Are "wonder plugins" like Soothe, Trackspacer etc. a must these days to be able to compete with the best mixes? Do pro mixers like say Serban Ghenea, Manny Marroquin, Tony Maserati etc. use them?

You’ll maybe hate this answer but...

Great arrangements from great performers recorded well are essential.

An equal talent is a must.

With these two ingredients in-hand THEN the gear begins to matter.

The material, the talent to shape it, the gear to shape it with. Those matter in that order.

That said:

You named two excellent plugins. But they are not the keys to a new world of mixes that compete with anyone.

there is no plugin that is necessary or sufficient to produce or compete with an a-list mix.

for every plugin you can name, there is a track that used it and went nowhere, and there is a track that did not use it and was a strong commercial success.

I should know better by now when it comes to phrasing my questions

But now that we have the mandatory "There is no magic plugin, There is no shortcut to success.." gearslutz answers out of the way

Let me rephrase: Do these plugins bring something to the table that you can't do with more "traditional" plugins (eq, mb compression etc.)? If plugins like Soothe, Trackspacer etc. are able to execute tasks that would be virtually impossible or very inefficient with more traditional tools AND if the fact is that a lot of the top guys use plugins like Soothe, Trackspacer etc. when mixing current songs, then my guess would be that you'll never compete with those mixes if you're not using those plugins. So, do the pros use these plugins? Do you use these plugins? What do you find it useful for?
I know a lot of bedroom producers are using these plugins - are these plugins shortcuts to stuff sounding decent, but at the expense of something?

Soothe does something that its very hard to achieve with traditional tools, but that will not transform your mix. It just clean the tracks a bit (it is usually subtle). Many people mix without it. If tou have the budget get soothe or the new dseq.

Trackspacer for me does something that can be accomplish easily with other tools (side chain dynamic eq or compressors). I use scheps omni channel for that, but its not that usual that I want to carve spaces dynamically and I do not see many pros doing it (i started mixing more professionally only recently and in a part-time manner).

I’m not in a position to speak to who uses them, but I am experienced with both.

Trackspacer and Soothe are both very well received. In the case of Trackspacer I purchased it. For Soothe I did not.

Soothe I found simply did not live up to its promise for me... you’ll find this a very unpopular opinion. However, I found it to make more of a mess than it was worth to “fix” the issue. It can sound phasey when used with a lot of reductions and simply to minimal to makes difference at settings low enough to minimize this comb/phase issue.

Again, it’s really for when something is poorly recorded IMO... I’d rather use RX or a DynamicEQ. But again, just my opinion.

Trackspacer on the other hand is quite good, though as with anything there is certainly a “too much”.

That said, keep in mind that most of what it solves occurs only when an arrangement is too busy... it’s designed to attenuate overlapping frequencies.

Pan, notch EQ, and automation (simple fader rides) tend to be more traditional solves for this... that and a shared compressor at some point in the chain. These are all things I reach for first.

I do think TS is especially adept at kick/bass relationships if a subtle select-band side-chain is desired (non-pumpy).

Still, I find a basic notch can be fine depending on the arrangement. I’m actually a fan of there being a little melding if kick/bass vs a strong separation because I think it has more weight... but it’s certainly not the case for every track and genre.
Hopefully this is helpful.

If these are interesting plugs to you, I’d make sure you see TDR Nova, Laser, SmartComp (spectral mode), Neutron, and Newfangled’s EQ as some others to explore.

I find these just as useful.

Again, just opinions.

How could anyone hate such stunning and groundbreaking information being shared? This is mindblowing stuff, bro!!!

You know, I've been living under the assumption that if he had only had access to better gear, Justin Bieber's Baby Baby Baby Baby could have been Lennon & McCartney's Yesterday. Only now do I realize that I may have been wrong. Only now do I know that you actually can't turn bad songs and bad arrangements into good ones with gear.

Wow. This changes everything. Who woulda thunk it??? You just changed the lives of everyone posting here, dude.

Add Melda Production’s MSpectralDynamics to the conversation as well. Very powerful.

Subjectively yes, those things do bring things that weren't there to be had before them. But for me, they also kind of change the 'thing' that gets created into something somehow different. And maybe more perfect in some ways for sure. But also less interesting and direct. And human.

I still like the sound of 'well recorded, well arranged and not fcuk'd with too much' records best. Especially specific dynamic plugs like the mentioned ones, but also overuse of dynamic eq kind of takes away directness value, too IMO. But it all depends on what the music needs to do and if it makes it more effective then there you go, and I am also old and not trying to compete on today's mixing scene.

I own and use Soothe 2, Trackspacer, and Gullfoss. There is nothing IMO that one can do with these plugins that you cannot do with traditional tools. However, they (can be) big timesavers IMO. Soothe 2 saves me the effort of meticulously notching with a dynamic EQ like FFProQ3, Trackspacer type effects can be achieved with side chained MB compression, and Gullfoss you can correct imbalances in the mix.

I just a have a feeling plugins like Soothe, Trackspacer and dynamic eqs for that matter are shaping the modern mix sound of many records these days. I guess partly because of all the over-the-night successful bedroom producers, artists, DJs, etc. producing and mixing their own stuff hardly knowing how say a compressor really works. - You just put on CLA Vocals, 5 eqs boosting and cutting here and there, a couple of multiband compressors boosting and cutting here and there, and then something like Soothe to "repair" the whole thing. And then Trackspacer to make the 978 tracks in the session kind of work together. And now that has become a sound of it's own

I will say having all those plugins, that they are not magic, and you can't just slap them around and get good results. I do think they have their place however, but a bad mix cannot be saved with an instance of Soothe and Gullfoss.

We see the world as before and after Gullfoss (BG and AG) for a reason.

I already have Soothe 2 - should I consider Gullfoss anyway?

Totally different plugins. Soothe dynamically notches harsh resonances, Gullfoss “improves mix clarity”, but who knows what the f that means. All I know is that it subtlety improves my mixes about 25% of the time in a few minutes which was worth picking it up for. Honestly tho, it doesn’t work most of the time and I prefer the mix without it.

Sweet!

I was worried you wouldn’t have seen the post.

FWIW I typed it more considering what was responsible for all readers vs if this has been said before... and I did a double take when I saw the 10 year badge... I realize the OP probably didn’t “learn” much.

But it’s not just me you or him, and I stand by my response.

I am also hoping you got the joy from your contribution you were expecting to feel.

Please consider the straw man that you have made of my contributions and attempt at supplying a reasonable answer.

No hard feelings, but please consider next time how people get on the wrong side of a conversation when they likely agree.

There are a lot of different levels of experience that read posts like this, and I think some basic disclaimers do more good than harm.

Very sorry if you feel your time is wasted.

I know you probably don’t want to stop and consider the irony of your statement’s own lack of originality...

All good?

Agreed on Gulfoss

Very unique. But sometimes it leads to an “instability” that I find off putting.

But when it works it does something I don’t think anything else even remotely does.

At least you didn't get "Google it" or "Look it up."

It seems to me (from the outside) that Melda is fighting to get some traction. Their stuff has been described in these forums as powerful but perhaps too complex. I see today in Deal Zone that MSpectralDynamics LE is on sale, as is the full version. I think that LE is an attempt to deal with the 'over-complicated' factor or image.

They’re a “must” if you have lots of disposable $$$ and maybe don’t have years of experience dealing with how to fix the underlying problems that these tools address in the ways they’ve been addressed traditionally...

Or, if maybe you’re primary role is singer/songwriter or artist who wants to put out the best sounding stuff you can but can’t quite afford to have a pro mixer or producer massage your tracks

That being said... Research, a good ear, patience and stock plugins will do everything that these plugins do.

Hehe true

I do find they take something away. Sometimes the excitement is in the resonance and edge you’re taming and clarifiying.... great tools tho!...

Short answer is YES, these plugins allow you to do magic that traditional mixing techniques cannot pull off or at least can't pull off without dozens of man hours.

I looooove trackspacer... but I think even better is Sonible SmartComp!! I'm absolutely blown away how Sonible SmartComp is allow two instruments to play over the top of each other and be completely intelligible and sound great. I'm sure some audio engineer somewhere is saying "well that's just bad practice"... and I agree with you in theory, yet somehow it sounds great!!! I have no explanation. Trackspacer is 10 out of 10, SmartComp is 10 out of 10 or better.

There should be a "There's No Substitute For Talent" sticky which pops up as the first reply to any questions about gear, especially plugins.

I’d like to hear less about philosophy of its the song it’s the Indian and use your ears.... truisms are tedious....

I find Soundbrigade and Nova useful for resonance. Obviously you can do things with tools you have but these are timesavers and digital allows a lot of freedom in the cleanup isle!....

I like this kind of tools. It is a new approach. I like emulations like UAD stuff too, but new digital tools are just exciting. They are just tools and not magic, but alongside the race for capturing analog mojo in digital, pure digital plugin world is alive again, it’s like new 80s with enough power of cpu to run new ideas of developers. And tools like this are changing the way we mix and the way music sounds, just like the first compressor did back in the day. Some pros use it, I saw Pensado talked about this kind of plugins and he likes it.

I also need to say:

Anyone who tried Soothe1 and decided against it needs to try Soothe2.

I’m shocked how much better it sounds.

To me trackspacer is the best and pretty reasonably priced too. This is a video I made that might help anyone on the fence...
https://youtu.be/5RjbQcZL930

I think the point you are missing is that these plugins can save you so much time. Soothe can save you hours because you no longer need to notch out harsh frequencies. I get that it's ideal to record sounds well, so that they aren't harsh to begin with, but life isn't always ideal.

Have you tried Sooth2, or Gullfoss? I think if you demoed them you would realize that yes, perhaps you could achieve these effects with "stock plugins" but it would take many hours instead of minutes.

Time is valuable, and if you can get your stuff sounding better quickly, I think that's worth it!

I have, I think, literally every plugin lol… including the ones you listed! And yes, they are amazing!

I just think we spend wayyy to energy here pushing the idea of BUY THIS to new folks when we should be asking “what exactly is the problem” and/or helping them to determine ways to record things properly or otherwise better capture program at the source.

I’m all for buying sh-t… I’ll put my purchasing up against almost anybody here.. but, that becomes it’s own hobby for so many people and the end result is the accumulation of gear and plugins is ALL they have to show for their pursuit of music and/or recording… they never actually DO any music or recording