Is Waves Curves Equator really the “Soothe2 killer”?$79 ($40 introductory price), waves.com
It feels like barely a month goes by without another plugin company releasing a new spectral balancing or resonance-suppressing tool.
It all started with Oeksound’s seminal Soothe, but we now have multiple options, with each developer adding its own mark or functionality tweak. With each successive release comes a wave of ‘Is this a Soothe2 killer?’ YouTube videos, and Waves’ Curves Equator is no exception. It’s the first of several plugins from Waves that aim to revolutionise EQ and it takes the best bits from competing designs to create a powerful, intuitive tool. But is it enough to topple Soothe?

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With Curves Equator, you can easily reduce the threshold so any frequencies that poke above it will be notched down to create a smoother-sounding mix. Various target curves are provided to broadly shape how you want it to sound, including Flat, Pink noise or Warm profiles, plus a Tilt function that lets you quickly brighten or darken the overall results. You’re not EQ-ing the audio as such, but rather letting the plugin know where you want to focus the ducking of unwanted resonances.

There are also Input and Output sliders, a Mix dial, a safety limiter, and an excellent auto-makeup function for gain matching. This is on by default and it really helps to give a better sense of what effect Curves Equator is having without your judgement being clouded by a volume drop. When used on a bass-dominant mix, low frequencies will be tucked in and auto gain brings up the overall volume accordingly, which results in a beautiful lifting of the top end.
To shape the reduction with more precision, you have a few options. The first is to engage the multiband crossover that splits the threshold into four bands, allowing you to make broad strokes to affect certain areas of the spectrum. Alternatively, eight flexible nodes can be set to low shelf, high shelf or bell shapes. These nodes let you target specific frequency regions – ideal for when you want to hone in on more obvious and prominent resonances in your source audio. Although Curves Equator is arguably a little late to the table when it comes to this type of plugin, it feels like Waves has learnt from the competition with its intuitive and fluid presentation of controls.
Learn mode on Curves Equator. Image: MusicTech
Most unique is the Learn function, which listens to a short portion of audio and then creates a personalised suppression curve based on the average spectral spread. This could be used on a vocal to keep it more consistent and sit comfortably in the mix, or on the mix bus to make sure that certain sections of a track don’t poke out too much. You could also learn a reference vocal or track, and then have Curves Equator pull your audio towards it. In theory, you could do something similar using Sonible’s smart:EQ 4, but for that, you would have to load in an audio file rather than just learn directly from your arrangement. Of course, there’s an argument that if you smooth out all the edges when mixing then you’ll end up with something that sounds a little bland; you need to use these kinds of tools with a degree of caution.
Another feature of Curves Equator is the ability to use a sidechain signal to trigger the ducking, which can help when carving out space for a vocal or prominent instrument. With the sidechain (SC) button switched on, you engage a Rider button that causes the amount of reduction to be dynamically triggered by the sidechain audio level. If you then use the SC Learn function, the plugin will listen and come up with an average shape for the sidechain frequency spread, and only this weighting will be used to engage the ducking. I find this works well on static elements like a kick and bass, or with instruments that tend to stay in the same frequency range. However, it doesn’t respond to differences in frequency over time like Wavesfactory’s Trackspacer, Mastering the Mix’s Fuser, or indeed Soothe2. Those plugins react to the incoming frequencies in real-time and will only duck what’s coming into the sidechain input, rather than using a flat shape. With this in mind, I can get more successful results using alternative tools to make space for melodic tracks with movement, such as a vocal that varies in pitch from verse to chorus.
Editing on Curves Equator. Image: MusicTech
To wrap things up, there’s a decent selection of artist presets covering a lot of bases, and a useful Delta button to let you hear exactly what audio is being reduced. A clutch of advanced controls can additionally be revealed at the bottom of the plugin window. These include Attack and Release, Sensitivity and Precision dials that control how sharp the cuts are, tilt the centre frequency, smooth the learnt curve, plus a Balance amount where you can choose from stereo or mid/sides operation.
Processing power and latency are less than Soothe2, but unfortunately, there are no options for oversampling. Ideally, I’d like to have a latency-free (and glitch-free) bypass button, but this isn’t a dealbreaker.
At the full price of $79, Curves Equator is around half the price of Soothe2, but there may be further costs down the line via the Waves Update Plan. When you purchase the plugin you get a year of WUP, which includes free updates and a second license, but when the year runs out, so does the extra license, meaning you can only use it on one machine. If you then upgrade your computer or operating system to one that’s not supported by your older plugin, you may need to pay for another year of WUP (which works out to around $12 per Waves plugin owned). These costs quickly add up, so it’s worth factoring them into buying decisions.
Advanced controls on Curves Equator. Image: MusicTech
When it comes to gentle balancing of individual tracks or a whole mix, Curves Equator does a great job. Its linear phase filters give transparent-sounding results, and when you listen to the delta signal, it actually sounds cleaner than Soothe2, which has subtle, watery artefacts.
Tested on a range of material, I can quickly dial in improvements that benefit individual tracks, or a whole mix when used more sparingly. When it comes to very fine-tuned resonance suppression, I would probably still reach for Soothe2 as it can be more precise– as mentioned, there are better plugins for reducing mix clashes. But for general mix duties, Curves Equator is a superb choice.

Key features

Resonance suppression and mix balancing plugin (VST2, VST3, AU, AAX, Audiosuite)
Removes problematic frequencies, fixes resonances and balances inconsistencies
Linear phase filters provide transparent sound
Shape and tilt the target curve
4 bands and 8 adjustable nodes for additional control
Learn feature provides personalised suppression curve
Learn via sidechain allows tailored frequency unmasking
Rider feature allows attenuation only when audio from the SC comes in
Dynamic auto-makeup gain matches input loudness
Advanced controls help refine the attenuation
Resizable user interface

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