RysUpSmooth vs Soothe 2: The $19.99 Resonance Suppressor That Rivals a $219 Industry Standard

Let's cut straight to it. If you've ever mixed a vocal, an acoustic guitar, a cymbal bleed, or basically any source with harsh resonant frequencies, you've probably heard of oeksound's Soothe 2. It's been the go-to spectral resonance suppressor for years, and for good reason — it works.

But here's the part nobody in the audio plugin industry wants to say out loud: you do not need to spend $219 to get professional-grade resonance suppression in 2026.

Enter RysUpSmooth — a spectral resonance suppressor built from the ground up with real-time FFT analysis, 6 interactive sensitivity bands with bidirectional control, delta monitoring, Mid/Side processing, and up to 4x oversampling. All for $19.99. No iLok. No subscription. Free lifetime updates.

This isn't a cheap knockoff. It's a purpose-built tool that gives you features Soothe 2 doesn't even have — at a fraction of the price. Let's break it down.

What Is Spectral Resonance Suppression?

Before we get into the comparison, let's make sure we're on the same page about what these plugins actually do — because spectral resonance suppression is one of the most misunderstood tools in modern mixing.

Every sound source has resonant frequencies. These are frequency ranges where energy builds up unnaturally, creating harshness, boxiness, or that piercing quality that makes a mix fatiguing to listen to. A vocal might have a harsh resonance at 3.5 kHz that makes every "S" sound like a knife. An acoustic guitar might ring out at 800 Hz in a way that muddies the low-mids. A snare drum might have a metallic ping at 6 kHz that cuts through the mix like broken glass.

Traditional EQ can address these problems, but only statically. You set a cut at 3.5 kHz and it's always cutting — whether the resonance is happening in that moment or not. This kills the life in your tracks and creates dull, over-processed results.

Spectral resonance suppressors work dynamically. They analyze the frequency spectrum in real time using FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) processing, identify where resonances are building up above the spectral envelope, and apply targeted gain reduction only to those specific frequencies, only when the resonance is actually occurring. When the resonance stops, the suppression releases. The result is transparent taming of harshness that sounds natural and preserves the character of the source material.

Think of it as a surgeon with a scalpel versus a butcher with a cleaver. Both can remove something, but only one does it without destroying everything around the target.

Soothe 2: What It Does Well

Credit where it's due — oeksound built a tool that changed how engineers think about resonance problems. Before Soothe, your options were static EQ, multiband compression with aggressive settings, or manually automating notch filters. None of those approaches were elegant.

Soothe 2 brought real-time dynamic resonance suppression to the mainstream. Its core processing engine analyzes the spectral content and applies per-bin gain reduction to frequencies that exceed the local spectral envelope. It does this transparently enough that you can run it on a vocal bus and most listeners won't hear the plugin working — they'll just hear a vocal that sounds smoother and more controlled.

The plugin offers Soft and Hard processing modes, Mid/Side stereo processing, a delta listening mode to solo what's being removed, and a clean interface with real-time spectral visualization. These are all genuinely useful features, and Soothe 2 handles them competently.

For years, if you needed spectral resonance suppression, Soothe was essentially your only serious option. That monopoly is over.

Where Soothe 2 Falls Short

Once you look past the brand recognition and the "industry standard" label, Soothe 2 has real limitations that affect your workflow, your wallet, and your creative control.

The Price Tag

$219 for a single-purpose mixing tool. For hobbyists, bedroom producers, and independent artists — the people who arguably need resonance suppression the most — that price is a non-starter. And if you're building out a professional plugin collection, $219 for one tool means you're making trade-offs elsewhere in your budget.

iLok / PACE Licensing

Soothe 2 requires iLok licensing through the PACE anti-piracy system. That means installing the iLok License Manager, managing activations, and dealing with a background process that's been known to cause system conflicts, increased CPU overhead, and compatibility headaches on both Mac and Windows. If you've ever had an iLok authorization fail during a session, you know the frustration. A mixing tool should not introduce instability into your system.

~45ms Processing Latency

Soothe 2 introduces approximately 45 milliseconds of processing latency. Your DAW compensates for this with plugin delay compensation (PDC), but that extra latency adds up across a mix and can create problems in real-time monitoring situations — especially during tracking or when you're using it across multiple buses. It also means Soothe 2 is effectively unusable for live sound or real-time performance contexts.

No Per-Band Sensitivity Shaping

This is the big one. Soothe 2 gives you a single global sensitivity curve that applies uniformly across the spectrum. You can't tell the plugin to be more aggressive on harsh upper-midrange resonances while protecting the warmth in the low-mids. You can't set specific frequency regions to be immune from processing. It's an all-or-nothing approach to sensitivity, and it limits how surgically you can apply the effect.

Paid Version Upgrades

The upgrade from Soothe v1 to Soothe 2 was a paid upgrade. There's no reason to expect Soothe 3 will be any different. With Soothe 2, you're not just paying $219 today — you're signing up to pay again when the next version drops if you want to stay current.

Enter RysUpSmooth: Feature Breakdown

RysUpSmooth was built to solve the same core problem — spectral resonance suppression — but with a fundamentally different philosophy: give engineers more control, better performance, and a price that doesn't require a second mortgage on your home studio.

Real-Time FFT Spectral Analysis

RysUpSmooth uses real-time FFT processing with configurable resolution (Eco, Normal, and High modes) to analyze incoming audio and detect resonances. The spectral analysis feeds directly into the gain reduction engine, which applies smooth, transparent attenuation to problem frequencies in real time. The live spectrum visualization shows you exactly what's happening in the frequency domain — no guesswork.

6 Interactive Sensitivity Bands with Bidirectional Control

This is the feature that changes the game. RysUpSmooth gives you 6 draggable sensitivity nodes on the spectral display, each with adjustable frequency, gain, Q (bandwidth), and filter type (Bell, Low Shelf, High Shelf, Notch, and Band Pass). These nodes let you shape a custom sensitivity curve across the entire frequency spectrum.

But here's where it gets really powerful: the sensitivity control is bidirectional. Positive values increase processing sensitivity in a frequency region — making the suppressor more aggressive there. Negative values create protection zones where resonances are left untouched. This means you can tell RysUpSmooth to aggressively hunt resonances in the 2-5 kHz harshness range while actively protecting the low-end warmth below 200 Hz and the air above 12 kHz. Soothe 2 simply cannot do this.

Soft and Hard Processing Modes

Like Soothe 2, RysUpSmooth offers both Soft and Hard processing modes. Soft mode applies gentler, more musical suppression that's ideal for vocals, acoustic instruments, and any source where transparency is the priority. Hard mode is more aggressive and works well for taming extreme resonances in distorted guitars, cymbal bleed, or problem room recordings.

Delta Monitoring

Hit the Delta button and RysUpSmooth solos only the audio that's being removed — the difference between the dry and processed signal. This is critical for dialing in the right amount of suppression. If you can clearly hear tonal content in the delta signal, you're probably cutting too deep. If you only hear harsh, resonant material, you're in the sweet spot.

Mid/Side Processing

RysUpSmooth supports both standard Left/Right and Mid/Side stereo processing modes. This lets you apply different suppression behavior to the center image versus the sides of the stereo field — essential for mastering work and stereo bus processing where you need to tame harshness in the center vocal without affecting the stereo width of guitars or synths panned to the sides.

Up to 4x Oversampling with Configurable Resolution

RysUpSmooth offers three oversampling levels (1x, 2x, and 4x) paired with three resolution modes (Eco, Normal, High). The oversampling eliminates aliasing artifacts in the spectral processing, while the resolution setting controls the overlap ratio of the FFT analysis — higher resolution means smoother, more accurate processing at the cost of additional CPU usage. This gives you fine-grained control over the quality-vs-performance trade-off based on your system and the demands of the session.

Full Control Surface

Beyond the sensitivity bands, RysUpSmooth provides dedicated controls for Depth (how much suppression is applied), Sharpness (how narrowly the suppressor targets resonances), Selectivity (the threshold for what qualifies as a resonance), Attack and Release (the ballistics of the gain reduction), Mix (parallel blend between dry and wet), and Trim (output gain compensation). Every parameter is automatable and supports undo/redo and A/B comparison.

Simple Licensing, No iLok

RysUpSmooth uses a straightforward serial key activation. Buy it, enter your key, done. No iLok software. No USB dongles. No cloud authorization that fails when your internet drops during a session. It just works — the way plugin licensing should.

Apple Silicon Native

RysUpSmooth runs natively on Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3/M4) without Rosetta translation, delivering optimal performance on modern Mac hardware. Available in both VST3 and AU formats.

Head-to-Head Comparison

Who Should Choose Which?

We're not going to pretend there's zero reason to own Soothe 2. There isn't. But the honest answer is more nuanced than the marketing from either side would suggest.

Choose Soothe 2 If:

• You need AAX format support — if Pro Tools is your primary DAW and you require native AAX plugins, Soothe 2 currently has this covered. RysUpSmooth supports VST3 and AU.
• You work in studios that standardize on Soothe — if your clients send sessions with Soothe 2 instances and expect you to have it installed, compatibility matters.
• Budget is genuinely not a factor — if $219 is pocket change in your plugin budget and you don't care about the price difference, Soothe 2 is a competent tool that will do the job.

Choose RysUpSmooth If:

• You want more control over the suppression — the 6 interactive sensitivity bands with bidirectional control give you a level of surgical precision that Soothe 2 simply does not offer. Period.
• You value your budget — $19.99 versus $219 is not a small difference. That's $199 you can put toward monitors, acoustic treatment, or ten other plugins from the Rys Up Audio plugin collection.
• You refuse to deal with iLok — serial key activation. No background processes. No authorization servers. No headaches.
• You want free lifetime updates — no paid upgrades. When RysUpSmooth gets better, you get the update for free.
• You work on Apple Silicon — native M-series support means optimal performance without Rosetta overhead.
• You need configurable quality settings — the ability to dial in oversampling (1x/2x/4x) and resolution (Eco/Normal/High) means you can optimize for your system's capabilities and the demands of each session.

The Verdict

RysUpSmooth delivers over 90% of Soothe 2's core functionality at 9% of the price. And in several key areas — per-band sensitivity shaping, bidirectional frequency protection, configurable processing resolution, built-in A/B comparison, and undo/redo — it actually surpasses the "industry standard."

The audio plugin market has had a pricing problem for years. Companies charge $200+ for tools because they can, because there's no competition, and because engineers have been conditioned to believe that professional results require professional price tags. That's not true. Professional results come from professional tools — and the price tag doesn't determine the quality of the output.

RysUpSmooth was built by engineers who mix vocals every day and got tired of overpaying for spectral processing. It's the best Soothe 2 alternative in 2026, and it's not even close on value.

Stop overpaying for resonance suppression.

Get RysUpSmooth for $19.99 and hear what $199 in savings sounds like. Spoiler: it sounds exactly the same.

RysUpSmooth is part of the Rys Up Audio vocal mixing plugin collection — professional tools at prices that make sense. Have questions? Get in touch.