply different algorithms and have different options.
My advice: set up a real life scenario like you mentioned and test the plugins using the trial versions. Search “alternatives for Soothe 2” and you will find loads of plugins. As I said - each one is different and some of them are unusable for my taste. Sometimes the difference may seem subtle first but it will add up in the mix. You need to find out yourself which one serves your needs best.
That would depend on the track and its needs. Perhaps if it were something akin to a choir in the sense of the BGVs being fairly equally prominent to the lead, I might put an entire vocal submix there. However, to date, I’ve only used the lead as most of my projects tend to be pretty lyrics-centric, with the BGVs quite a bit further back from the lead (which is often doubled, be it with a real double or with ADT, especially in parts where there are BGVs). I might also be tempted to use the lead vocal as a sidechain into the same sort of facility in BGVs if the BGVs were fairly thick and competing too much with the lead, though I’ve usually used a combination of panning, fader levels, and maybe putting an exciter on the lead and using some subtractive EQ on the BGVs for that sort of thing.
BTW, Curves Equator is currently only $40 (its list price is only $80). I agree with the comment above about demoing any plugins you’re considering for this first.
I also have Neutron (4 – I haven’t upgraded to 5 to date), as well as Nectar 4, but, to be honest, I’m not sure if I’d tried the unmasking in those. In general, I don’t find myself using those plugins all that frequently, and it would be rare for me to use Neutron on an instrumental submix, and I’ve only used Nectar 4 a couple of times on vocals thus far (I almost never used Nectar 3 – while it sounded interesting on paper, and was part of whichever version of iZotope’s Music Production Suite was current at the time, I always seemed to lean toward other plugins for treating my vocals, even though I’d try it while figuring out my vocal chains). By contrast, I’ve used Curves Equator on every project I’ve done since picking that up (not just for this use, also for its automatic resonance suppression functionality).
Thank you for your replies. I first checked Neutron 5 but finally decided for the Curve Equator based on what I’ve read here. A bit tedious that there is no preset for this unmasking here. Basically just learn from the sidechain and probably not using a sensitivity above 30% I guess. Activate Rider for sure, disable Makeup and Limiter.
Also, some backing vox are very left or very right. Does the plugin equalize left and right differently depending on the sidechain? I dont think so at least it’s not visible in the stereo tool.
Yeah, a preset for unmasking probably wouldn’t make much sense in that it needs to react to what is coming from the side chain, and there may be some tailoring needed, too. One thing Waves is very good at is putting out lots of tutorial videos on the plugins, and that is mostly how I’ve learned to use them. There is a really good one dedicated to the unmasking with respect to vocals at:
BTW, he’s using all the vocals, not just the lead, for his example, and this is kind of the thick vocals scenario, where the lead doesn’t really stand out from the BGVs, so I can see why he does that.
I haven’t noticed anything, one way or the other. I’d guess not, though.
After following this thread and the extensive Gearspace discussion I thought I’d give the Waves plugin a spin in demo mode.
At the price point I thought it would be a no-brainer, but TBH I was underwhelmed when comparing to my combination of MTM Fuser and RESO. I guess it may be that I need more time to dig into it thoroughly as most reviews seem to love it, but it didn’t wow me as much as I’d hoped.
I hadn’t heard of either of those plugins until your mention, and the web pages for them don’t exactly give a lot of information. I’m guessing there are videos to be found elsewhere, but I have to say one thing Waves and iZotope do very well for people who’ve landed on their mailing list one way or the other, is give a lot of insight into what new plugins are for and how to use them. The video I linked above isn’t one that I noticed on their Curves Equator page when looking last night, but it’s one of those that came around in one of Waves’ email newsletters – pretty much every Saturday they have one with several videos and/or articles, especially when they have a new plugin that may not quite be obvious how to use to its full capacity. (The video I linked was one that turned me on to some specific details I’d missed in the more general stuff I’d seen at first.)
Quick side note: Waves also added a plugin they were giving away free on Black Friday called IDX Intelligent Dynamics, where the combination of that and Curves Equator may possibly be closer to the combination of Fuser and RESO you are alluding to. I haven’t yet had a chance to actually try IDX out on a real project yet. They had a blog that went into detail about the differences between them, when you’d use one versus the other, and when you’d use them together.
I had previously used some of iZotope’s masking features in Neutron, but at that point, it was more just letting you know regions to deal with yourself, whereas now it also has some more automatic features. I’d also been doing things manually with Waves F6 (and its dynamic side chain), and maybe I also tried Frequency 2’s similar feature at one point. In general, I’m EQing and panning my tracks in light of these sorts of considerations (since there were no dynamic EQs or “magic unmasking tools” when I started recording and mixing music), and I even use Cubase’s built-in track EQ with the side-by-side view of 2 tracks to work out issues in this territory.
It might well be that there are other tools out there (e.g. Soothe or the plugins you mention) that would be even better, but I’ve already got such a huge number of plugins that I don’t tend to go looking for plugins when I’ve already got something for a function. They just seem to come around all too frequently and convince me that they might help make my mixes better. (I actually had far too many of those occurrences last quarter, and a few earlier last year, but I have to say most of the “toys” I picked up actually did make a big difference for me, and the way I mixed, or rather remixed, my most recent projects ended up being quite a bit different from even projects I’d done early last year.)
(I actually had far too many of those occurrences last quarter, and a few earlier last year, but I have to say most of the “toys” I picked up actually did make a big difference for me, and the way I mixed, or rather remixed, my most recent projects ended up being quite a bit different from even projects I’d done early last year.)