Modern music producers have access to powerful “smart” audio plugins that can fix harsh frequencies and balance mixes in ways traditional EQs can’t. Soothe2 (by Oeksound) and Gullfoss (by Soundtheory) are two popular examples, often mentioned in mixing and mastering workflows. Both tools listen to your audio and make intelligent frequency adjustments on the fly – but they aren’t the same. In this comparison, we’ll look at what each plugin does, their main features, how they differ in practice, and when you might reach for one over the other.
What Does Soothe2 Do?![]()
Soothe2’s interface. The large “Depth” knob sets how much reduction is applied, and the frequency graph (right) shows real-time cuts as grey dips at problem frequencies. In this preset for a female vocal, Soothe2 is dynamically attenuating harsh peaks while leaving the rest of the audio untouched.
Soothe2 is often described as a dynamic resonance suppressor. In simple terms, it finds harsh, resonant frequencies in your sound (the kind that hurt your ears or make a mix sound “honky” or “sizzly”) and turns them down automatically. Instead of you manually sweeping an EQ to notch out those annoying tones, Soothe2 continuously listens and only cuts the bad frequencies when and where needed, without dramatically affecting your overall tone. This makes the sound smoother and more balanced, “saving you from having to notch out frequencies by hand”
How it works:
Soothe2 splits the incoming audio into many narrow frequency bands behind the scenes. It uses an algorithm to detect which specific frequencies are “ringing” or poking out unpleasantly. When it finds a resonance, it applies a small reduction just on that frequency (and only for as long as the resonance is present). If the resonance goes away (for example, a moment of no “ess” sound in a vocal), Soothe2 backs off the cut. The result is a transparent smoothing effect – you tame the harsh bits without dulling the rest of the signal In fact, Soothe2 only targets problematic peaks and “the reduction only kicks in when and where needed, without affecting nearby frequency areas.”
Key features:
The plugin gives you controls to adjust how it reacts: a big Depth knob to dial in the overall amount of cut, and Sharpness and Selectivity knobs to tweak how narrow or selective the cuts are. There’s also an Attack/Release (Speed) control that sets how quickly it responds to changes, and you can limit the processing to certain frequency ranges by using its graph nodes (just like setting frequency bands on an EQ). Notably, Soothe2 lets you solo the “delta” (the part it’s removing) so you can hear what resonances are being tamed – this helps in fine-tuning it. It even has a sidechain mode, meaning you could feed one signal into Soothe2 to trigger reduction on another (an advanced trick for things like ducking a guitar’s harshness when a vocal is present, for example). Overall, the interface is intuitive and visual, so you can literally see where those nasty frequencies are being pulled down.
Practical uses: Soothe2 shines on individual tracks that have harsh or uneven tone. It’s famous as a vocal processor – many producers use it as a super-transparent de-esser, catching not just “s” sounds but any harsh resonances in a vocal performance. It can smooth out an edgy singer’s peaks without making the vocal lisp or lose clarity. It’s also excellent on instruments: for example, taming the shrill top-end of a distorted guitar, the honk of a saxophone, or the “muddy” resonances in a piano or acoustic guitar recording. One user noted, “when I was testing Soothe, I liked what it did to guitars (especially) and vocals.”
In a dense synth or sample-heavy production, Soothe2 can clean up overlapping frequencies that cause a mix to sound cluttered or fatiguing. Some engineers even put it on drum overheads or cymbals to reduce harsh crash frequencies. And while Soothe2 is typically a mixing tool, it can be used in mastering gently – for instance, to tame a few dominant frequency spikes in a stereo mix that a normal EQ would struggle to fix without hurting other parts. (In fact, one mastering engineer wrote that when a mix sounded good except for “a few problematic peaks in the frequency spectrum”, “soothe2 steps in” as the tool that can “tame only the unwanted narrow-band peaks… while leaving the rest of the spectrum alone.”
When overused, it’s possible to suck some life out of a track – for example, cutting too much could make a vocal sound dull or a mix lose air. Properly set, though, Soothe2 is “hard to make sound really bad” when not pushed to extremes. It’s designed to be transparent and only pull down the “ugly” frequencies. As with any powerful tool, you’ll get best results by tweaking the controls to find that sweet spot where the harshness is gone but the source still sounds natural.
What Does Gullfoss Do?
Gullfoss user interface (here processing a full mix with Tame at 200%). It uses five simple controls at the top – Recover, Tame, Bias, Brighten, and Boost – and a real-time frequency display for feedback. In this example, the white curve shows Gullfoss dynamically dipping certain frequency regions that were too dominant, making the overall mix sound more balanced
Gullfoss is marketed as an “intelligent automatic equalizer.” It’s a plugin that can literally listen to your mix and continuously adjust the balance of frequencies in a very ear-pleasing way. The makers of Gullfoss developed an algorithm based on how human hearing perceives sound. In practice, it analyzes your audio 20 to 1000 times per second (depending on the internal setting) and makes tiny EQ boosts or cuts across up to hundreds of frequency bands, all in real time. The idea is to unveil masked details and remove clutter so that the music sounds clearer, more open, and more balanced without you having to manually notch or shelf anything. In fact, the developers claim it can adjust its frequency response 300 times a second without introducing artifactsEssentially, it’s like a smart robot EQ that constantly fine-tunes your mixbus or track to sound as good as possible to the listener.
How it works (in plain English):
Gullfoss’s algorithm is always looking for areas in the sound that are either too much or too little. For frequencies that are drowning out others (say a honky midrange that masks the highs), it will tame them down. For frequencies that are being masked or are lacking, it will recover them (boost them up). It does this very fast and continuously, so as the music changes, Gullfoss is constantly re-balancing. The result is that a mix can sound more “in focus” – you might hear previously buried details pop out, and overly harsh elements get smoothed, all automatically. One way to think of it: it’s like an intelligent “auto-EQ” that makes your track closer to an idealized tonal curve (some users say it’s as if it’s gently matching your mix towards a reference like pink noise or a perceived optimal spectrum
Key features and controls:
One of Gullfoss’s strengths is its simplicity. You don’t directly set specific frequencies or gains – instead, you have just five macro controls and the plugin does the rest.
- Recover – how much to boost the parts of the sound that are masked or hidden. Turning this up makes soft details come forward.
- Tame – how much to cut the dominant or harsh parts of the sound. Turning this up tames those peaks or harsh resonances.
- Bias – a shift between favoring Recover vs. Tame when both are happening. Positive Bias favors recovering (boosting) more, negative favors taming (cutting) more. At 0 Bias, it balances both equally.
- Brighten – basically a tilt towards adding or reducing high-frequency content. Turn up Brighten to add a bit of top-end sheen, or negative to soften brightness.
- Boost – a tilt for the low-end (loudness curve). Turn up Boost to add fullness (or cut bass if turned down).
You also have a pair of high-pass/low-pass “limiters” on the display that let you confine Gullfoss’s action to a certain range. For example, you can tell it to only work on, say, 80 Hz–10 kHz and ignore the extreme lows/highs. This is useful if you don’t want it to mess with sub-bass or air frequencies. There’s an overall “Intensity” slider (often the plugin GUI just labels it as the percentage on Recover/Tame – effectively how strong the processing is). Gullfoss provides a real-time moving graph that shows you what it’s boosting or cutting. When you play audio through it, you’ll see a wiggling line dancing across the frequencies – that’s Gullfoss at work, constantly adjusting dozens of tiny EQ bands.
One nice thing is you can’t really dig into wrong settings – with so few controls, it’s designed to give musically pleasing results quickly. As one producer noted, the interface is clean and “offers a set of basic parameters that can be adjusted to improve the clarity, detail, spatiality, and balance of a mix or recording in a matter of seconds.”You don’t need deep knowledge of EQ to use it: even beginners can dial in a better mix just by ear with a couple of knob turns. Of course, experienced users can get creative by automating those controls or targeting certain mix elements, but the learning curve is very gentle compared to a complex EQ or multiband compressor.
Practical uses:
Gullfoss is most famous as a mix bus or mastering tool. You can slap it on the stereo bus of a mix, dial a little Recover and Tame (often small values like 5–20% are enough), and it will tend to “open up” the mix nicely. It’s like a magic fairy dust plugin for some, making the mix sound more expensive. One user shared that Gullfoss on the master bus “clears the low mid and tends to brighten the mix overall” when used subtly, and that it’s often better than using a static EQ for that purpose.
The key is moderation – many engineers keep the settings low so that Gullfoss is a transparent helper in the background. On an entire mix, too much Recover or Tame can start to alter the mix’s intended balance (for example, driving Tame very high might dull the mix, or too much Recover could over-brighten or bring up noise). But in small doses, it’s often described as a “smart enhancer” that makes the mix sound clearer, punchier, and – just in general – better. Considering all this, it’s usually best used where you want an overall enhancement, not for super surgical fixes on one instrument (that’s more Soothe’s domain).In summary, Gullfoss is like a second set of ears you add to your mix. It’s constantly suggesting “hey, this part could come up a bit, this part could come down a bit,” and it does so very fast and (ideally) transparently. It’s a “sound-goodizer” in the sense that it can make a well-recorded track sound even more polished. But it’s not a replacement for good mixing – you still have to get your mix roughly in shape; Gullfoss just fine-tunes it.
Soothe2 vs Gullfoss: Key Differences
Now that we’ve covered what each plugin is, let’s compare their strengths and differences side by side. Although both Soothe2 and Gullfoss deal with balancing frequencies, they operate in different ways and serve different purposes. One isn’t strictly “better” than the other – they excel at different tasks. A producer who owns both said, “I wouldn’t want to be without either. I use Soothe more on individual tracks and Gullfoss more on busses and the main out.” That sentiment sums it up: Soothe2 and Gullfoss complement each other rather than directly overlap. Here are the main points of comparison:
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Targeted Problem-Solving vs. Broad Balancing: Soothe2 is essentially a surgical tool. It zooms in on specific problematic frequencies (resonances) and cuts them out with precision. Gullfoss is more of a broad tonal balancer or enhancer – it’s looking at the whole spectrum and raising or lowering parts of it to achieve a nicer overall balance. Soothe/Dynamic EQs are “problem solvers” for single tracks, whereas Gullfoss (and similar tools like TEOTE) are “sound-goodizers” for complex material. In practice, this means if you have an issue (harsh vocal, ringing snare, boomy guitar) you reach for Soothe2. If you have a full mix or group that sounds okay already but could be improved or sweetened, you reach for Gullfoss to polish it up. Soothe2 doesn’t attempt to rebalance your entire tone; it only removes harshness. Gullfoss does attempt to rebalance (both cut and boost) to make the whole thing more “pleasant".
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Mechanics – How They Treat Frequencies: Soothe2 only reduces (it never boosts frequencies on its own). It’s always acting in a subtractive manner against offending tones. Gullfoss can boost and cut dynamically. For example, Gullfoss’s Recover function might raise the level of background details or sparkle in the highs, something Soothe2 would never do (Soothe has no “recover” equivalent – it’s focused on cutting bad frequencies, not adding anything). Also, Soothe2’s cuts are very narrow and specifically targeted. Gullfoss’s actions tend to be a bit wider and more general unless you really constrain it. Soothe2 specializes in the same kind of taming Gullfoss can do on a broad level, but Soothe can do it in a more fine-tuned, pinpoint way (and only taming). Gullfoss’s strength is that it also recovers and rebalances, acting kind of like an automatic dynamic EQ across the spectrum.
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Control vs. Simplicity: With Soothe2 you have many parameters to tweak (including an EQ-like graph to select where to work, sidechain, mid/side mode, quality settings, etc.), whereas Gullfoss offers only a handful of knobs and basically runs “under the hood.” The upside of Soothe2 is flexibility – you can really dial it in to behave exactly how you want on a particular problem. The downside is it’s possible to misuse it if you don’t know what you’re doing, since there are more moving parts. Gullfoss’s upside is ease of use – it’s hard to make a truly wrong move, and it’s fast to get results. With Gullfoss, you’re trusting the algorithm and just setting broad intentions (more detail? less harshness? etc.). With Soothe2, you’re guiding the algorithm more explicitly (e.g. “tame 4 kHz region harshness on this vocal”). Neither approach is better universally – if you enjoy fine control, Soothe2 gives you that. If you prefer quick results or are working on a tight deadline, Gullfoss might get you there faster.
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Transparency and Artifacts: Both plugins are designed to be transparent, but in different ways. Soothe2 is known for its extremely transparent cuts – it only hits the bad stuff and leaves neighboring frequencies alone. You can often push it fairly hard before you hear obvious side effects, aside from the source just sounding less harsh. Gullfoss, used subtly, also sounds very natural – it’s doing broad small changes that you might not even notice until you bypass it and realize the mix sounded worse before. However, if overused, Gullfoss can impart a bit of a processed character; some describe it as a slight “phasey” or smeared quality at extreme settings (since it’s doing so many micro adjustments). If Tame or Recover are cranked too high. This is likely because it irons out a lot of the unique tonal quirks of a mix in pursuit of a balanced sound. Soothe2, on the other hand, when overdone simply removes too much of the “good” content (making the source sound muffled or lifeless). So the failure mode is different: Soothe can over-damp, Gullfoss can over-flatten. In normal use, both are praised for being “transparent and hard to mess up” when dialed in reasonably. Importantly, neither produces the obvious pumping or distortion artifacts you might get from aggressive multiband compression – they work in a smoother, more invisible manner.
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CPU/Performance: Both plugins use advanced processing under the hood, which means they are heavier than a simple EQ. Soothe2, in particular, can be somewhat demanding if you use many instances at high quality settings – it’s doing dynamic FFT-like filtering with lookahead, so it’s not light. Gullfoss is optimized to handle a full mix, but you typically run only one instance of it, so it’s manageable. If you have an older system and you need to save CPU, you might not put Soothe2 on every track (you’d reserve it for the worst offenders and use it sparingly elsewhere). Some users actually prefer alternatives or only use Soothe2 in final stages due to CPU concerns In contrast, Gullfoss usually lives on the master bus only, so its CPU hit is a one-time cost. In terms of latency, as noted, Soothe2 introduces about 40ms and Gullfoss ~20ms. Both are fine for mixing, but you wouldn’t want to record through them (unless you use their low-latency modes). This isn’t a huge deciding factor, but worth noting if real-time usage is a consideration.
To sum up the difference: Soothe2 is like a precision scalpel for frequency problems, whereas Gullfoss is like a broad brush that brings overall sonic clarity. A user on one forum compared Gullfoss to a “masseur” giving your mix a nice massage, and Soothe2 to an “inverted razor” shaving off prickly bits
Both tools share a common goal of making your audio sound better and reducing unpleasantness, but they go about it differently. Understanding these differences will help you decide which one to use in a given situation. Next, let’s look at some specific scenarios and which plugin might be the better choice.
Use Soothe2 when you need precise taming of annoying frequencies on a track-by-track basis, and use Gullfoss when you want a simple way to enhance or gently fix the overall tonal balance of a mix or group. If you’re a producer at any level, you’ll find Soothe2 is a lifesaver for mixing tricky recordings (vocals recorded in less-than-ideal environments, cheap instrument recordings, overly resonant samples, etc.), and Gullfoss is like a magic “finishing” plugin to quickly polish your mix or get a second opinion on the spectral balance.
Conclusion
Both Soothe2 and Gullfoss represent the new wave of “intelligent” audio tools that can make production work faster and results sound more professional. They each listen to audio and make smart adjustments in real time, but with different intentions: Soothe2 is focused on removing harshness and problem frequencies in a transparent way, whereas Gullfoss is focused on enhancing clarity and balance across the spectrum.
For a music producer, the question of which one to use (or purchase) comes down to your needs. If you often find yourself wincing at harsh vocals or spending hours automating EQ cuts on piercing frequencies, Soothe2 will feel like a godsend – it addresses those issues automatically and musically. On the other hand, if your mixes often feel a bit dull or not “glued” together and you’re not sure where to start EQing, Gullfoss can instantly point out and correct those tonal imbalances, acting like a fresh pair of ears on your mix bus.
Importantly, these tools are not mutually exclusive. In fact, many seasoned engineers use them in tandem: cleaning up sources with Soothe2 and sweetening the mix with Gullfoss. They don’t replace good mixing decisions; rather, they augment them. You still need to choose good sounds, arrange well, and set levels and basic EQ correctly. But Soothe2 and Gullfoss can then take your work to the next level by handling the tedious and complex bits of frequency taming and balancing in a very transparent manner.
To ensure you’re getting the best out of them, use your ears and moderate settings. Subtlety often goes a long way with both plugins. It’s easy to be impressed by the drastic changes at high settings, but the art is in dialing just enough to fix or enhance without losing the character of the sound. Also, don’t be afraid to A/B test: toggle the plugin on and off to make sure it’s genuinely improving things. When used properly, Soothe2 should make a track sound smoother and more pleasant (without you obviously hearing the effect working), and Gullfoss should make a mix sound clearer and more balanced (without sounding like it’s EQ’d or hyped). If you hear obvious negative side effects, back off the settings.
Finally, remember these are tools for all levels of producers. You don’t need to be a technical expert to use them – that’s the beauty. As we saw, Gullfoss in particular is designed so even a newbie can move a couple of sliders and get a nicer sound. And Soothe2, while deeper, comes with presets and a generally user-friendly approach (it even has an “easy” mode preset where you mainly tweak the Depth knob). So if you’re relatively new to production, don’t be intimidated by their advanced under-the-hood processing. In plain terms: Soothe2 listens for nasty tones and turns them down; Gullfoss listens for overall imbalances and evens them out. They just do it with more finesse than our fingers on a traditional EQ.
In the end, choosing between Soothe2 and Gullfoss isn’t about which plugin is better – it’s about which one fits the task at hand. For surgical smoothing of a single sound, Soothe2 is often the hero. For giving a mix that final sparkle and cohesion, Gullfoss is a trusty ally. Many top producers keep both in their arsenal because each serves a distinct purpose. By understanding their differences and strengths, you can confidently apply them in your own projects to achieve cleaner, more professional-sounding mixes. Happy producing, and may your frequencies forever be in balance!