Soothe 2 vs Gullfoss: Which Resonance Killer Earns the Insert Slot?

If you’ve spent any real time mixing in the last few years, you already know the problem these two plugins solve. You’ve got a snare that rings like a detuned bell. A vocal that turns into a buzzsaw the second it hits the limiter. A bass that wobbles against the kick no matter how many static EQ notches you carve. Both Soothe 2 and Gullfoss promise the same thing: dynamic, program-dependent resonance control that’s smarter than a fixed band compressor. They get there in completely different ways, and that difference is exactly why you need to know which one belongs on your insert.

I’ve had both on my machine for years, running them across vocals, drum bus, and full mixes. Here’s how I actually decide.

The Core Difference Nobody Explains Properly

These are often lumped together as “resonance suppressors,” but that undersells how differently they behave.

Soothe 2 (from Oeksound) works on the principle of spectral dynamics. It analyzes the signal across a huge number of internal bands and applies dynamic attenuation wherever it detects resonance — but critically, it settles quickly and then gets out of the way. You can set a static threshold and let it act like a frequency-dependent expander downward, catching harsh bits as they pop up. The default behavior is reactive: something rings, it gets tamed.

Gullfoss (from Soundtheory) flips the model. It’s a dynamic EQ built around a perceptual hearing model. Instead of chasing resonances, it makes thousands of tiny gain decisions per second based on what it thinks should sound “correct” — pulling problem frequencies down and making small proportionate boosts where the ear wants them. It’s less of a fixer and more of a rebalancer. Early in your chain it can do things Soothe simply won’t, because Gullfoss isn’t just subtracting.

That’s the crux. Soothe removes. Gullfoss balances. Once that clicks, placement stops being a guessing game.

When Soothe 2 Is the Right Call

Soothe 2 earns its slot when you need surgical, controllable removal of something specific and ugly.

• Resonant drums: a snare or toms ringing on one or two nasty modes. Soothe’s ability to target narrow frequency ranges with fast attack/release is basically built for this. You can dial in both sides of the spectrum independently (Soothe 2 split the lows and highs into two separate processing paths), so you’re not smearing the whole kit to fix a single ring.
• Harsh vocals: whether it’s a bright condenser catching a chesty resonance or a sample that already got mangled in processing, Soothe takes the edge off without killing intelligibility. This is where you see the most “why does this sound so much smoother” reactions from clients.
• Program material with unpredictable spikes: live takes, spoken word, anything where the resonance moves around.

The trade you make is subtlety. Soothe reduces dynamic range anywhere it acts, so if you push depth too hard, the mix starts to feel flat and lifeless. That’s the classic Soothe trap — you A/B it, love the smoothness, then realize after ten minutes that the whole track lost air. Use it in small amounts. A depth of 3-6 dB with a moderate selectivity is usually enough when placed correctly.

Where to place it

Soothe 2 works best as a targeted corrective tool fairly early in the chain on problem sources, or as a last-resort cleaner before your limiter on the mix bus. It’s not a tone-shaping unit. It’s a resonance sniper, and treating it like a broad-shaping EQ wastes its precision.

When Gullfoss Is the Right Call

Gullfoss is the one I reach for when a mix is technically fine but has that vague “something’s not sitting right” feeling I can’t place. It’s also the one that surprises me most on bus material.

• Full mixes and busses: Gullfoss’s strength is making the aggregate spectrum more even. Kick/bass balance, midrange clarity, consistent top end — it tightens these relationships in a way that feels musical rather than corrective.
• Killing the “EQ fights” problem: when you’re stacking a static corrective EQ and a dynamic EQ and a multiband and it still doesn’t quite gel, Gullfoss often just does it in one plugin with far less surgery. Engineers who work fast love it for exactly this.
• Mastering-chain glue: run at modest intensity, it’ll smooth out frequency inconsistencies across a whole album without you touching a single band.

The trade here is control. You don’t get a curve to draw. You get a “recover” and “tame” slider, a bias parameter, and a few intensity controls. Some engineers hate that — they want to know exactly what the plugin is doing. If you’re that kind of engineer, Gullfoss will frustrate you until the day you stop caring and just listen. That usually takes about one project.

Where to place it

Gullfoss lives earlier in the chain than most people put it. Think of it as a corrective stage that handles the small stuff so your later EQs and compressors have a smoother signal to work with. On a mix bus, before your glue compressor, is where I get the most out of it. It also works beautifully on individual busses — drum bus, guitar bus — where it can rebalance the frequency content while you’re still shaping dynamics.

Can You Run Both?

Yes, and there’s a case for it. The trick is keeping them from stepping on each other.

Gullfoss goes first — it’s doing perceptual rebalancing and any “fix” it makes is going to change what Soothe sees downstream. Soothe goes after, ideally on specific problem sources rather than the full bus. If you’re stacking both on the master with aggressive settings, you’re doubling up on dynamic frequency processing and the result is exactly the flat, over-smoothed sound that gives these plugins a bad reputation. Pick one to be your primary and use the other sparingly, or split them across different sources in the project.

The broader point about chain ordering applies here: modern mixing chains reward you for separating corrective moves from creative ones. Gentle compression, saturation, and sweeteners belong later. Resonance control is corrective work, and it should happen before the mix gets sweetened — otherwise you’re fighting your own tone-shaping decisions with dynamic filters.

CPU, Latency, and Workflow

Both plugins are demanding. Gullfoss is notably CPU-hungry because of the perceptual model running continuously; the internal resolution settings trade power for precision, and you’ll notice it on large sessions. Soothe 2 is better optimized than its reputation suggests, especially with the split-band controls, but still a heavy hitter.

For mixing, latency is a non-issue. For tracking, both add enough delay that you shouldn’t be monitoring through them unless your interface handles the round-trip. Keep them as mix-stage tools.

On workflow: Soothe 2 gives you a UI that rewards fiddling. Multiple bands, sidechain options, selectivity control — there’s depth if you want it. Gullfoss rewards leaving it alone. Set intensity low, tweak recover and tame, listen, done. That’s not a knock; it’s the design philosophy, and if you respect it, Gullfoss will speed you up dramatically.

So Which One Earns the Insert Slot?

If you can only buy one, the honest answer depends on your failure mode.

You’re handling problematic sources — resonant drums, harsh vocals, unruly samples, anything you’re surgically fixing — get Soothe 2. Its controllability and precision make it the better single-purpose resonance killer, and it stays useful on virtually every project.

You’re handling full mixes and busses, or you constantly deal with mixes that feel slightly off-balance without an obvious culprit, get Gullfoss. It does the thing no static EQ can: think about frequency content the way your ear does, and nudge accordingly.

Plenty of us own both, because they’re not actually competitors — they’re two specialists who happen to share a job title. Put Gullfoss in the corrective slot early, Soothe on the specific offenders, and leave the character work to the tools that are built for it. That division of labor is what gets you a cleaner mix without sounding like you went at it with a frequency brush.