# 2CAudio Releases PBJ Spatial Mixing Environment, Precedence 1.5 & Breeze 2.5



## Andrew Souter (Nov 27, 2019)

*PBJ SUMMARY*







The PBJ Pack is a Spatial Mixing Environment that combines sublime psychoacoustic positioning and industry-leading algorithmic reverb into a unified and intelligently adaptive workflow. It introduces a unique system of multi-instance editing and inter-plugin communication that allows potentially hundreds of linked plug-in instances to function as a unified acoustic space, where each instrument can occupy its own unique position within this cohesive virtual acoustic environment.

Precedence handles the more local and relative perceptual cues while the reverb engine handles more absolute global environmental aspects. Together they synergistically complete the spatial illusion and achieve new levels realism. Achieving a cohesive spatial mix with individual track seperation, defintion, and perfect depth placement has never been this easy!

The PBJ Pack is comprised of Precedence 1.5, Breeze 2.5, and 4 Breeze Preset Expansions.

*PRECEDENCE 1.5*






Precedence 1.5 is a psychoacoustic stereo positioning tool. It creates an organically modulating stereo-image that produces an instantaneous sense of width, depth, and presence similar to stereo microphone techniques used in acoustic spaces. It then positions this image within a virtual stage, giving mix engineers ultra precise control over left-to-right and front-to-back placement. The end result is an incredible sense of hyper-realistic 3D space and specific localization of each instrument within this space.

*BREEZE 2.5*






Breeze 2.5 is an industry-leading algorithmic reverb that is ultra-efficient, simple to use, and most importantly sounds absolutely sublime. In its most recent version, it has also grown to become one of the most powerful spatial tools on the market! Breeze 2.5 introduces a completely novel Distance-Link DSP mode, where the entire algorithm retunes itself based on instrument position, effectively producing a different set of impulse responses for an infinite number of positions within the virtual room.

*PBJ SYSETEM*






The PBJ system is a new paradigm in spatial mixing. It pairs direct sound spatialization and positioning with an adaptive multi-instance reverb environment that automatically tunes itself to augment the positional imaging established by Precedence.

The Following features form the basis of the PBJ system:

*PRECEDENCE LINK*


Link instances of Precedence and Breeze via Inter-Plugin Communication
Establish a unified spatial environment with Breeze, and use Precedence to place individual tracks within this this environment
Automatically make very complex adjustments to internal Breeze DSP settings simply by changing position information in Precedence
Achieve never-before-heard levels of realism in depth and azimuth positioning
*BREEZE DISTANCE LINK DSP MODE*


Distance Link DSP mode adjusts automatically adjusts hundreds of internal DSP values within the Breeze Alg in response to a changes to the single Distance parameter
PreDelay, Direct/Reflected Energy Balance and many more parameters become responsive to Distance which can be linked to Precedence
A single Breeze Preset no longer represents a single position within a space, but rather the entire space with an infinite variety of positions created within this space
Effectively an Algorithmic equivalent of having infinitely many impulse responses of a given acoustic space

*MULTI-INSTANCE EDITING*













Manage many instances of Precedence and Breeze within a single GUI window
Use the Precedence Position Display to visualize position information for all tracks in an Edit Group simultaneously.
Edit parameter and preset data for any instance within and Edit Group
Multi-Instance Edits performed in Precedence change linked Breeze Instances as well
Speed up your workflow and eliminate the need to open and close GUI windows one at a time

*EDIT GROUPS*


Organize and Group many instances of Breeze into edit Groups to manage complex sessions
Allow some instances to work independently without Groups if desired, for send buses

*GLOBAL BROADCAST*


Make macro changes en mass to an entire group of 10s or 100s of instances!
Apply preset and parameter changes to all instances within an Edit Group!
Change the spatial mixing environment for an entire mix in a single click while maintaining relative track positions
Change the existing positioning laws in Precedence en masse to adjust spatial contrast in established mixes
Allow individual variations for each track to enable micro management of individual track details when needed
Allow Randomize to create randomized preset variations for an entire group that remain part of the unified space

*SELECTION SYNC*


Lock multi-instance selections to Precedence to allow Precedence to function as the command center for Multi-Instance mixing

*ADDITIONAL NEW FEATURES*

*NEW PRECEDENCE ADDITIONS*


3 Algorithm Modes in Precedence:

*Beta* : the default mode providing the most specific positioning using a full set of psychoacoustic principals
*Mu* : an enhanced mono-compatibility mode for cases where this is a critical concern
*Omega* : an enhanced diffusive mode with extra widening designed for synths and modern FX​
Precedence X-Range Loss Mode: allowing more extreme Gain and High Frequency Loss to exaggerate sense of distance for use in Post Production SFX
Precedence Input Channel Swap to more easily align sample libraries that have been recorded In-Situ with the final desired position

*GUI & CHAMELEON COLOR ENHANCEMENTS*

* Drastic User customization of GUI color preferences
* 300+ Factory Color Themes
* 30 Different GUI sizes from tiny to 8K
* Light, Dark, Contrast Modes
* Variable Font Scaling
* Hi-DPI screen support
* Custom Menus















*SUSPEND ON SILENCE ENHANCEMENTS*

* Disable processing when there is no input signal
* Massive gains in efficiency in complex projects
* More CPU power for other effects and synths
* Lower electric bill, more polar bears

*MISC*

* New Presets
* Minor Bug Fixes and Optimizations
* Vastly Less Memory usage and enhanced performance when using large instance count

*FULL PRODUCT INFO & DEMOS*

PBJ Pack
Precedence 1.5
Breeze 2.5


*PRICING AND AVAILABILITY*

Introductory & Holiday offers are available until January 2020 as follows:

Precedence 1.5: $99.95
Breeze 2.5: $99.95
PBJ Pack: $199.95
Perfect Storm 3.5 Pack: $349.95

The PBJ Pack is comprised of Precedence 1.5, Breeze 2.5, and 4 Breeze Preset Expansions.

The Perfect Storm 3.5 Pack is comprised of all 2CAudio Reverb and Spatial tools: Precedence 1.5, Breeze 2.5, B2, Aether, and 12 Preset Expansions.

Standard pricing beginning in January 2020 is as follows:

Precedence 1.5: $149.95
Breeze 2.5: $149.95
PBJ Pack: $299.95

Order links:

https://www.designersound.com/

Upgrades from Breeze 1.x to Breeze 2.5 are available.

Upgrades to Perfect Storm 3.5 are available.


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## Robo Rivard (Nov 27, 2019)

I updated to Breeze 2.5 and Precedence 1.5 this afternoon. If I already own all the preset expansions, does it mean that I have the equivalent of the PBJ Pack?


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## kgdrum (Nov 27, 2019)

Robo Rivard said:


> I updated to Breeze 2.5 and Precedence 1.5 this afternoon. If I already own all the preset expansions, does it mean that I have the equivalent of the PBJ Pack?



I have a similar question ,I have Breeze and the 4 expansion packs.
If I update Breeze to 2.5 and purchase and install Precedence 1.5 will I have the equivalent of the PBJ Pack?

Thanks


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## Andrew Souter (Nov 27, 2019)

Robo Rivard said:


> I updated to Breeze 2.5 and Precedence 1.5 this afternoon. If I already own all the preset expansions, does it mean that I have the equivalent of the PBJ Pack?



Yes sir, you are good to go!

If you have Breeze 2, Precedence 1.0 and the Expansions, the updated installers are already in your account. Likewise if you are already a Perfect Storm 3.5 customer. We always like to give back to our long term customers!

By creating a pack dedicated to the Precedence 1.5 and Breeze 2.5 and all the new glue between them, we create a unified purchase option for new customers to experience our platform. And it makes it easier to have a unfied package to dicuss all the glue/workflow topics since these concepts are quite novel. These topics basically took us almost all of 2019 to develop and there is a lot to introduce and discuss.

Breeze and Precedence are still quite great on their own and can continue to be used in the traddiotnal manners if/when desired. They both have their own core functionality. But when we talk about using them together with Precedence Link, and Multi-Instance editing etc, we will talk about the "PBJ" platform/system/workflow/environment.

PBJ to Perfect Storm upgrades will be available too, if for example new customers start with PBJ and would like to add Aether and/or B2 later on. We are working on these other members of Perfect Storm as well...


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## Andrew Souter (Nov 27, 2019)

kgdrum said:


> I have a similar question ,I have Breeze and the 4 expansion packs.
> If I update Breeze to 2.5 and purchase and install Precedence 1.5 will I have the equivalent of the PBJ Pack?
> 
> Thanks




Yes.

PBJ = Precedence 1.5 + Breeze 2.5 + the 4 Breeze 2 Expansions
Perfect Storm 3.5 = all of that + Aether + B2 + Aether Expansions + B2 Expansions

if you have everything that is contained in the particular pack/bundle, you have the pack/bundle and get the same future offers as you would had you purchased the pack/bundle in a single order. Since we have evloved these bundles over many years most Perfect Storm customers went through various upgrades/additions etc like this already.

We hope to organize our downloads section on the web store a little differently sometime soon-ish to make it more clear what you pack/bundle you have and what you could add to complete one if you have a partial one.


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## Robo Rivard (Nov 27, 2019)

Thanks! Yes, as soon as I saw this thread, I connected to my DesignerSound account, and my new ugrade links to 2.5 were there!... It took me two minutes total to install everything!

I was worried at first, because I tought the PBJ thing was an extra piece of software, like a wrapper, but looking at the manual, it became obvious that the new plug-ins were working hand in hand. So if we want to use Breeze 2.5 like a regular reverb, we just click "standard", and if we want to synchronize it with Precedence 1.5, we select "Link".


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## Andrew Souter (Nov 27, 2019)

Robo Rivard said:


> So if we want to use Breeze 2.5 like a regular reverb, we just click "standard", and if we want to synchronize it with Precedence 1.5, we select "Link".



yes.

To try/demo "Precedence-Link" on a single track all you have to do is:

1) insert Precedence
2) insert Breeze after it
3) Click on the Link mode in Breeze (it is already on by default in Precedence)

(To establish an active link the instance names much match in the linked pair. They will already by default in the example above, but if you want to use Multi-Instance editing you will likely want to give your instnaces meaninful names like "Violin 1" etc insted of "ID 001" etc. In this case the names must match in both P and B to maintain a link)

We will make videos to show all this stuff. It takes many words to explain it, but to see it in action is actually much more simple and once it is setup the workflow is much easier than traditional ways.


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## Robo Rivard (Nov 27, 2019)

Wow! Just tried it in Ozone, it works!


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## jon wayne (Nov 27, 2019)

A little confused. If I own Breeze 2.1, is it a paid upgrade to 2.5?


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## Robo Rivard (Nov 27, 2019)

jon wayne said:


> A little confused. If I own Breeze 2.1, is it a paid upgrade to 2.5?


No. Your new links are waiting on your DesignerSound customer page! Enjoy!


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## jon wayne (Nov 27, 2019)

Thanks, m


Robo Rivard said:


> No. Your new links are waiting on your DesignerSound customer page! Enjoy!


Thanks, man. Kinda hard to miss the BRIGHT RED links!


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## Andrew Souter (Nov 27, 2019)

jon wayne said:


> A little confused. If I own Breeze 2.1, is it a paid upgrade to 2.5?



No. We decided to make it complimentary to upgrade from 2.0/2.1 to 2.5. It was a ton of work, but we like to give back to our customers as much as possible. If you have 2.x you will find the installer already in your account here: https://www.designersound.com/mydownloads

(Breeze 1.x to 2.x is a paid upgrade.)

And of course to use Breeze 2.5 together with Precedence, you need Precedence. Precedence 1.0 -> 1.5 is also complimentary for those who already have 1.0. 

If you don't already have it, I highly recommend trying the demo and Linking it to Breeze 2.5. That's where the next-level magic happens...


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## colony nofi (Nov 27, 2019)

Excited to try this!
Now... I wonder... @Andrew Souter is surround on the horizon?


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## Andrew Souter (Nov 27, 2019)

colony nofi said:


> Excited to try this!
> Now... I wonder... @Andrew Souter is surround on the horizon?



I think surround is cool... it's definitely something we have thought about. I've learned (I hope) not to overpromise timeframes -- better to under-promize and over-deliver -- but I agree it is an interesting idea for sure...


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## Virtuoso (Nov 27, 2019)

Couldn't resist the PBJ bundle!  Is it possible to upgrade to the Perfect Storm if I find myself tempted over the next couple of days?


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## Andrew Souter (Nov 27, 2019)

Virtuoso said:


> Couldn't resist the PBJ bundle!  Is it possible to upgrade to the Perfect Storm if I find myself tempted over the next couple of days?




Absolutely. Of course! Tell you what: if you (or anyone reading) start with PBJ during our holiday promo until January 2020, decide you want the full Perfect Storm 3.5, we can just do the price difference between them... while the promo remains active.

Any time after that we can still give you a favorable deal as well -- in general you get the same relative savings on whatever you add to complete the bundle if you add later, the total will be slightly more than purchasing all at the same time, but it will be as favorable as possible for sure.

We think eventually all our spatial/reverb customers will want the full Perfect Storm bundle, and we will continue to make it even stronger every year. We are working on some really cool new things for B2 and Aether. We haven't forgotten them for sure. B2 is my personal favorite for huge ambient and special-FX verbs and is real magic in those applications -- and many here swear by it for "normal daily use" hall/chamber type scoring needs too, and Aether remains very popular too.

Right now if you are new to 2CAudio, the PBJ Pack is the perfect place to start... eventually if we have done our job correctly you will probably be tempted to try the full Perfect Storm bundle, but there is no pressure. It's there when/if you are ready...


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## axb312 (Nov 27, 2019)

No crossgrade pricing for Breeze 2.5 owners who wish to buy precedence?


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## zakufan (Nov 27, 2019)

I own precedence. Is there upgrade price for PBJ bundle?


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## paulmatthew (Nov 28, 2019)

axb312 said:


> No crossgrade pricing for Breeze 2.5 owners who wish to buy precedence?





zakufan said:


> I own precedence. Is there upgrade price for PBJ bundle?


You have to email 2Caudio for upgrade pricing . I upgraded to Perfect Storm last year and it was easy enough. Send your email , get your quote , and pay. The support link to them is here https://www.2caudio.com/support/contact


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## jneebz (Nov 28, 2019)

I'm assuming (forgive me if I missed this) that wet orchestral libraries don't benefit as much as drier ones when it comes to spatialization plugins such as this?


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## Andrew Souter (Nov 28, 2019)

jneebz said:


> I'm assuming (forgive me if I missed this) that wet orchestral libraries don't benefit as much as drier ones when it comes to spatialization plugins such as this?



If you are dealing with one single megalithic library that is recorded very wet in-situ in the same hall and you are happy with how it sounds, then in general, yes, Precedence may not be completely necessary in this case. (You may still want to add addiotnal tails with Breeze). 

But if you are trying to blend many different libraries with varying degrees of position info and reverb baked in, then it can be very, very helpful. And that's usually the norm.

Precedence could also potentially still be used to add additional "life"/precence to wet libraies due to its modualtion. In this case you would keep Angle set to 0.0 to retain the existing position, and distance could be set by ear, but probably something around 25-50% and you would probably not use linked Breeze instances in this case.


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## jneebz (Nov 28, 2019)

Andrew Souter said:


> If you are dealing with one single megalithic library that is recorded very wet in-situ in the same hall and you are happy with how it sounds, then in general, yes, Precedence may not be completely necessary in this case. (You may still want to add addiotnal tails with Breeze).
> 
> But if you are trying to blend many different libraries with varying degrees of position info and reverb baked in, then it can be very, very helpful. And that's usually the norm.
> 
> Precedence could also potentially still be used to add additional "life"/precence to wet libraies due to its modualtion. In this case you would keep Angle set to 0.0 to retain the existing position, and distance could be set by ear, but probably something around 25-50% and you would probably not use linked Breeze instances in this case.


Makes sense...thanks!


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## Andrew Souter (Nov 28, 2019)

zakufan said:


> I own precedence. Is there upgrade price for PBJ bundle?





axb312 said:


> No crossgrade pricing for Breeze 2.5 owners who wish to buy precedence?



Please email so we can take a look what the options are. Thinking, discussing... probably we can do something.


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## brek (Nov 28, 2019)

I've been playing with the trial versions over the last couple of days. I absolutely love the sound of Breeze. Considering Precedence as well, would be curious to hear more about working dry and wet libraries together. Is there a section of the manual that goes into that?

By the way, kudos on packing the manuals with so much information!

Also looking forward to seeing some videos.


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## axb312 (Nov 28, 2019)

Andrew Souter said:


> Please email so we can take a look what the options are. Thinking, discussing... probably we can do something.



HI Andrew. Already mailed you a couple of days ago. No response.


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## Living Fossil (Nov 29, 2019)

After having spent two days with the new version, i just have to say: WOW!
The new link feature makes it so much easier for the ear to stay focussed when changes are done.

p.s. i can really recommend to read the manual; specially the "delta" section is a great resource for finetuning.


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## Andrew Souter (Nov 29, 2019)

brek said:


> I've been playing with the trial versions over the last couple of days. I absolutely love the sound of Breeze.



Awesome. Thanks for the kind words.  It gets even better with Precedence. Really. no BS... even if you ignore all the positioning topics (the main functionality) of Precedence and simply insert it before Breeze and just leave it at default settings or so, center, 50% distance, maybe set Freq Loss to 0% if you are not trying to create additional depth, the sound of Breeze (and/or any other reverb) is improved.

It acts like another layer of "input diffusion" and adds additional modulaiton that is unlike what is used in any verb that I am aware of. It is highly beneficial to reverb, both Algorithmic and even convolution.

You could even try this on Breeze (or other verbs) on a send bus.

but once you start using the positioning aspects you may find that this is extremely powerful stuff and one of the few things missing still from the traditional verb usage workflows.



brek said:


> Considering Precedence as well, would be curious to hear more about working dry and wet libraries together. Is there a section of the manual that goes into that?



Not specifically. But good topic for videos perhaps?



brek said:


> By the way, kudos on packing the manuals with so much information!



Oh, thanks! I was worried it got a bit dense at times.  It is a lot of stuff to explain... but...



brek said:


> Also looking forward to seeing some videos.




...yes, this would help tremendously for those who don't like thick manuals. and even for those who do. Working on it!


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## Andrew Souter (Nov 29, 2019)

axb312 said:


> HI Andrew. Already mailed you a couple of days ago. No response.




Sorry, it was Thanksgiving yestdeday and I'm American. So even though I am working outside the USA at the moment, I tired to eat some Turkey and put in a little "family time".  I think I am caught up on email now, and I have PM'd you as well.


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## Andrew Souter (Nov 29, 2019)

Living Fossil said:


> After having spent two days with the new version, i just have to say: WOW!
> The new link feature makes it so much easier for the ear to stay focussed when changes are done.
> 
> p.s. i can really recommend to read the manual; specially the "delta" section is a great resource for finetuning.




Thanks for the kind words! Yes, the manuals are very thorough. Be sure to read all the new material about the Precedence Link, Multi-Instnace Editing, Groups, Global Broadcast etc. i.e. all the "PBJ Glue" topics.


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## Joël Dollié (Nov 29, 2019)

I use precedence in every mix to blend or just pan different libraries. Even coupled with any reverb it's great to have to add depth. the µ algorithm is ideal to pan stereo libraries. Better than normal panning and non destructive.


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## Robo Rivard (Dec 2, 2019)

Just played around with older libraries from the AKAI days, and the combo Precedence/Breeze really bring them back to life. You can't do anything about Round Robins and newer sophisticated stuff, but my favorite instruments from the past really get a major facelift.


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## manuhz (Dec 3, 2019)

Tried many other spatialization tools over the years, included the big ones, and this combo beats all of them. It´s a fantastic and flexible tool for mixing in context, allowing to seamlessly combine samples from different sources adding a subjective sense of depth and room positioning. Congratulations to the developer team!


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## Andrew Souter (Dec 3, 2019)

Thanks for the kind words!

A similar comment was made elsewhere and I elaborated/expanded some in reponse. Might be interesting:



everythinglouder;14353703 said:


> You've managed to do the complicated part of what Vienna MIR does for $500 less, WITHOUT the latency, plus with workflow and arguably sonic improvements. Hats off.



Woah, awesome review! Really great to hear! kfhkh

expanding some on your statements for general readers:

Yes the PBJ system exists in the same goal-universe as things like MIR and SPAT. I have not personally tried MIR, but it seems similar in goal, and I really like the Vienna guy's other work such as their sample instruments. Their originally library, pre Syncron, is very dry, and works perfectly with our system actually for example.

SPAT seems to me more oriented towards the game/post word as far as I can tell. It allows arbitrary automation, and of course has tons of surround format options. It seems like an interesting platform for those uses. I believe it uses a shared verb engine (or a few), but not one-per-audio-object?

Our system was designed for Music production first and foremost. We try to optimize the Precedence Algorithm, the Breeze Algorithm, and all their interactions to be most appropriate for mixing music. MIR is probably the closest philosophically, yes. Their approach is convolution-based as i understand, ours is algorithmic.

But yes, as you point out, we are ultra efficient and can handle hundreds of instances simultaneously without breaking a sweat. And we are fully algorithmic. We do not have a few hundred impulse responses to choose from. We literally have an infinite set and the entire set is modulating in several different ways: the direct sound modulates, the ERs modulate, the tail modulates etc. Creating an extremely "organic" result.

Furthermore if you happen to look at some of the impulse responses created by Breeze 2.5, and even more-so Precedence into Breeze 2.5, you will notice these are not ultra simple lex-style figure 8 All-pass loops from the 70s. Our algorithmic result approaches the density you will find in the real-world and in convolution verbs using impulse responses of real spaces. There is only one (much loved) hardware device that gets a similar result that I am aware of.

But if you compare to a hardware device you must compare one instance of P->B to one physical unit of the hardware device. You are unlikely to be using hundreds of hardware verbs, one per track. but that is exactly how our system works though (if you use the full workflow). We have dozens or hundreds or even thousands if you like. Each instance is as extreme quality as the absolute best-of-the-best, yet each instance is completely customized to the specific track. So not only do we create quite an amazing space, but we also are able to PLACE the instruments INTO this space. At arbitrary locations within the space, each with their own space. You can not do this with traditional verbs, even the best ones. * We don't just "glue on some tail". We place instruments INTO the space we create. * You need a system like ours or MIR or SPAT to do these kind of things.

Broadcast features allow you to make an entire set of many instances function as one space. You can change the Breeze preset used for 500 instances of Breeze with a single click, making it just as easy as if Breeze were on a Send Bus. Say you are working on an orchestral mix where you are using a "Berlin Hall" preset in Breeze. (again you will NOT have just 1 Berlin Hall preset you will have 10s or 100s, and each will be unique automatically -- though unified). You can transport you entire spatial mx to a "LA Scoring Stage" or "Boston Hall" or whatever with a single click that probably takes about 1/10th of second to completely update 10s of thousands of complex internal DSP parameters. No waiting to reload IRs. It's just instantaneous. Your mix is now in a new space. But all your position info remains intact, and is adjusted relatively to the new space.

Note all weaknesses of algo verbs are furthermore improved by having many instances in parallel. Time density, modal/spectral density etc. (not that we really have an issue with that -- a single instance can already result in almost instantaneous maximum density if that is desired/appropriate -- but these are classical complaints of algo-verb from decades ago).

Note also Precedence itself also helps any/all reverbs that follow it (even on sends). It can function like additional "input diffusion" and has it's own modulation that further helps the aforementioned classical challenges to algo verb. Precedence will actually make ANY verb sound better, even convolution verbs. You could even use it specifically for that purpose in front of your send instances if you like. Put it before B2 or Aether if you like for example, and they become even better, even ignoring the positioning topics.

All combined, this is a new paradigm in spatial mixing. As such "new paradigms" require some slightly new thinking and mild learning for anyone not accustomed to such concepts. Once the "eureka, oh, I get it now" moment happens these is not really any turning back... it's simply a better way to work with "space" IMHO... The whole system must be unified to take things to the next level. Lots of companies have "pretty good tails" now. Very few have a full system of this nature, and those that do are *very* expensive, requires tons of resources and introduce latency or workflow complications... as _everythinglouder_ points out. kfhkh

and yes, *VIDEOS, VIDEOS, VIDEOS.*.. I know. working on it. kfhkh (there was one or two other features we though might make it into the current release version that I wanted to show in videos, but we lost a month or two in Aug-Sept tracking down an esoteric bug that ended up not even in code we wrote, but in library/SDK code we use. But it ended up as productive time bc we were able to optimize other things such a memory usage during that timeframe also. Anyway these other features have to wait until the next update, but we are working on some videos for this month.)


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## JoelSim (Dec 6, 2019)

Hey Andrew,

What is the most efficient workflow to link all precedence and breeze plugins in a huge session?

Hoping to learn your workflow process.

Thank you!


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## axb312 (Dec 6, 2019)

Hi @Andrew Souter , 

I too would be interested to know what the best workflow/ approach is. 

I have a mix of instruments recorded in different rooms, and some recorded dry. 

My current system is to vary send levels for different groups to acheive a sense of varying depth. Panning is handled within individual kontakt instances (where necessary). 

My idea was to use Precedence to further enhance the sense of depth and panning. I wanted to link all instances of Precedence to one send reverb. Importantly, I did not want to undo the panning for instruments which are already recorded in situ. 

How would you suggest someone in my position use Precedence?


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## Andrew Souter (Dec 7, 2019)

JoelSim said:


> Hey Andrew,
> 
> What is the most efficient workflow to link all precedence and breeze plugins in a huge session?
> 
> ...




Precedence-Link is established by Instance Name Match between Precedence and Breeze.

Instance names must be the same in P and B for the link to become active. By default they are populated such as:

B -> P
ID 001 -> ID 001
ID 002 -> ID 002

If you intend to use Mulit-Instnace editing, and you should, you will likely want to rename them to have meaningful names:

Violin -> Violin
Cello -> Cello
etc.

At the moment you need to manually rename the instances in *both locations*, both in Precedence and in Breeze, assuming you do not want to keep the default vaues "ID 001" etc. This is the only semi painful/tedious part of setup, but once it is done you don't have to edit it any more and then the rest is a pleasure. It can be considered as part of template setup.

We are also looking into being able to read DAW track names and auto-popluate our instance names by just using the DAW track name. That is the ideal that we are eventually working towards. No eta on that yet.

At the moment to setup large projects/sessions/templates, the best way to do things is:


Insert one Precedence and one Breeze on the first track you want to use.* Enable Link Mode in Breeze. Join Group 1 in Breeze. Join Group 1 in Precedence.*
Now you can *cut/paste the mixer settings in your host DAW.* And each track will get one P, one B. In most DAWs, you can copy this single channel and paste to multiple channels. In Cubase for example just select multiple tracks in the mixer and Paste. You will get 10, 50, 100 new instances of P and B, one on each track. They will be in order ID 002, ID 003 etc. with matching names in P and B and they will all be part of Group 1. (If you are setting up a new template and like EQ/compression on these tracks also you might like to insert such things also, so you can cut paste the entire channel settings. If you are inserting into an existing session where some tracks have existing plugs and others do not, you can option/control-drag the P and B plugins left to right across all tracks to duplicate them, and this will retain the above settings also). This would work already, but you will likely want to rename them, so...
Once P and B are inserted on all trakcs that you want to use them on, go back to your first instance pair "ID 001". Keep the P GUI and the B GUI open for this ID 001 instance in each. Assuming you want your instance names to just be the same as your track names, then double click on your DAW track name to edit. Copy. Double Click on ID 001 in P, Paste. Double Click on ID 001 in B, Paste.
Now in the P GUI, select ID 002, which should be the next track. B Selection will follow automatically. Double click on your DAW track name to edit. Copy. Double Click on ID 002 in P, Paste. Double Click on ID 002 in B, Paste. (You can change the Nav Bar, which normally shows Preset name to show Instance name. You can use the previous/next arrows in the nav bar to cycle through the instance names to rename them. PageUp/Down also changes instance selection, but some OSX hosts block it. This will be faster than trying to select in the Position Display bc inicually all the instances will ahve the same position until you change them.)
Repeat for all renaming tracks.

This is quite fast and relatively painless if you do it in this order. *Do it in this order though.* If you rename all P instances first, the links to Breeze will be broken, and you will have to open the B instances individually on each track to rename. To reiterate:


Select an instance in Precedence. Breeze will follow.
Rename the instance name in Precedence. The link to Breeze will be broken temporarily.
Rename the instance name in Breeze, to the same name. The link is reestablished.
Change selection to the next instance in Precedence. Breeze will follow.
...continue in this rename cycle, renaming P, then B, then next instance for both...


For most orchestral projects, I'd say use one Group for the whole orchestra, or at least the main instruments such as strings, brass, woodwinds instruments, and perhaps a second for percussion and unusual/non-standard additions, or choir etc. Another group could be used for synths etc. if its a hybrid project. You can group by strings, woodwinds etc if you like of course, but so far, I like to see all the standard orchestral instruments in a single group. I suppose it will depend on how large your template is also and how many different VIs represent "Violin 1" etc.


Let me post an example or two...


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## Robo Rivard (Dec 7, 2019)

Will B2 and Aether be re-released with the same optimizations as Breeze 2.5 ?... I don't own B2 and Aether, so I can't really tell what is the difference between those two products and Breeze, especially if I bought all the expansion packs. Do I really need two thousand different rooms to make good music?


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## axb312 (Dec 7, 2019)

Andrew Souter said:


> Precedence-Link is established by Instance Name Match between Precedence and Breeze.
> 
> Instance names must be the same in P and B for the link to become active. By default they are populated such as:
> 
> ...



Thanks for that detailed (and somewhat painful ) answer.


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## Andrew Souter (Dec 7, 2019)

Robo Rivard said:


> Will B2 and Aether be re-released with the same optimizations as Breeze 2.5 ?...



They will be updated with new features, new functionality, new optimizations, etc yes. 2.0 versions basically. Major "new stuff". No eta quite yet. 2020 for at least one of them I hope, but no hard promises yet.



Robo Rivard said:


> I don't own B2 and Aether, so I can't really tell what is the difference between those two products and Breeze, especially if I bought all the expansion packs. Do I really need two thousand different rooms to make good music?



Well, as I am a musician/pianist/composer myself ( http://soundcloud.com/andrew_souter ) also, I can tell you that what you need most for good music is a powerful story, a good melody, a nice chord progression, a solid groove, an engaging narrative arc etc. If you have all of that you could probably have a pretty shitty reverb and still make great music that would move people.

But I am sure you know this already and everyone here is probably already great at these topics. So I guess the real question is how to take good music and polish it into the absolute best package it can be. How can we augment the existing emotional power. That's our goal with our verbs. We're not a world leader in compression or EQ or other various topics. That's the domain of other talented developers. We are experts in spatial processing and try to push the boundaries there and contribute in some small way to making all our creative output as perfect as possible.

For something like B2 specifically, it was designed as a "spatial synthesizer"/"sound-designers spatial playground". It does all kinds of "special FX" reverbs, enviorments, hybrid delay-verb things, distored drones etc. It is ExTREMELY creative. It begs you to be creative, and for some styles of music, such as electronic/ambient, and scoring work for say action/sci-fi/horror/thriller/modern it can actually inspire the composition, almost like a 5th band member. It is much more than "another room". I worked on the Tron score some with Sascha Dikiciyan (Sonic Mayhem) a few year ago for example, and it was a very large part of the sound of that project, and most of his other work. For these type of scoring needs its invaluable IMHO. We are going to do a lot more with it.

Do you need it? I don't know. Up to you. I am sure you make great music already. But it's pretty cool tool if you have very modern projects. Many here also swear by it for standard hall/orchestral work too. For example:





__





2CAudio - VIP Client Story: Gareth Coker






2caudio.com







> What is your current favorite?
> 
> Without doubt, it’s B2. It’s my desert island reverb. It is simply unbelievable how flexible it is and the quality of sound that it puts out. It’s in every single project I work on. I can’t imagine not using it! B2 is without doubt my favorite reverb of all time and I’ve told people that to be honest, I think I would be happy paying $2,000 for it, rather than what you guys are currently charging! (I’m not complaining though…)


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## Andrew Souter (Dec 7, 2019)

axb312 said:


> Thanks for that detailed (and somewhat painful ) answer.



It only hurts a little the first time.  It reads more complicated than it really is, and is less tedious than setting up tons of Kontact instances for example. Template setup is never the fun part, but once it's set up, it's good to go and then it is MUCH more efficient than old methods.

(also, really the only semi-painful part is editng instance names. we hope to make the automatic eventually.)


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## Robo Rivard (Dec 7, 2019)

Thanks for the answer Andrew. I got it that B2 is another animal. But listening to the demos, I had the impression that Aether and Breeze could have been merged together to form a single product, sharing the same expansion packs. 

Do you plan an upgrade for Kaleidoscope?...


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## mgpqa1 (Dec 7, 2019)

Really enjoying the plugins so far! But one super minor thing is annoying my OCD self while I'm organizing my plugins folder and I can't seem to let it go... 

2CAudio vs 2C-Audio... the former appears to be the official branding/style (e.g., offical website and product literature)... the latter is what the installers (at least on Windows) use and default to... whhyyyyy?


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## Andrew Souter (Dec 7, 2019)

Robo Rivard said:


> Thanks for the answer Andrew. I got it that B2 is another animal. But listening to the demos, I had the impression that Aether and Breeze could have been merged together to form a single product, sharing the same expansion packs.



There is more design-goal overlap now between Breeze 2 and Aether, compared to B2, yes. But the achitecture of how they do things have diverged a lot now. The Aether ER engine is based on Ray-Tracing of real room geometry for example. It is very different than what we do in Breeze 2.

We do however realize there is some "diminishing marginal utility" occurring as you increase your plug-in collection.  That's why we have Perfect Storm. If you purchase Perfect Storm it becomes similar to paying for 2 out of the 3 verbs at normal prices or something like that.

If you already purchased PBJ for example, it makes more sense to upgrde to Perfect Storm, than it does to purchase only B2.



Robo Rivard said:


> Do you plan an upgrade for Kaleidoscope?...




Yes. We did a ton of work on it in 2017, but we had to pause to switch to Breeze 2 and Precedence. We will return to it soonish. Sadly we built it in our old rendered-png GUI style, and so we must update it now to our new proceedural GUI system. We don't use rendered images in the GUIs anymore. We just draw them "live" via code. That's why we can offer so many different GUI sizes and color prefs etc.


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## Andrew Souter (Dec 7, 2019)

mgpqa1 said:


> 2CAudio vs 2C-Audio...



We decided we didn't like the "-" character in the name as it just wastes space. We will use "2CAudio" for all future versions/products. So the "2C-Audio" folder will go away asap.


BTW, Cool pict.


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## Andrew Souter (Dec 7, 2019)

Regarding setup/tutorials/etc. check this out:






Full res 4K:



https://2caudio.com/sitecontent/products/pbj/community/Verdi_Aida.png



Rendered Example Mix:



https://2caudio.com/sitecontent/products/pbj/community/Verdi_Aida_Createc_Source_2CAudio_PBJ_ExampleMix.wav




Cubase Project (~600MB):



https://2caudio.com/sitecontent/products/pbj/community/Verdi_AIDA_TrimuphantMarch_Createc_2CAudioPBJ.zip





> Dry Orchestral Stems created by Beat Kaufmann as part of his "Mixing an Orchestra" tutorial.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




If you have Cubase you can download this project and solo/mute tracks and experiment with your mix etc.

This requires the full version though as the demo version is limited to 8 instnaces of P and B, and will not load preset data. So you need the full versions to explore the project file effectively.

I am preparing many other examples and will make videos from them as well.


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## axb312 (Dec 7, 2019)

How well Does this work with instruments that already have some room sound baked in?


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## Andrew Souter (Dec 7, 2019)

axb312 said:


> How well Does this work with instruments that already have some room sound baked in?



The ideal is as dry as possible.

If there is a lot of built-in room sound, you can try to use the mono input mode, and use only one channel to feed both channels, thereby discarding any lateral azimuth position info in the source sound. Competing azimuth info is likely a worse problem than a little more ambience than desired. So if you just make it mono first, it can be salvageable.

The Input Width slider can also be used to narrow input sounds before reposting. This works best on enemble sounds if needed. Solo instruments may be better just to discard one channel by using the mono input mode.

In the exmaple above, I was originally using mono input mode for all the tracks. It sounded great. At the last minute I decided to try to just use them all as Direct Stereo in, no input processing. It worked great as well. So I kept things that way for the render. This particular VSL library is already spatious from what I assume must be its stereo micing technique, but it remains well centered and has no distinct position. So I used the full stereo input. The difference between the two was fairly minor. Using only the mono input was equally as spacious.


If you have a wet stereo library that is in-situ and you want to just add some subtle modulation to it, you can just keep Angle at 0, and distance at say 25-50% or so. If you want to reposition something in-situ from the left side the right side you can use the Invert Channels feature so that the starting point agrees more with the goal, then use position to make small adjustments as desired.

See the Precedence manual for details these topics. There is lots on info about this stuff.


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## Andrew Souter (Dec 7, 2019)

...as an experiment though, do try the mono-input modes. Enable Global Broadcast and simply change the Input mode in Precedence to Mono. Use the Left or Right input it does not matter much here since the samples are well balanced. In this case we are reponsbible for 100% of the spatial result. Positioning will most lkely be most exact this way.

I just switched to the full stereo input in this case bc the string parts are enemble perhaps recorded with many mices and mixed or wide mics or however it was done, but a whole string section is a large sound source so there can be differences between the channels that Precedence would not quite recreate and so for a really full string section from a single track, I kept the strings using the stereo input mode to be slightly "thicker". In other words it is slightly unnatural to have exact positioning for a whole string section bc the whole string section does not come from one point in space.

Its a matter of taste. Either works really in this case.

Also try browsing various Precedence presets with Global Broadcast on. When you change the preset for an entire mix of 30-40-100+ instances like this, you can think of this as something like changing the microphone configuration you are using as if you were recording a real orchestra. Try this why using Mono-input mode so the changes are most distinct. Its a good way to get a feel for what this does.


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## Living Fossil (Dec 8, 2019)

axb312 said:


> How well Does this work with instruments that already have some room sound baked in?



Personally, i'm exploring the possiblity to use the Precedence/Breeze combo and while establishing the link function simply lowering the gain of Breeze. So it keeps the distance information, but doesn't add that much reverb. I think that's a good way to explore further, specially when the baked in reverb is nice.


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## Andrew Souter (Dec 8, 2019)

Good suggestion. You can also try using very short decay times in Breeze, say 0.5 to 1.0 seconds to provide the extra room sound if needed without excessive tail. You could pair this with one global verb on sends such as B2 that provides only tail if you like, mixed low. This is another approach that can work.


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## Andrew Souter (Dec 8, 2019)

Here's another example:







full res 4K:



https://2caudio.com/sitecontent/products/pbj/community/NicolasLaget_AmuseBouche_PBJ-MixExample.png



.wav mix:



https://2caudio.com/sitecontent/products/pbj/community/NicolasLaget_AmuseBouche_PBJ-MixExample.png



Many of the instrument parts are real recorded performances. The "choir" is 16 takes of the same female performer each with P-B pair, shown in the second gui on the right.


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## Andrew Souter (Dec 8, 2019)

Or something completely different, a sparse 4-track pop vocal ballad:






Full Res 4K:



https://2caudio.com/sitecontent/products/pbj/community/Female_Ballad_PBJ-Mix.png



Exported Wav:



https://2caudio.com/sitecontent/products/pbj/community/Female_Ballad_PBJ-Mix.wav


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## bvaughn0402 (Dec 8, 2019)

Is there like a "dummies" intro to this whole thing? :D


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## Leandro Gardini (Dec 10, 2019)

Any demo out there made with libraries like Audio Modeling, Sample Modeling or Chris Hein?


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## Oxytoxine (Dec 10, 2019)

As a Chris Hein and since yesterday also Sample Modeling Strings user I would also be very much interested in this ^. 

Would I have e.g. in the Hein and Samplemodeling instruments also have to turn off the instrument body convolution responses and delegate the early reflections to the Precedence / Breeze combo, too?

A further question: how does Precedence / Breeze deal with instrument direction? Maybe I am understanding things wrong, but will "positioning" a dry instrument in this way not sound like it would directly face the microphone? Maybe I'm overcomplicating this

I am looking forward to play around with Precedence / Breeze - it would be like a dream becomes true for me if it indeed works, massively simplifiying the spatialization process for "engineering dummies" like me.


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## Chris Richter (Dec 10, 2019)

Oxytoxine said:


> As a Chris Hein and since yesterday also Sample Modeling Strings user I would also be very much interested in this ^.
> 
> Would I have e.g. in the Hein and Samplemodeling instruments also have to turn off the instrument body convolution responses and delegate the early reflections to the Precedence / Breeze combo, too?
> 
> ...


Well, there is a free demo. If you even own the instruments why not try it for yourself? 

Of course it will not make a close mic a tree mic. However it has some processing going on that does a lot to help it sound more distant, like high frequency loss and other finesses. Andrew does know a lot better what exactly is going on but to my ears it works pretty good.

If you actually try for yourself it would be great if you show us the file here


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## rrichard63 (Dec 10, 2019)

The 2CAudio website makes it clear that Windows 7 is not officially supported. Has anybody tried running Precedence and Breeze under Windows 7? Do they work at all?


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## Oxytoxine (Dec 10, 2019)

CQrity said:


> Well, there is a free demo. If you even own the instruments why not try it for yourself?
> 
> Of course it will not make a close mic a tree mic. However it has some processing going on that does a lot to help it sound more distant, like high frequency loss and other finesses. Andrew does know a lot better what exactly is going on but to my ears it works pretty good.
> 
> If you actually try for yourself it would be great if you show us the file here



I will! I literally just stumbled over this thread while thinking about the whole problematic of mixing / matching dry and wet libraries or whether it would make sense to just go one route (I am very new to all this) sitting in the train, so I instantly replied without first testing the demo version. Thank you for your impression - nice to hear that it works pretty good! 

(And to be honest: I do not really trust my ears - I am not classically trained and so used to listening to modern recordings and styles of music that I rather trust the opinion of the experts than my own ears when it comes to such delicate affairs


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## Andrew Souter (Dec 10, 2019)

leogardini said:


> Any demo out there made with libraries like Audio Modeling, Sample Modeling or Chris Hein?



I've been in contact with these guys and have the first two. They are a very good match yes and fine products for sure. Sadly as I spend a ton of time making our products etc, I am not completely up to date/speed yet with all the articulation magic used to produce results with these instruments that are as magical as some of things I have heard from you guys here who are using them. I've been trying to find the time to do so, but you guys are much better than I am with these libraries at the moment. If anyone would like to share dry stems of there work with these, or even a DAW project file, I'd love to render some examples of processing them with the PBJ system. Anyone interested can PM me.

We will be working on more demos. videos, etc this month and January. At the exact moment we are also finishing up a cool little Christmas present for everyone.


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## Andrew Souter (Dec 10, 2019)

bvaughn0402 said:


> Is there like a "dummies" intro to this whole thing? :D



working on it!


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## Andrew Souter (Dec 10, 2019)

Oxytoxine said:


> Would I have e.g. in the Hein and Samplemodeling instruments also have to turn off the instrument body convolution responses and delegate the early reflections to the Precedence / Breeze combo, too?



You can keep the instrument body convolultion, and just disable ERs and any tail.




Oxytoxine said:


> A further question: how does Precedence / Breeze deal with instrument direction? Maybe I am understanding things wrong, but will "positioning" a dry instrument in this way not sound like it would directly face the microphone? Maybe I'm overcomplicating this



In short it does not take into account instrument directivity. At the moment I am not completely convinced it is particularly helpful in the context of music mixing. In general it would create gain and spectral differences at the microphone location(s) depending on instrument direction and directivity. The mix engineer would then likely compensate for such things with EQ etc. basically considering them some form of "flaw" or challenge to overcome, so part of me wonders about the ultility of including such details. I tend to think it overcomplicates things. But I am open the idea that perhaps my opinion on this topic may eventually change. My current position is skeptical that it would be useful, it requires more study.

Strong directivity could also create interesting modulation effects as the performer moves a little. This would likely be similar to what the modulation in Precedecne already does.


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## Andrew Souter (Dec 10, 2019)

CQrity said:


> Of course it will not make a close mic a tree mic. However it has some processing going on that does a lot to help it sound more distant, like high frequency loss and other finesses. Andrew does know a lot better what exactly is going on but to my ears it works pretty good.



Well, it would depend on what the source sound is. If it is a solo insturment, we might get something similar to being able to transform something similar to a close mic to something similar to a tree mic system.

If it is an entire section of players spread over a large area the real spaced mics likely pick up more complex differences between channels. But we can certainly augment that scenario as well.


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## Andrew Souter (Dec 10, 2019)

rrichard63 said:


> The 2CAudio website makes it clear that Windows 7 is not officially supported. Has anybody tried running Precedence and Breeze under Windows 7? Do they work at all?



Some people have done it as I understand, yes. But we have not tried ourselves and no longer have Win 7 to test on and therefore can't really offer support for Win 7. 

Note we are 64-bit only now. So you would definately need Win7 64-bit at the very least. I'd highly recomend to try to the demo.

Win 10 64-bit is recommended.


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## rrichard63 (Dec 10, 2019)

Andrew Souter said:


> I'd highly recomend to try to the demo.


I will do that. But I strongly suspect that I'm going to have to give up Windows 7 after all -- my main DAW is also dropping support.


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## Andrew Souter (Dec 10, 2019)

leogardini said:


> Any demo out there made with libraries like Audio Modeling, Sample Modeling or Chris Hein?




...actually I did post this back in the summer:






Samplemodeling Solo & Ensemble Strings Released


could anyone post an example (one for violins one for cellos if possible) of these strings in their most raw/gritty/aggressive/dry state? I'm trying to make up my mind... Hi, Batrawi, did you listen to the cello excerpt I uploaded earlier in this thread...




vi-control.net





I took performance data made by "Saxer" which he created for the esemble patches, and I rendered it with the SOLO instruments. I did not edit the performance data at all. A few of the attack articulations could likely be better in the solo context. But I think it demonstrates the effectiveness of the spatialization...


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## Jaap (Dec 10, 2019)

I took out the pack last week and jeez... what an (extreme pun intended) breeze to work with! Adding it to multiple projects now, both synthy stuff and an orchestral album I am working on and its lovely. Using it with BBC SO and no need to put in the room, but putting Precedence before Breeze gives indeed a touch of magic!
Also some great stuff for sound design in there!


----------



## Leandro Gardini (Dec 10, 2019)

Andrew Souter said:


> I've been in contact with these guys and have the first two. They are a very good match yes and fine products for sure. Sadly as I spend a ton of time making our products etc, I am not completely up to date/speed yet with all the articulation magic used to produce results with these instruments that are as magical as some of things I have heard from you guys here who are using them. I've been trying to find the time to do so, but you guys are much better than I am with these libraries at the moment. If anyone would like to share dry stems of there work with these, or even a DAW project file, I'd love to render some examples of processing them with the PBJ system. Anyone interested can PM me.
> 
> We will be working on more demos. videos, etc this month and January. At the exact moment we are also finishing up a cool little Christmas present for everyone.


It doesn't need to be fancy. I just want to hear some few notes of these products with Precedence and Breeze.


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## axb312 (Dec 11, 2019)

@Andrew Souter what settings would you recommend in breeze to get the early reflections (or just a little bit of room tone) of the teldex stage?


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## Oxytoxine (Dec 12, 2019)

Andrew Souter said:


> You can keep the instrument body convolultion, and just disable ERs and any tail.
> 
> 
> In short it does not take into account instrument directivity. At the moment I am not completely convinced it is particularly helpful in the context of music mixing. In general it would create gain and spectral differences at the microphone location(s) depending on instrument direction and directivity. The mix engineer would then likely compensate for such things with EQ etc. basically considering them some form of "flaw" or challenge to overcome, so part of me wonders about the ultility of including such details. I tend to think it overcomplicates things. But I am open the idea that perhaps my opinion on this topic may eventually change. My current position is skeptical that it would be useful, it requires more study.
> ...




Dear Andrew

Thank you so much for this in depth explanation! Your stance on instrument directivity makes a lot of sense. I played around with the Precedence / Breeze combination - to my ears it sounds very good and transparent! Furthermore, the workflow is really easy. Although for my modest needs the very deep editing features that Breeze offers are likely overkill, I will buy it for the positioning / spatializing aspects alone. Thank you for giving us such a powerful tool and for taking the time to help and reply to all the questions! 

Best,

Oxy


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## bvaughn0402 (Dec 12, 2019)

Well, I dove in and got Precedence/Breeze. I need to dive into the manual now and learn it, and hope for future videos!

But it was super easy to figure out the basics ... Load P ... Load B ... Hit Link on B ... load in presets.

And really enjoy it.

Five quick questions:

1) I assume the idea of "dry/wet" is not relative with this since in some ways Precedence takes care of that, right?

2) I have typically used "Large Warm Hall" from VSS. What, in your mind, would be the top 2-3 large hall presets to try first?

3) Jake from Spitfire has advocated using two reverbs and mixing them ... curious if you think this setup could be used with that approach too.

4) I know this is probably either not possible, or not desired since another reverb product does this ... and maybe Precedence already does this and I don't know it yet! ... but I would love to change the visual to be an actual orchestral stage so I can move the location to the right spot. Like a cheaters map. Of course I can look at a pic and estimate it. But any chance we could get an option to turn on an actual orchestral map to visually see where to put the locater?

5) For a long time, I have applied the Beatles "Abbey Road" trick EQ to my reverb bus. If I continued that with this setup, would I just apply this EQ to either Precedence or Breeze? Or should I still continue to apply a separate EQ (which seems harder since I have to put on each channel being used).


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## Andrew Souter (Dec 12, 2019)

leogardini said:


> It doesn't need to be fancy. I just want to hear some few notes of these products with Precedence and Breeze.



The link above that was posted in SM thread had this:



https://2caudio.com/sitecontent/products/precedence/community/TorstenKamps-LittleMagicFlower-SamplemodelingSoloStrings-2CAudio.wav



That is 5 instaces of SM, and 5 instnaces of P-B. See the link post for details.

I will post a lot more examples in the next few weeks from various libraries.


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## Andrew Souter (Dec 12, 2019)

axb312 said:


> @Andrew Souter what settings would you recommend in breeze to get the early reflections (or just a little bit of room tone) of the teldex stage?



I am not familar with that particular space. In general we don't try to match exact real-world locations. If you have an impulse response, I could take a look though when I have a moment and see if we can get something close. Seems like a nice spot indeed.


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## Andrew Souter (Dec 12, 2019)

Oxytoxine said:


> Dear Andrew
> 
> Thank you so much for this in depth explanation! Your stance on instrument directivity makes a lot of sense. I played around with the Precedence / Breeze combination - to my ears it sounds very good and transparent! Furthermore, the workflow is really easy. Although for my modest needs the very deep editing features that Breeze offers are likely overkill, I will buy it for the positioning / spatializing aspects alone. Thank you for giving us such a powerful tool and for taking the time to help and reply to all the questions!
> 
> ...




Thanks for the kind words and compliments. Happy to participate here. Tons of very knowledgeable people here and I learn just as much as you guys by spending time here!


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## JEPA (Dec 12, 2019)

Andrew Souter said:


> Please email so we can take a look what the options are. Thinking, discussing... probably we can do something.


Hello Andrew, I also own Precedence. Where do I have to email You? What is your email adresse? Thank you.


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## Andrew Souter (Dec 12, 2019)

bvaughn0402 said:


> Well, I dove in and got Precedence/Breeze. I need to dive into the manual now and learn it, and hope for future videos!
> 
> But it was super easy to figure out the basics ... Load P ... Load B ... Hit Link on B ... load in presets.
> 
> ...




0) thanks for the compliments! Glad you like it!

1) when using Distance Link DSP mode in Breeze (and typically Precedence Link together with it), wet/dry mix is repalced by Distance. Distance includes wet/dry as well as several other things. It becomes a macro parameter. It changes a huge number of internal settings within the Breeze DSP algorithm. You can customize the exact mapping of Distance to wet/dry by adjusting the "DR Adjust" value that is shown on the "Big Time" view in Breeze. You can also use the Gain slider in Breeze to adjust ONLY the wet/tail gain, therefore this will also adjust the wet/dry balance. I suggest to use this for fine tuning. Use DR Adjust to modify the general rule for the entire session/project/group, or just use the default/preset values. Then use Gain to make any per-track adjustments you might like. (be sure to disable Broadcast in this case, if you would like to introducte per instance varations within a group)

2) Well, they are all my (or Simon's or Den's or the other Andrew's etc) children, so it's hard to pick favorites.  But I tried to put some great starting points in the first folder in the Demo Presets folder where I have things that work very well with Precedence link. Try the hall examples there.

3) you could keep a B2 or Aether instance on a send, and use that either for extra tail glue over the whole mix, or to automate sends to it to accent ends of phrases and other "studio magic" that is not really authentic to a live concert hall performance, but generally sounds great in modern productions. In the vocal ballad above if you look at the screen shot you can see I have B2 on a send. Most of the song it is at -48dB, which is almost nothing, but at the end of some of the vocal phrases I bring it up to get extra tails in addition to the short space created by Breeze. Perfectly fine to do this sort of thing in hybrid orchestral work too on solos that you want to add extra studio magic to. and yes, this means the instace on the send is passing through P, then B, then the send verb. That is perfectly fine. Paring short decay time times in Breeze used in the PBJ per-track config with one or two extra tail glue verbs on sends could be very nice indeed. I mention this in passing in the manuals, but it deserves more exploration for sure.

4) A good suggestion for a future update I think. Thanks. Someone else requested a set of pre-made presets for common orchestral instrument locations. (BTW, I am peronsally NOT a huge fan of doing Violin1, Violin 2, Viola, Cello, Bass (left to right). I like the earlier method of: V1, VA, BS, CL, V2. This really gives nicer separation between voices and keeps the frequency balance more centered. It really makes call-reponse type conterpoint come alive too!

6) Breeze 2 has a Band Pass filter option. I use that a lot for EQ. Set the center at 512 or 1024 hz or so, and use a wide bandwidth setting of say around +50%. This does something similar already. You can see that in some of the screen shots above. You can even use this as a damping filter with careful settings. Sounds great. Adding additional EQ before or after anywhere in the chain is fine too, though you will processing the dry signal too then... We will make additonal EQ/Filter options in the next B2 for people who like extreme control!


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## JEPA (Dec 12, 2019)

JEPA said:


> Hello Andrew, I also own Precedence. Where do I have to email You? What is your email adresse? Thank you.


I mean if I want to buy the bundle PJB and I already have Precedence, its there any discount? thx


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## Andrew Souter (Dec 12, 2019)

JEPA said:


> Hello Andrew, I also own Precedence. Where do I have to email You? What is your email adresse? Thank you.




You can send us an email here:



2CAudio -


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## JEPA (Dec 12, 2019)

Andrew Souter said:


> You can send us an email here:
> 
> 
> 
> 2CAudio -


Thank you very much!


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## clisma (Dec 12, 2019)

Don't own PBJ but have been following the development and thread for future reference, when my current copy of SPAT will cease to work and I will have to find a different solution. PBJ seems to hit the nail, and Andrew, your passion for your work is undeniably evident. This makes one feel very confident about coming on board in the future. 

P.S. +1 on the "soundstage" positioning. In fact, why not add both ways, Vln2 as common now, and the alternate version, which I agree makes for great antiphonal writing between the violins (not to mention the basses are centered.)


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## axb312 (Dec 12, 2019)

Andrew Souter said:


> I am not familar with that particular space. In general we don't try to match exact real-world locations. If you have an impulse response, I could take a look though when I have a moment and see if we can get something close. Seems like a nice spot indeed.



Hi Andrew ,

It seems IRs of Teldex are not available.

Basically trying to emulate the ERs of a clean, medium sized hall (Teldex is 455 sqm) but with panels at the side to reinforce the reflections (what I understood from one of the JXL videos)....


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## bvaughn0402 (Dec 12, 2019)

Andrew Souter said:


> 4) A good suggestion for a future update I think. Thanks. Someone else requested a set of pre-made presets for common orchestral instrument locations. (BTW, I am peronsally NOT a huge fan of doing Violin1, Violin 2, Viola, Cello, Bass (left to right). I like the earlier method of: V1, VA, BS, CL, V2. This really gives nicer separation between voices and keeps the frequency balance more centered. It really makes call-reponse type conterpoint come alive too!



It would be tough to pick just one, like the one below. A lot of music I write, I have either a piano as the focus, or a solo violin. So that wouldn't fit all my needs. But it would be close.

I do like the idea of preset locations though too.


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## Andrew Souter (Dec 21, 2019)

axb312 said:


> Hi Andrew ,
> 
> It seems IRs of Teldex are not available.
> 
> Basically trying to emulate the ERs of a clean, medium sized hall (Teldex is 455 sqm) but with panels at the side to reinforce the reflections (what I understood from one of the JXL videos)....



...will try to explore this some in the next week or two!

we were finishing up this, the past two weeks:









2CAudio - Vector



...which I want to include in in our PBJ video demos to help explain how things work etc.


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## Andrew Souter (Dec 21, 2019)

bvaughn0402 said:


> It would be tough to pick just one, like the one below. A lot of music I write, I have either a piano as the focus, or a solo violin. So that wouldn't fit all my needs. But it would be close.
> 
> I do like the idea of preset locations though too.



Yes, some kind of layout templates could be interesting.

I am finding thus far that arranging instruments per composition is nice as well to help accent compositional structure and give space to insturmenets that should have some counterpoint call-reponse type interaction. This can really be brought alive and made more engaging IMHO when they each have their own space.

In the days of modern scoring with a mix of real and electronic instruments it's perfectly fine and good to be creative with positioning too IMHO...


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## axb312 (Jan 7, 2020)

Hi @Andrew Souter ,

Some kind of zoom function would be greatly appreciated.

For eg., I have my woodwinds pretty close together in a space, and it is a little painful to work with them in precedence unless the whole GUI is blown up (and takes up the entire screen).


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## JEPA (Jan 13, 2020)

the combi precedence and breeze is really fantastic. But it seems Precedence is not saving/forgetting positions/distance after saving project and restarting. It happened to me twice. Any feedback would be appreciated!


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## Living Fossil (Jan 13, 2020)

JEPA said:


> the combi precedence and breeze is really fantastic. But it seems Precedence is not saving/forgetting positions/distance after saving project and restarting. It happened to me twice. Any feedback would be appreciated!




No problems here on Logic/Mojave.
The new version also left the old projects (which used the previous versions of P & B) intact.

Have you linked Precedence correctly with Breeze?
I'd recommend to give the instances real names instead of the default numbers. that can prevent mistakes.


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## JEPA (Jan 13, 2020)

Living Fossil said:


> Have you linked Precedence correctly with Breeze?


yes


Living Fossil said:


> I'd recommend to give the instances real names instead of the default numbers. that can prevent mistakes.


till yet only using default names...


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## JEPA (Jan 14, 2020)

So guys, it keeps happening, today I've opened the project from yesterday and Precedence didn't save my configurations.... :(. Precedence is on default state and unlinked to Breeze.

edit: Correction, Precedence was not unlinked but standart default position.


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## Living Fossil (Jan 14, 2020)

@JEPA : to make your posts more useful, you should add the info about your DAW/system.


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## JEPA (Jan 14, 2020)

Living Fossil said:


> @JEPA : to make your posts more useful, you should add the info about your DAW/system.


yes, you are right, thank you. My system:

- Mac Pro 5.1, High Sierra
- Logic Pro x 10.4.4


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## Andrew Souter (Jan 15, 2020)

Hi.

so far we can’t reproduce this ourselves. If you have an exact reproduce recipe please share so we can explore it more exactly.

Are you using multi instance editing?

does it happen you rename your instances to use custom names?


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## JEPA (Jan 15, 2020)

Andrew Souter said:


> Hi.
> 
> so far we can’t reproduce this ourselves. If you have an exact reproduce recipe please share so we can explore it more exactly.
> 
> ...


thanks for answering!

I am not using Multi Instance Editing. My workflow is the:

2. Single Independent Instances, using Precedence Link

And I am inserting third party plugins before the Precedence insert...



Andrew Souter said:


> does it happen you rename your instances to use custom names?


no, it doesn't happen when I rename my instances.


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## Cinebient (Jan 19, 2020)

I have similar trouble with Logic 10.4.8 and macOS Catalina since a month now (now on 10.15.2 and still there).
Not sure if its related to Breeze or Precedence but sometimes when i save an instrument in Logic and reload it Breeze and Precedence are back to the default 50% wet/distance. But mostly just happens with the second (or more) connected instances (f.e. inside a stacked track).
I also would like that it not always jump to this default value if i connect a Breeze instance with Precedence (this seems to happen sometimes too indeed if i reload a Logic patch and all is back to 50% like it does not save the state correct).
Is there a way that i just could stay at the settings from the preset (or that Precedence get the value from Breeze 2 and not vice versa).
It seems more that Breeze 2 is the one. When i unlink them Precedence reload with the correct state but Breeze 2 jumps back to 50% default wet.
There is also some trouble with some other 2CAudio stuff since Catalina for me. I hope it gets sorted since the 2CAudio stuff (i´m of course a perfect Storm user) is by far my favorite FX for spatalization you can get.


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## Eptesicus (Feb 14, 2020)

Just bought the PBJ pack.

Had a panic attack when i thought it was doing horrible things to the audio (made all the JXL brass tuff sound like they had a fake mute on), but then realised i was using it as a send and not an insert.

Presumably this cant be used as a send?


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## Bear Market (Feb 14, 2020)

Eptesicus said:


> Presumably this cant be used as a send?



Breeze can definitely be used as a send, like any other reverb. For the real PBJ magic though, you need to use both Precedence and Breeze as serial inserts.


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## Eptesicus (Feb 28, 2020)

Been reading the manuals and learning how to use Precedence and Breeze.

Loving it so far and think I'm getting the hang of it.

A few queries:

-The width slider at the bottom has a button next to it that glows green if you click on it (like a toggle). What does that do? Does the width slider only work if that light is glowing green?

-If i have a load of instruments set to the same settings in breeze using the broadcast function and then i want to add another one, how do i apply the existing Breeze/Precedence settings to that new instrument without having to redo the settings all again with global broadcast on?


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## averystemmler (Mar 3, 2020)

Eptesicus said:


> The width slider at the bottom has a button next to it that glows green if you click on it (like a toggle). What does that do? Does the width slider only work if that light is glowing green?



The button next to the Width slider flips the phase of one of the channels, I believe, for an ultra wide effect. I don't really use it, but I think it can be used in combination with the button next to the Cross slider to interesting ends.

The button next to the Cross slider flips the channels, so that 0 is dual mono in reverse (I think).

I'm on my phone and explaining this terribly, but the manual goes into some detail about this and all the other functions. I usually forgo manuals, but the 2Caudio ones are pretty thorough!



Eptesicus said:


> how do i apply the existing Breeze/Precedence settings to that new instrument without having to redo the settings all again with global broadcast on?



I'd love a "broadcast current settings to all grouped instances" button, but right now, I believe the easiest way is to save your settings as a preset, or copy/paste the plug-in if your DAW allows it.


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## Wibben (Mar 14, 2020)

JEPA said:


> the combi precedence and breeze is really fantastic. But it seems Precedence is not saving/forgetting positions/distance after saving project and restarting. It happened to me twice. Any feedback would be appreciated!



I have the same problem. It's strange, as it's not every instance of Prec and Breeze that resets when I load a project, but some of them. I'm on Win 10 with Cubase.


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## JEPA (Mar 14, 2020)

Wibben said:


> I have the same problem. It's strange, as it's not every instance of Prec and Breeze that resets when I load a project, but some of them. I'm on Win 10 with Cubase.


now we are three of us reporting this issue. Hopefully Andrew has some answers. I have been asked to make a video of this issue but I haven't had time to do this. Sorry about that. Gonna look if somewhere in the next days I get some time to do this...


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## ZeeCount (Mar 14, 2020)

JEPA said:


> now we are three of us reporting this issue. Hopefully Andrew has some answers. I have been asked to make a video of this issue but I haven't had time to do this. Sorry about that. Gonna look if somewhere in the next days I get some time to do this...



I can confirm the same thing. It doesn't happen to every instance of Precedence, but one or two of them will reset to distance 50 and angle 0 if I load a project that is using lots of them.


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## doctoremmet (Jul 1, 2020)

So this thread has gone silent for a while. I have been following this from the sidelines and do have a couple of questions for Precedence / Breeze / PBJ users.

Does the PBJ route pretty much mean you have to constrain yourself to just using Breeze on an insert and not use other reverbs? Or do you still have let’s say Relab VSR24 or Cinematic Rooms on an aux, for tails? Is the use of Breeze in the typical use case particularly good for “just” spacing?

Are some of you just using Precedence for spacing (one instance on all channels) in combination with other reverb plugins inserted? Does that work at all? Would one lose a lot of functionality that way?

There’s a ton of cool Simon Stockhausen videos out there, but those are all geared towards sound design use cases. I am mainly interested in using this for orchestral stuff. Any good instruction videos out there that I’ve missed?

Would love to hear some experience and pointers, to help me judge whether this would add something for me. Thanks!


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## Joël Dollié (Jul 1, 2020)

I use precedence with other reverbs. It gives really good results imo. Precedence is all about introducing subtle delays to make panning more realistic, at least that's what I use it for. I don't care much for Breeze, and I tried with breeze but the linking just didn't seem to make much sense, as you increased the depth in precedence it just made breeze more wet and sometimes that's not what I needed, I just wanted more precedence depth by itself but no more reverb.


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## doctoremmet (Jul 1, 2020)

Joël Dollié said:


> I use precedence with other reverbs. It gives really good results imo. Precedence is all about introducing subtle delays to make panning more realistic, at least that's what I use it for. I don't care much for Breeze, and I tried with breeze but the linking just didn't seem to make much sense, as you increased the depth in precedence it just made breeze more wet and sometimes that's not what I needed, I just wanted more precedence depth by itself but no more reverb.


Thank you very much. Because it is marketed as pretty much a combo deal, I was sort of under the impression that in order for Precedence to really have an impact Breeze was sort of inevitable.

Do you put Precedence as an insert on every track, for instance for an orchestral setting?


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## doctoremmet (Jul 1, 2020)

Joël Dollié said:


> I use precedence with other reverbs. It gives really good results imo. Precedence is all about introducing subtle delays to make panning more realistic, at least that's what I use it for. I don't care much for Breeze, and I tried with breeze but the linking just didn't seem to make much sense, as you increased the depth in precedence it just made breeze more wet and sometimes that's not what I needed, I just wanted more precedence depth by itself but no more reverb.


Can I kindly ask what reverbs you’re using with it? The reverbs also need to be inserted on any and all tracks? Or would you use the reverb as a send?


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## Joël Dollié (Jul 1, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> Can I kindly ask what reverbs you’re using with it? The reverbs also need to be inserted on any and all tracks? Or would you use the reverb as a send?


I just use them as a send (and precedence as insert). Yeah I really don't think you have to use breeze. Precedence does great stuff by itself. 

I use precedence with VSS3 mainly right now. Also with the slate bricasti emulation (basically seventh heaven).


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## averystemmler (Jul 1, 2020)

I agree with Joel (whose opinion carries much more weight than mine, I should add) that the "link" is a pretty rigid, and I find it to be largely useless with anything more than a short ambiance or room reverb. If your Breeze instance has anything more than 1 second or so of tail, it gets heavy-handed very quickly.

As such, I pretty much only use the Precedence-Breeze combo as inserts on dry instruments, with very short settings. The link does adjust a few other aspects of the Breeze algorithm as you change depth and angle as well, and I find it to be pretty effective. I'll bus that out in series to the usual reverb sends.

EDIT: I should add that I do like Breeze as a traditional reverb as well. It took a lot of time experimenting and "RTFMing" to figure out how to get it to do what I wanted, but it can be more subtle than the presets would have you believe.


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## Living Fossil (Jul 1, 2020)

doctoremmet said:


> Does the PBJ route pretty much mean you have to constrain yourself to just using Breeze on an insert and not use other reverbs? Or do you still have let’s say Relab VSR24 or Cinematic Rooms on an aux, for tails? Is the use of Breeze in the typical use case particularly good for “just” spacing?



The Precedence Breeze combo for sure has a learning curve.
Other than stated before, i really like the results i get with the link function, it has quite an impact on ER times etc.
However, the volume fader of the Breeze instance is really important; with some libraries it's important to turn the reverb level down quite a bit.

Still, there is room for other verbs.

I like to route my orchestral groups (that sit on different busses that represent the stems) to an extra bus (for all orchestral instruments) where i insert usually Nimbus (wet gain between 20% and 35%, depending on different things).
And sometimes there is also place for some additional reverberation for the instruments that have Precedence/Breeze, but this really depends on the specific situation.

I guess, in the near future Cinematic Rooms could take the place of the Nimbus instance.
(i'm on holiday right now, so i bought it without testing...)


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## Iloveit (Jan 18, 2021)

I have Precedence+Breeze and I'm liking them so far. I do have a question re stems though. If Breeze is used as insert, I would imagine that there is no way to do reverb stems? I know that Breeze can also be used as a send, but apparently for the real magic to happen Precedence+Breeze must be used as insert. 
Would anyone know? @Andrew Souter ?

Thank you!


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## Andrew Souter (Jan 25, 2021)

Iloveit said:


> I have Precedence+Breeze and I'm liking them so far. I do have a question re stems though. If Breeze is used as insert, I would imagine that there is no way to do reverb stems? I know that Breeze can also be used as a send, but apparently for the real magic to happen Precedence+Breeze must be used as insert.
> Would anyone know? @Andrew Souter ?
> 
> Thank you!


Hi,

Thanks for the question.

So that I can understand correctly: you are composer, but not final mix engineer, and you will make stems of all your tracks, including one/a-few send-FX-channels such as verb(s) to give to the mix engineer to mix. The goal being to allow the mix engineer to further adjust reverb levels if needed?

Do I understand correctly?

Assuming yes, and assuming it is important for your mix engineer to have the ability to REDUCE the reverb/tail amount (and not just add more), you might try the method I describe here:






LiquidSonics vs 2CAudio


Alright..with all this buzz about LiquidSonics BF sale... the closest comparison I can think of with a similar suite of reverb tools is 2CAudio (open to hearing other ideas about that). Both companies are attempting complex and all emcompassing algorithmic reverb...using different approaches...




vi-control.net





...basically you can use very short times in the Breeze insert instances, and consider the P+B result as "spatialization + early energy", and add additional global tail energy with a shared verb (or two) on send/FX channels.

Your mix engineer can then still boost or cut the tail level as he will have this stem separate.


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## Paul Cardon (Feb 16, 2021)

@Andrew Souter

Hey Andrew! This could potentially be more trouble than it's worth, but I wanted to pitch the idea of possibly offering a 3-mic option for Precedence to emulate a tree? I absolutely love using Precedence to create faithful imaging and it can do absolutely wild things to sounds, but sometimes, I find myself fighting to find the perfect settings more often than I'd like, and I feel like I have to attribute it to the way that the comb filtering caused by the delays in a stereo-mic setup can massively affect tone. I want those delays because they "blur and confuse" the image a bit just as a real source in front of real stereo mics does, but for an orchestral context, a lot of that image blur is being spread across three mics instead of only two, so the comb filtering becomes a little more "blurred and confused", softening some of the extremities and issues caused by using only two mics.

Has any thought been put into that concept? Would love to hear what you think about that regardless!


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## Russell Anderson (Feb 26, 2021)

Paul Cardon said:


> @Andrew Souter
> 
> Hey Andrew! This could potentially be more trouble than it's worth, but I wanted to pitch the idea of possibly offering a 3-mic option for Precedence to emulate a tree? I absolutely love using Precedence to create faithful imaging and it can do absolutely wild things to sounds, but sometimes, I find myself fighting to find the perfect settings more often than I'd like, and I feel like I have to attribute it to the way that the comb filtering caused by the delays in a stereo-mic setup can massively affect tone. I want those delays because they "blur and confuse" the image a bit just as a real source in front of real stereo mics does, but for an orchestral context, a lot of that image blur is being spread across three mics instead of only two, so the comb filtering becomes a little more "blurred and confused", softening some of the extremities and issues caused by using only two mics.
> 
> Has any thought been put into that concept? Would love to hear what you think about that regardless!


Until then, what about running another Precedence in parallel and playing with the object width of both to try to sneak in a "third mic"?

...well, it's probably as backwards a solution as my current attempt at mocking up Precedence in Patcher. But maybe you'll get something cool.


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## Paul Cardon (Feb 26, 2021)

Russell Anderson said:


> Until then, what about running another Precedence in parallel and playing with the object width of both to try to sneak in a "third mic"?
> 
> ...well, it's probably as backwards a solution as my current attempt at mocking up Precedence in Patcher. But maybe you'll get something cool.


That's actually something I've played with! It's not a bad solution, but I feel like layering plugins hurts the integrity of the source and image just a little bit too much and doesn't turn out quite the same. It's not just the extra blur of an additional mic, but the coherence of a third "center" mic that could also possible cement sources towards the middle of the soundstage.

Honestly, the idea of a multichannel version (even just LCR) gets me all excited too, but maybe asking a bit too much. I'm guestimating there's a lot of unrealistic trickery in the processing to mimic the corelative and decorelative aspects of a dual-mic arrangement which might make this all not the most reasonable request, but I can dream!


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## JEPA (Feb 27, 2021)

Paul Cardon said:


> @Andrew Souter
> 
> Hey Andrew! This could potentially be more trouble than it's worth, but I wanted to pitch the idea of possibly offering a 3-mic option for Precedence to emulate a tree? I absolutely love using Precedence to create faithful imaging and it can do absolutely wild things to sounds, but sometimes, I find myself fighting to find the perfect settings more often than I'd like, and I feel like I have to attribute it to the way that the comb filtering caused by the delays in a stereo-mic setup can massively affect tone. I want those delays because they "blur and confuse" the image a bit just as a real source in front of real stereo mics does, but for an orchestral context, a lot of that image blur is being spread across three mics instead of only two, so the comb filtering becomes a little more "blurred and confused", softening some of the extremities and issues caused by using only two mics.
> 
> Has any thought been put into that concept? Would love to hear what you think about that regardless!


I may be wrong, but I have understand Precedence works with the Haas effect:

"The *Haas Effect*, also sometimes called the precedence *effect*, is a psychoacoustic phenomenon that causes a listener to perceive a space and direction of a sound when there is a slight delay between stereo channels. ... The more delay you add, the more directional the sound feels." https://www.sageaudio.com/blog/pre-mastering/use-haas-effect.php

In such a constellation a third microphone would have to be a "layer" added to the already formed image of the stereo Haas, post-image or mixed in parallel?! Because Haas effect is only achieved through stereo...

I use Precedence as main workhorse for positioning, but one only issue for me personally is when I work with Pop Music, not orchestral. The REAL center (panning 0%) for example for vocals, bass, kick drum or snare drum isn't stable. The _modulation rate_ of Precedence creates some imaging artifacts.. I couldn't have a REAL CENTER satisfactory-wise. That is why I mixed in parallel for some instruments like kick drum. For vocals it has been a negotiation, most of the time it wasn't bad, but not real center. If I wanted to center full I had to make the rate higher but that was not satisfactory, because the swinging from left to right and viceversa became audible.

For orchestral music Precedence works very fine. You don't need a "full center" really.


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## Paul Cardon (Feb 27, 2021)

JEPA said:


> I may be wrong, but I have understand Precedence works with the Haas effect:
> 
> "The *Haas Effect*, also sometimes called the precedence *effect*, is a psychoacoustic phenomenon that causes a listener to perceive a space and direction of a sound when there is a slight delay between stereo channels. ... The more delay you add, the more directional the sound feels." https://www.sageaudio.com/blog/pre-mastering/use-haas-effect.php
> 
> ...


I think you're looking at this the wrong way. Precedence attempts to recreate a realistic stereo mic recording by doing 3 things: signal delays, off-axis frequency shifts, and gain differences between a pair of stereo microphones. You could say that the mic-delay component of real-world stereo recording is, in a way, a natural Haas Effect. There's a reason that the Haas effect creates a sense of "direction" depending on which channel is delayed, because in the real world, we hear slight timing delays between left and right ear. 

When you have a mic tree, generally those mics are mixed down to stereo. The center mic does a bit of work to provide a reliable center image, and in the L/R that is mixed with the other two mics, so you got 3 signals delayed 3 separate ways. Any time you use a "tree" mic option in a sample library, you're hearing 3 mics mixed down to stereo.

I don't think anything about a third mic, i.e. like a mic tree, breaks the way that Precedence functions, rather it would just require a third mic "simulation" to be fed into the L/R, positioned center with respect to the algorithm. Maybe provide a balance knob to change how much of that center mic is fed in.


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## JEPA (Feb 28, 2021)

Paul Cardon said:


> I think you're looking at this the wrong way. Precedence attempts to recreate a realistic stereo mic recording by doing 3 things: signal delays, off-axis frequency shifts, and gain differences between a pair of stereo microphones. You could say that the mic-delay component of real-world stereo recording is, in a way, a natural Haas Effect. There's a reason that the Haas effect creates a sense of "direction" depending on which channel is delayed, because in the real world, we hear slight timing delays between left and right ear.
> 
> When you have a mic tree, generally those mics are mixed down to stereo. The center mic does a bit of work to provide a reliable center image, and in the L/R that is mixed with the other two mics, so you got 3 signals delayed 3 separate ways. Any time you use a "tree" mic option in a sample library, you're hearing 3 mics mixed down to stereo.
> 
> I don't think anything about a third mic, i.e. like a mic tree, breaks the way that Precedence functions, rather it would just require a third mic "simulation" to be fed into the L/R, positioned center with respect to the algorithm. Maybe provide a balance knob to change how much of that center mic is fed in.


Thanks for the clarification and explanation! Anyway, the center position in Precedence for Pop-rock remains for me unstable specially for the kick drum and bass. If you use headphones you can identify/hear this instantly against the bypass of Precedence and if you use the Vectorscope plugin from 2cAudio or the iZotope Ozone Imager you can see this deviations.


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## Paul Cardon (Feb 28, 2021)

JEPA said:


> Thanks for the clarification and explanation! Anyway, the center position in Precedence for Pop-rock remains for me unstable specially for the kick drum and bass. If you use headphones you can identify/hear this instantly against the bypass of Precedence and if you use the Vectorscope plugin from 2cAudio or the iZotope Ozone Imager you can see this deviations.


Oh 100%. I would never use Precedence as a replacement for regular panning, especially on such vital mix elements in a pop-style production. Though if you want to start using it more often, turning down the time knob completely, relying more on the gain knob and some of the freq knob, is a great way to get panning that's much more in line with balance panning while still giving it a bit of extra vibe.


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## muziksculp (Jun 6, 2021)

Hi,

I'm trying to find a single comprehensive video tutorial that shows how to use Precedence with Breeze in detail, and with explanation on all the options, and way of using this combo. 

So far, no videos from 2C Audio  , and some of the videos I watched didn't do it for me.

I guess the user manual is my best option, but I'm really surprised that 2C Audio hasn't done any videos showing how to use this combo in detail. 

@Andrew Souter , Any reason why you have no videos, especially an in-depth video/s tutorials for using Breeze with Precedence ?

Thanks,
Muziksculp


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## Paul Cardon (Jun 7, 2021)

muziksculp said:


> Hi,
> 
> I'm trying to find a single comprehensive video tutorial that shows how to use Precedence with Breeze in detail, and with explanation on all the options, and way of using this combo.
> 
> ...


I do want to echo that the manuals are pretty great! Takes a little longer to get through but they're nice and thorough and much easier to reference than videos. Good luck though!

EDIT: Also, once you've got everything working together properly, then the process of nailing the settings just right will still need your ears. They're cool plugins, but tiny tweaks can make big changes. If I recall, they even explain this in the manuals. So get in, use your ears, and go crazy.


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## Robo Rivard (Jun 7, 2021)

I learned to use Precedence along Breeze 2 from the previous message:

"Precedence-Link is established by Instance Name Match between Precedence and Breeze. Instance names must be the same in P and B for the link to become active. By default they are populated such as: B -> P ID 001 -> ID 001 ID 002 -> ID 002 If you intend to use Mulit-Instnace editing, and you should, you will likely want to rename them to have meaningful names: Violin -> Violin Cello -> Cello etc. At the moment you need to manually rename the instances in both locations, both in Precedence and in Breeze, assuming you do not want to keep the default values "ID 001" etc. This is the only semi painful/tedious part of setup, but once it is done you don't have to edit it any more and then the rest is a pleasure. It can be considered as part of template setup. We are also looking into being able to read DAW track names and auto-populate our instance names by just using the DAW track name. That is the ideal that we are eventually working towards. No eta on that yet. At the moment to setup large projects/sessions/templates, the best way to do things is: 1.Insert one Precedence and one Breeze on the first track you want to use. Enable Link Mode in Breeze. Join Group 1 in Breeze. Join Group 1 in Precedence. 2.Now you can cut/paste the mixer settings in your host DAW. And each track will get one P, one B. In most DAWs, you can copy this single channel and paste to multiple channels. In Cubase for example just select multiple tracks in the mixer and Paste. You will get 10, 50, 100 new instances of P and B, one on each track. They will be in order ID 002, ID 003 etc. with matching names in P and B and they will all be part of Group 1. (If you are setting up a new template and like EQ/compression on these tracks also you might like to insert such things also, so you can cut paste the entire channel settings. If you are inserting into an existing session where some tracks have existing plugs and others do not, you can option/control-drag the P and B plugins left to right across all tracks to duplicate them, and this will retain the above settings also). This would work already, but you will likely want to rename them, so...3.Once P and B are inserted on all tracks that you want to use them on, go back to your first instance pair "ID 001". Keep the P GUI and the B GUI open for this ID 001 instance in each. Assuming you want your instance names to just be the same as your track names, then double click on your DAW track name to edit. Copy. Double Click on ID 001 in P, Paste. Double Click on ID 001 in B, Paste. 4.Now in the P GUI, select ID 002, which should be the next track. B Selection will follow automatically. Double click on your DAW track name to edit. Copy. Double Click on ID 002 in P, Paste. Double Click on ID 002 in B, Paste. (You can change the Nav Bar, which normally shows Preset name to show Instance name. You can use the previous/next arrows in the nav bar to cycle through the instance names to rename them. PageUp/Down also changes instance selection, but some OSX hosts block it. This will be faster than trying to select in the Position Display bc inicually all the instances will have the same position until you change them.) 5.Repeat for all renaming tracks. This is quite fast and relatively painless if you do it in this order. Do it in this order though. If you rename all P instances first, the links to Breeze will be broken, and you will have to open the B instances individually on each track to rename. To reiterate: 1.Select an instance in Precedence. Breeze will follow. 2.Rename the instance name in Precedence. The link to Breeze will be broken temporarily. 3.Rename the instance name in Breeze, to the same name. The link is reestablished. 4.Change selection to the next instance in Precedence. Breeze will follow. 5....continue in this rename cycle, renaming P, then B, then next instance for both... For most orchestral projects, I'd say use one Group for the whole orchestra, or at least the main instruments such as strings, brass, woodwinds instruments, and perhaps a second for percussion and unusual/non-standard additions, or choir etc. Another group could be used for synths etc. if its a hybrid project. You can group by strings, woodwinds etc if you like of course, but so far, I like to see all the standard orchestral instruments in a single group. I suppose it will depend on how large your template is also and how many different VIs represent "Violin 1"...

This is taken from a message published on this thread. I made a PDF from it for my own use... And it worked!


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## muziksculp (Jun 8, 2021)

Hi,

I'm slowly getting to know my way around the *2C Audio Precedence 1.5 + Breeze 2.5* System of plugins. 

So far I like it quite a bit, Breeze 2.5 sounds very good, and Precedence is very handy to place instruments in a stage that reacts to Breeze's reverb in the stage based on position, proximity effect, early reflections, ..etc. 

I'm guessing one would use more than one Group i.e. if they want to have a shorter reverb time on short articulation, but maintain the same space and location in the stage, or maybe some other applications. All instruments belonging to the same Group, receive the specific Breeze reverb that's being Globally Broadcast to that specific Group, you can have more than one group and Broadcast to i.e. Group 2 a different Reverb setting. Precedence and Breeze 'Link' needs to be enabled. 

I still have a little more to learn about Groups, and the Precedence + Breeze Eco-System. 

I printed pages 30 - 49 of the user's manual which explain the Precedence Link & Multi-Instance Editing. I think this is the part that one needs to understand how to use these plugins. 

Cheers,
Muziksculp


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## Faruh Al-Baghdadi (Aug 15, 2021)

Are there any plans on updating B2 and Aither?


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## XComposer (Oct 7, 2021)

Faruh Al-Baghdadi said:


> Are there any plans on updating B2 and Aither?


I'm curious, as well. I would really like to see them updated.


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## X-Bassist (Nov 26, 2021)

muziksculp said:


> Hi,
> 
> I'm trying to find a single comprehensive video tutorial that shows how to use Precedence with Breeze in detail, and with explanation on all the options, and way of using this combo.
> 
> ...


I second this. Video tutorials for something like this is crucial. Without it each person has to teach themselves through a manual, which won't explain everything. I was going to pick up the PBJ bundle but will hold off until I can see some more videos. With this many products and expansions, this should be a given. Maybe by next Black Friday.


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## kgdrum (Nov 26, 2021)

X-Bassist said:


> I second this. Video tutorials for something like this is crucial. Without it each person has to teach themselves through a manual, which won't explain everything. I was going to pick up the PBJ bundle but will hold off until I can see some more videos. With this many products and expansions, this should be a given. Maybe by next Black Friday.




Truth be told I have held off getting Precedence since it was released because it looks too complicated for my simple drummers mind 😜
Maybe some tutorials would help make things a bit clearer.


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