Smile v5 – Accurate Equal Loudness Compensation

Smile just got better.

As you know, I’m going through all my plugins to release signed and notarized Apple Silicon versions of the older ones. When I opened up Smile 4, it quickly became clear that I’d need to rework about half of it just to get it running on Silicon Macs. And, as always, I couldn’t resist making a few improvements along the way.

Smile has always been a fun concept — it was one of the first plugins to use equal loudness contours and has probably been my most successful release to date. But let’s be honest: no one’s been raving about it in a while. Competing tools have caught up, and I stopped reaching for it years ago. That’s about to change. What started as a compatibility update turned into a full rebuild. Smile now calculates the exact contour for each phon level. While the plugin still produces a static EQ curve per setting, the bands are no longer linear — they now follow the true shape of the equal loudness curve at every step.

This makes Smile v5 useful outside the studio as well — for example, in live sound, when you soundcheck at lower levels (like in a restaurant that doesn’t want 100 dB SPL during dinner) and quickly want to adapt the sound to a new loudness level as the show starts. It’s also simply a more precise tool for mixing and mastering.

Version 5 introduces a completely new engine under the hood, built around phon-accurate loudness contour modeling. Instead of using approximations or static curves, Smile now calculates and adjusts the EQ response using a perceptual model based on actual phon levels, starting from a baseline of 80 phon.

You can shift the target between 72–88 phon. The result is a tonal shift that feels natural — not because it’s subtle, but because it aligns with how your ears actually work.

Our brains are hardwired to perceive some frequencies more clearly than others. Smile v5 embraces that fact and gives you a way to re-balance a mix according to how we hear, not just how it measures.

What’s new in Smile v5:

• True phon-based EQ shaping, modeled after ISO226

• Transient-specific phon targeting – dial in a separate curve for transients

• Fletchy-Muncher is obsolete – Smile now includes everything Fletchy did, and more

Smile v5 isn’t just a de-harsher — it’s a perceptual tone corrector. Whether you mix loud, quiet, or somewhere in between, this helps you get the tonal balance right for actual human ears.

Download for Patreons:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/74683988

Formats:
VST3 for Windows
VST3 and AU for macOS – signed & notarized

Demo’s attached below!

Thanks for sticking around — your support makes this possible. If you’re using it in your chain, I’d love to hear how it fits into your workflow!

—Johannes / Noisebud
_____________________________

Ways to get Noisebud plugins:

Become a Patron – $6/month
Get instant access to almost all plugins—there are just a few exceptions reserved for higher paying tiers. You don’t need to stay subscribed—once you download a plugin, it’s yours to keep. However, if you want to grab an update later on, you’ll need to be an active Patron again (or choose one of the options below).

One-time payment – $30
Buy a single plugin via the shop on Patreon. This license includes all minor updates up to the next major release—e.g. buy v5.00 and you get v5.01–5.99 free. Upgrading to v6.00 requires a new purchase.

Note: This option only gives you access to the specific plugin you buy.

Lifetime Access via the Download Hub – $129
Pay for the Download Hub post on Patreon and unlock download access to all the setup files—that’s almost everything I’ve made and will make. Just like with the $6 tier, a few plugins might be exclusive to higher tiers, but otherwise you get full access to the entire library, including all future updates, for as long as I keep developing plugins and stay on Patreon.