Why Soothe collapses your stereo image (and what I use instead)

During the past year I’ve been replacing Soothe with SpecCraft.

Why? Because I always heard some issues with Soothe, but I didn’t fully understand what was happening, nor did I take enough time to study it. I just A/B tested Soothe against SpecCraft, and I consistently got a better outcome with the latter.

Then I heard Matt Davis (from Hacienda Mastering) talk about what Soothe does to your song, and after testing it myself, he’s completely right.

The stereo image collapses

Even if you set it to the highest oversampling and quality settings, the stereo image gets messed up. No matter where you place the controls, it ruins the stereo.

And before you ask me about Soothe3: yes, it has the exact same issue. The new algorithm they introduced didn’t fix it at all.

It’s like the mix becomes thin and wonky, you know?

Test it yourself

1. Put Soothe on the instrumental, or on the master.
2. Make any slight adjustment.
3. Listen carefully to the stereo.

You’ll notice the width closes in and the song collapses inward a bit.

What I do instead

This also happens with every FFT plugin. So, when possible, I try to avoid that type of processing altogether.

And whenever I do need to apply it, I reach for SpecCraft. I feel that its precise controls can make that effect more subtle.

And yes, I A/B’d it against Soothe2 and Soothe3 so you don’t have to. Try it at home and compare for yourself.