Smooth Operator Pro Review

It would be tough to name a category of plugins that has changed how we approach mixing more in the past five years than intelligent spectral processors. And while some of us may have been reluctant to relinquish control over any aspect of our mixes to an algorithm, it’s clear that there are some problems that computers are better at solving than humans are. Real-time Fast Fourier Transforms are near the top of the list.

BABY Audio won many devotees with Smooth Operator, the Intelligent Signal Balancer that represented their first foray into spectral processing. It had all the hallmarks of a BABY Audio product, in particular a clean, approachable user interface that provides intuitive access to a wealth of power and possibilities under the hood, including aspects of dynamic EQ and compression. They’ve just released a follow-up that builds on their initial success: Smooth Operator Pro adds more features for finer and greater control without sacrificing the ease of use that made its predecessor so popular.

What is Spectral Processing?

Spectral Processing involves analyzing a signal in real time to identify the harmonics that make up a sound at any given moment. Once these components are isolated, they can be acted on individually. This allows us to isolate and tame problematic frequencies as they occur, with minimal impact on the surrounding harmonics that are behaving themselves. This makes it an excellent tool for reducing harshness or unwanted resonances in particular.

New features, new look

Smooth Operator V1 had a very minimalist look to it, with very few controls outside of the main spectrum window. Smooth Operator Pro adds a new control panel on the left side with a large threshold dial now taking the place of the centre handle that controlled the threshold in the previous version. The new interface, while still scalable, takes up a little more real estate, naturally, and the overall interface colour has gone from pale grey to charcoal. You still get your choice of three pastel/neon accent colours, which can help you identify which track you’re working on when you have multiple instances loaded.

The Pro control panel organizes an expanded set of parameters under six categories:

• Setup gives you the choice of two correction algorithms, Even and Slew, and introduces the Lo Preserve and Hi Preserve controls that allow you to dial low and high frequencies back into the mix.
• Focus, which was a single control in Smooth Operator 1.0, now covers a choice of Peak and RMS detection, as well as separate Detail and Isolation controls for fine-tuning harmonic selection.
• Comp gives you controls for Soft and Hard Knee, as well as Attack, Release and Threshold settings.
• Imaging allows you to choose between Mid-Side and Stereo operation, and to de-couple stereo tracks and bias the level of processing to one side or the other.
• Sidechain now has a dedicated gain control.
• Output features a Wet/Dry mix and an option to monitor the frequencies that the plugin is removing from the track.

Finessing the curve

Smooth Operator Pro allows you up to 10 peak nodes in the EQ curve, in addition to two shelf nodes (one at each end of the spectrum). This is quite a jump from the previous iteration’s four nodes. And to be clear, four nodes is plenty for many practical smoothing applications. But the additional handles that the Pro version offers give you exceptional control for dramatic, creative frequency sculpting.

For even more precision, you have the option to override the global Focus, Compression and Imaging settings for each node, and as in the previous version you can solo a node to hear precisely what effect it’s having. And a convenient A/B comparison feature can help ensure you’re getting exactly the result you want as you fine tune your settings.

In the mix

I’ve been very pleasantly surprised at how much one instance of Smooth Operator Pro accomplishes in a track. I decided to try it out on a live-off-the-floor vocal track that was a great performance but had been recorded without a pop filter, so right off the bat I wanted to rein in some distracting plosives, and just smooth things out overall without losing any of the airiness and presence.

In spite of the full set of controls Smooth Operator Pro remains very intuitive to use – it didn’t take me long to find a curve I was happy with using just a few nodes. I put an aggressive shelf in the low end for the plosives, and then brought the threshold down to see (and hear) what frequencies were hitting hardest. After a bit of tweaking I dialled a bit of air back in with the Hi Preserve control in the Correction panel, and with a splash of reverb things were already sounding 75% done.

Conclusions

I was really impressed with what it did for the vocal track I tested it on, as well as a variety of instruments and a drum bus. The 12 available nodes allowed me to define complex curves that covered a lot of ground. As a final test I applied it to a live-to-stereo mix from a very bass-heavy club system – sweeping a notch across the spectrum was a literal revelation, uncovering aspects of the track I’d forgotten were there.

With a long list of new features including node-specific controls as well as improved sound quality and overall performance from version 1, it’s clear that BABY Audio has worked hard to earn Smooth Operator its “Pro” designation. Now redefined as a Dynamic Spectral Balancer, Smooth Operator Pro does much more than clean up problem areas in your tracks. It’s a versatile studio tool that can produce both subtle and dramatic results.

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