# 2CAudio 2019 Big Splash Summer Sale !!!



## Zoot_Rollo (Jun 19, 2019)

glut anyone?

https://www.2caudio.com/promo/2019bigsplash/


----------



## Zoot_Rollo (Jun 19, 2019)

i grabbed B2 to go with Aether and Breeze 2.

Thanks 2CAudio!!!


----------



## Robo Rivard (Jun 19, 2019)

Precedence 1.5 and Breeze 2.5 are coming in August (free of charge)!... I own both plugins, but I still have to dive into Precedence... The two are supposed to interact in a major way.


----------



## ZeeCount (Jun 19, 2019)

Robo Rivard said:


> Precedence 1.5 and Breeze 2.5 are coming in August (free of charge)!... I own both plugins, but I still have to dive into Precedence... The two are supposed to interact in a major way.



You can download the betas of the new versions. I'm gonna be checking them out when I get home from work.


----------



## Zoot_Rollo (Jun 19, 2019)

Robo Rivard said:


> Precedence 1.5 and Breeze 2.5 are coming in August (free of charge)!... I own both plugins, but I still have to dive into Precedence... The two are supposed to interact in a major way.


thanks for the reminder.

just grabbed Precedence as well.

gorgeous UIs.


----------



## zolhof (Jun 19, 2019)

Awesome news! I've been patiently waiting for the update and how cool is it that we get to try it now? Thanks for the heads-up, Zoot.


----------



## Robo Rivard (Jun 19, 2019)

Breeze 2 is a no brainer. So far I've only used Precedence within Ozone 8, to test out WAV sound effects... It works in spades!... You can take any audio file and put it where you want in the x/y/z plane.


----------



## zolhof (Jun 19, 2019)

The multi-instance editing is excellent. You hit the global broadcast button on each instance and bam, they are all linked - with the ability to create groups and sub-mixes. I'm so glad the madness of having to manually set the distance value for each PB combo is finally over. Not to mention that you can now edit every single parameter from whatever instance you have opened, and all other instances will follow. One GUI to rule them all!

Well done, @Andrew Souter, you promised and over-delivered. Can't believe this is a free update :emoji_trophy:


----------



## lucor (Jun 20, 2019)

Anyone else unable to paste their serial number into the Precedence 1.5 beta plugin? I'm clicking on "click here to paste serial from clipboard", but nothing happens.


----------



## lucor (Jun 20, 2019)

BTW I also had to completely reinstall both Breeze and Precedence, because just using the update function in the installer somehow corrupted both plugins and I couldn't load them anymore. So be careful with your custom presets before installing the beta.


----------



## Emmanuel Rousseau (Jun 20, 2019)

In the middle of the mix of my life with Breeze 2 and Precedence so I think I'll keep cool and wait for August 

You guys have fun !


----------



## Andrew Souter (Jun 20, 2019)

Zoot_Rollo said:


> gorgeous UIs.



Thanks! Quick GUI notes:

There are over 30 different GUI sizes for P and B!
Using Multi-Instnace Editing and Selectiion sync means you really don't need more than one GUI editor open, so you can use a larger GUI size and get a much nicer UI experience than with using lots of tiny GUIs. 1440*1440 in Precedence is great on a 4K display for exmaple.
There are over 300 color presets, and you can browse them from the MAIN page of the GUI by clicking on the Nav bar C/P/* (color/preset/instance) button.
There is a new font scaling adjustment slider on the INFO page. At larger sizes I like setting this to close to the min value. looks very equloquent and modern IMHO.


----------



## Andrew Souter (Jun 20, 2019)

zolhof said:


> Well done, @Andrew Souter, you promised and over-delivered.



Thanks for your kind words. That's exactly what we aimed for! If something takes a little extra time, you can be sure there is a very good reason for it. The Precedence Link topic was solved and working earlier in the year, but the Multi-Instnace editing and Global Broadcast features are the master-strokes that make the whole system really valuable and really enhance the workflow. 

If we advocate that you use 50, 100, 200, or more instances of these these plugins, there needs to be a way to manage this sort of complexity easily so it doesn't interfere with musical creativity and distract you from more important things like composing. That's what we hope we have just achieved.

The sound-quality is amazing as always, but now that you guys can hear automatic Precedence Link you will be able to see easily how well we achieve distance/depth placement when using the Precedence/Breeze combination. I know months ago people where wondering why by itself Precedence doesn't give a huge sense of distance and that is explained in the manual, but in short: extreme gain and high frequency loss are the major contributions to sense of distance in a free-standing environment where there is no reflected energy -- like in the middle of the sky. But IMHO that's not usually very useful in music mixing, so these are subtle in P by default. The more important distance/depth cues come from the linked reverb engine! And now you can hear it in action! And we have also added an X-Range mode and specific control over gain and high freq loss in P so that you can try more extreme ranges if desired, as well as completely disabling one or both -- which might be useful in electronic music mixing that is less concerned with "natural".

Note that the ENTIRE Breeze algorithm updates in response to changes to position in P. If it were convolution, this would effectively mean there is an entirely different impulse response from the reverb engine for every single (infinite) possible position within Precedence. We are NOT simply adjusting wet/dry level, and pre-delay. The ENTIRE alg changes and updates. Something like an algorithmic "Multiple Impulse Response" system!

I think you will find we addressed the requests for enhanced mono compatibility as well. (btw, there were a few minor-ish bugs in the beta mode (the only mode in 1.0) also, that were fixed -- so even the Beta mode should be better behaved regarding phase response -- and really I think you can safely consider it even while maintaining extreme-mono compatibility concerns. You should really just check the final master output sound collapsed to mono more so than looking at a phase meter direct out of Precedence. Even the Beta mode should be more or less safe, but we offer the new Mu mode specifically to address these previous requests.)

The manual is very deep and thorough. A bit academic even for those who like details. It provides the full info on all of this:

Precedence Manual

We will make videos etc as well, for a less "academic" overview/explanation of all this stuff. That's important too.



zolhof said:


> Can't believe this is a free update :emoji_trophy:



Thanks! We always try our best to over-deliver.

We have not forgotten B2 and Aether either. Don't worry.  You can imagine that now that we have tricks like inter-plugin communication, Multi-Instance editing, Global Broadcast, etc. within our code base, that these technologies can be applied to all of our products and help maintain our leadership position. This is very exciting stuff for our platform/brand.

I'll spend a lot time here in the next 4-6 weeks or so gathering feedback so we are sure these systems are rock solid. And considering any additional ideas/requests you guys come up with!


----------



## manuhz (Jun 20, 2019)

Very appealing concept. No idea about the tech backgrounds, but it seems similar to MIR Pro. To make use of Precedence, I need to purchase a Breeze license?


----------



## Andrew Souter (Jun 20, 2019)

manuhz said:


> Very appealing concept. No idea about the tech backgrounds, but it seems similar to MIR Pro. To make use of Precedence, I need to purchase a Breeze license?



The goals of Precedence and the "Linked Precedence + Precedence Aware Reverb Engine" are in the same universe of things like MIR, SPAT, and others yes. I have never used MIR though, and I have looked at the SPAT demo for only 30min or so once while trying to verify user's claims about its mono-compatablity. So I can't really comment too deeply about these products. (and it wouldn't be polite to do so anyway, since I didn't make them.  )I am sure they are very nice products also as these companies have very talented people!

Multi-Instance editing goals may also be considered to be in the same universe as things like Neutron, but we focus more specifically on creating a "Spatial Mixing Environment". I think most users will want to continue to use the DAW Mixer faders for general level balancing and level automation. Our system is focused on spatial mixing at the moment. It might pair quite nicely with Nuetron and its other functionality, actually. Not sure, so far, I have not ever tried Nuetron and I am not sure if it is popular the scoring community or not.

The X-Range Loss mode does allow extreme gain changes however, and could in theory replace the need to adjust levels in the mixer for general track levels if level automation was not needed. My guess is the music composers/mixers will want to continue to use the mixer faders for general level balancing, but we will evaluate feedback on this topic and we can certainly evolve further in this direction if it becomes a popular workflow request.

I specify "goal universe" here bc the specific approaches we use are rather unique. The goal is spatialization and "spatial mixing". The problems we are looking at are similar to the above, but our solutions are quite different.

Precedence is very useful by itself. Breeze 2 very useful by itself as well.

Combine and link them and put them into a Multi-Instance Editing system with the ability to make Breeze instance selection follow Precedence, and the ability to change parameter or entire presets for an entire group of say 100 instances of each, and you have a truly next-gen workflow and a true "Spatial Mixing Environment".

See page 30 of the manual, where I go into detail about:

Precedence Link & Multi-Instance Editing
Workflow Overview

https://2caudio.com/sitecontent/products/precedence/2CAudio_Precedence_Manual.pdf

From this section:



> There are four distinct workflows possible with Precedence:
> 
> 
> Single Independent Instances, no Link
> ...



Workflows 1 and & 3 do not necessarily require Breeze 2. You could use them with any verbs on sends in the more traditional manner.

The manual explains in detail. And we will make videos.

Future versions of B2 and Aether will be "Precedence Aware" as well. "aware" means you CAN link them, but it's not forced.

Hope it helps.


----------



## manuhz (Jun 20, 2019)

That helps! Many thanks for the clear answer...


----------



## WindcryMusic (Jun 20, 2019)

Andrew,

Now that I am planning to look more closely at Precedence again, by virtue of this AWESOME update, there's a longstanding question about it that I have had. Specifically, in one of Mike Verta's classes (the one on template balancing), he made a very convincing case for rolling off low frequencies to simulate distance as well as high frequencies. I've noticed that Precedence doesn't seem to do anything with low frequencies when the distance is increased, and I find myself wishing that it did to at least some extent. Can you share your rationale for not doing so, and/or any alternatives for getting this aspect of distance reflected with the Breeze/Precedence combo if they exist?


----------



## Andrew Souter (Jun 20, 2019)

Can you point me to the link?

There is indeed some variable LF cut going on, but it applies mostly to very low freqs. I suppose it could be exaggerated if desired.


----------



## averystemmler (Jun 20, 2019)

Andrew Souter said:


> Note that the ENTIRE Breeze algorithm updates in response to changes to position in P.



I'm excited to try this! I've noticed that some permutations of Breeze's algorithms naturally skew slightly to the left or right (perceptually, at least), and it sounds like you've devised a way to wrangle this behavior with the Precedence Link.

Keep on fighting the good fight!


----------



## WindcryMusic (Jun 20, 2019)

Andrew Souter said:


> Can you point me to the link?
> 
> There is indeed some variable LF cut going on, but it applies mostly to very low freqs. I suppose it could be exaggerated if desired.



https://mikeverta.com/product/online-masterclass-template-balancing/

(It's a paid class, so unfortunately I can't link you directly to the video.)


----------



## Zoot_Rollo (Jun 20, 2019)

Just installed the beta versions this morning, spent a quick minute with them.

WOW!

Fantastic work.

The last couple of weeks have been a Reverb frenzy matched only by last years Orchestral frenzy.

I've snatched up nearly everything that has gone on sale recently.

But the beta releases of Breeze and Precedence were the jaw droppers of all.


----------



## dzilizzi (Jun 20, 2019)

I got Breeze 2 last year, so maybe it's time for Precedence? Looks like the sale goes until August? Sounds good.


----------



## Zoot_Rollo (Jun 20, 2019)

Andrew Souter said:


> We have not forgotten B2 and Aether either. Don't worry.



That's why i just grabbed B2.

Aether was one of my earliest non-DAW reverbs.

Exciting stuff.


----------



## Cinebient (Jun 21, 2019)

Just the best tools for spatalization and reveberation you can get (at least for me). Fantastic and for a very fair price (even without a sale). Also if you are once in the 2CAudio family with Perfect Storm you get very good upgrade prices.
Also the developers are really one of the most friendly and forward thinking for me in this area.
Thank you! 
These updates are really a game changer for me.


----------



## averystemmler (Jun 21, 2019)

Cinebient said:


> Also the developers are really one of the most friendly and forward thinking for me in this area.



The thing that initially convinced me to buy Breeze 2, and later Precedence, was Andrew's involvement on this forum. I remember many of the features he described in this update being discussed some 6 months ago in an earlier thread. There's a dedication there!


----------



## manuhz (Jun 21, 2019)

Is there a demo version of Precedence Beta available? Version 1.0 don’t work as expected here...


----------



## Andrew Souter (Jun 21, 2019)

manuhz said:


> Is there a demo version of Precedence Beta available?



Not yet for 1.5. The demo is still 1.0.



manuhz said:


> Version 1.0 don’t work as expected here...



Do you mean it does not have the various workflow features we are discussing here now? Yes, these are new to 1.5 is that if what you mean.

Demo versions for 1.5 and Breeze 2.5 will be available a little later. Certainly in time for their official release, maybe a bit before.


----------



## Andrew Souter (Jun 21, 2019)

Thanks for the compliments guys. Indeed as I said previously I think it's important for products like Precedence to have community feedback and I think it's very valuable for me to spend time engaged here! I learn just as much as you guys do. 

The 1.0 version already was influenced by past conversations here. The new Mu mode is a direct consequence of discussions we had about 1.0 around the start of the year. There are many other examples.

Now with the 1.5 sneak peak versions, we are listening once again and are quite curious what you guys think once you try it in action. As you see we did quite a lot of work on "workflow" topics, some of which were discussed such as our intention with Precedence Link, and some of which are total surprises such as Multi-Instnace Editing and Global Broadcast.

We think these workflow topics are critical to really begin to use this system to its full potential. When it is easy to work it, it's much better get a real depth of understanding of its sonic potential and explore its full power. It's exciting to be at that point now.


----------



## jamwerks (Jun 21, 2019)

Have been using Precedence and Breeze 2 for my VSL WW's as well as Century Brass. Will be nice to have also on the new Adagio!


----------



## manuhz (Jun 21, 2019)

Andrew Souter said:


> Not yet for 1.5. The demo is still 1.0.
> 
> Do you mean it does not have the various workflow features we are discussing here now? Yes, these are new to 1.5 is that if what you mean.
> 
> Demo versions for 1.5 and Breeze 2.5 will be available a little later. Certainly in time for their official release, maybe a bit before.



Many thanks for the answer.


----------



## Raphioli (Jun 21, 2019)

Andrew Souter said:


> We have not forgotten B2


Good to know.
I bought Precedence last year and am waiting for it to become compatible with B2.
At the moment, I'm using it manually.


----------



## axb312 (Jun 27, 2019)

@Andrew Souter. Did I read correctly that the sale lasts up to the 31st July 2019?

I hope this gives us sufficient time to demo Precedence 1.5.

I also hope we can use at least 2 instances of Precedence simultaneously with the 1.5 Demo.


----------



## Andrew Souter (Jun 28, 2019)

axb312 said:


> @Andrew Souter. Did I read correctly that the sale lasts up to the 31st July 2019?
> 
> I hope this gives us sufficient time to demo Precedence 1.5.
> 
> I also hope we can use at least 2 instances of Precedence simultaneously with the 1.5 Demo.



The Big Splash summer promo will end in early August, yes. Likely the first week. 

We use the current promo period to compile feedback from existing users, to address any workflow issues that are found, and to entertain any feature requests if feasible. 

We will be preparing demos, yes, and we are looking into supporting multiple instances in the demo versions, yes.


----------



## Andrew Souter (Jul 17, 2019)

We did custom menus the past few days... here's two examples using various color prefs:

Full Res:



https://2caudio.com/sitecontent/products/precedence/Precedence_CustomMenu01.png




https://2caudio.com/sitecontent/products/precedence/Precedence_CustomMenu02.png













second image also shows Multi-Instance Editing...


----------



## dzilizzi (Jul 17, 2019)

The sale is until the end of the month - correct? My credit card closes around the 25th. So I figure the 26th I am getting Precedence to go with my Breeze 2.


----------



## Andrew Souter (Jul 18, 2019)

dzilizzi said:


> The sale is until the end of the month - correct? My credit card closes around the 25th. So I figure the 26th I am getting Precedence to go with my Breeze 2.



It will go a week or two into August as we finish up a few other touches... you are perfectly safe on July 26.


----------



## whinecellar (Jul 18, 2019)

I've said it a million times and I'll say it again: B2 is hands-down my favorite reverb of all time for creating super-huge, lush soundscapes. Nothing touches it. Amazing stuff, Andrew!


----------



## Zoot_Rollo (Jul 18, 2019)

whinecellar said:


> I've said it a million times and I'll say it again: B2 is hands-down my favorite reverb of all time for creating super-huge, lush soundscapes. Nothing touches it. Amazing stuff, Andrew!



i just got B2 this sale after some time with Aether and Breeze.

Agreed, B2 is a stunning piece of gear.


----------



## Living Fossil (Jul 18, 2019)

Just saw on the homepage that the Breeze Expansions are on sale too... i thought they were excluded.


----------



## Zoot_Rollo (Jul 18, 2019)

Living Fossil said:


> Just saw on the homepage that the Breeze Expansions are on sale too... i thought they were excluded.



i'm not one for buying preset packs, but the 2CAudio sets are fantastic.


----------



## Andrew Souter (Jul 20, 2019)

Thanks for the compliments guys! B2 is one of my favorite children too. 

It will get some special attention soon. We like to think of it as a "spatial synthesizer". It can do a lot more than just standard reverb and is staggeringly deep. The next version will have even more options. It's a sound-designer's dream. I like to think of it as something like a modern software-based System 6000, or H8000/H9000 -- not in terms of the exact algorithms, but in terms of the design philosophy of being a true multi-FX workstation powerhouse.

The custom menu stuff we just implemented is in part in prep for this also. i.e. it's built to handle lots of options. 

Given it's complexity, it's the perfect type of tool to have preset expansions available for. It's good to seperate the composition/production process from the sound-design process in many cases IMHO. Even I, who made the algorithm(s) and most of the factory presets, don't like to disrupt composition to design new presets from scatch. It's a different mindset. I like to do them on different days personally. It's very useful when facing scoring deadlines etc to have preset libraries, esepcially for something as diverse as this.


B2 is actually kind of funny in how it became very popular for orchestral-scoring/classical/acoustic material also. I did not necessarily have this target in mind initially. It's extreme side was more the goal. But I used it myself for subtle duties on my latest solo piano material:



as well as this ambient electronic album in much more extreme form:



This second one is content entirely from Kaleidoscope fed into B2! KS creates the sound, B2 spatializes it, often in an extreme manner. Bascially nothing else was used besides EQ/compression etc. I guess this shows the extreme range of possibility of B2 pretty well.


----------



## JEPA (Jul 20, 2019)

I am on the edge of buying this sale, but I am waiting of some cash income before sales end! 
What would be the best single product of you for orchestral mockups (vi-libraries) and/or the best combination of them?


----------



## Andrew Souter (Jul 20, 2019)

JEPA said:


> I am on the edge of buying this sale, but I am waiting of some cash income before sales end!
> What would be the best single product of you for orchestral mockups (vi-libraries) and/or the best combination of them?



Well, assuming we are talking about realistic ~1-3 second decay time acoustic spaces, not huge ambient electronic-music environments, the design goal at the moment says the Precedence + Breeze 2 used with Multi-Instance Editing and Precedence-Link should be king for this application at the moment. i.e. 1:1 pairing of both with many instances direct on track inserts, using a unified space created by Breeze, but with unique positioning created by Precedence, which is communicated to the Breeze instances as well, which update themselves to also provide correct positional variations within the unified space. This is designed to be next-level magic for this kind of application.

But, many others here may swear by Aether or B2 and get amazing results in the tradditional way, of using one or two megalithic verbs on sends. And many of them are much more accomplished composers than me, so who am I to argue. 

I do think the Precedence-Link system will gain more and more traction as people begin to explore it more and more and integrate it into their workflow and templates etc. and once we have videos explaining it all, shortly. We do intend to allow it to work with future versions of Aether and B2...


----------



## wst3 (Jul 20, 2019)

Some observations from a combo newby/old hand<G>...

I've been using Breeze for quite a while, I just picked up the rest.

Breeze is a really usable, great sounding reverb for music production. I use it along side the Exponential Audio reverb plugins, and a couple from UA. They all play well together and I would be hard pressed to say one is better than another.

Precedence is working out quite nicely, I'm square in the learning phase.

B2 - I've really only spent time with B2, but so far I really like it. It is - for me anyway, and for now - a really helpful sound design tool. I will figure out how to tame it for music production, maybe.

Aether - haven't really done much with it yet.

Kaleidoscope - this is the one that pushed me over the edge to purchase the whole bundle! It is so much fun. I've yet to make it sound bad, but I will, I'm sure.

Which brings us to expansion packs, and presets in general.

I'm not a fan, and very few plugins - processors or synths - have had great presets or expansions. I really figured the expansion packs were fluff.

And for the reverbs they are, mostly, which is to say I don't find them useful - others may.

But for Kaleidoscope they are invaluable, and really well done. I have learned so much from dissecting them. There are several I will use as-is, and even more that I will use as starting points.

Overall I am finding the Everything bundle to be well worthwhile. I'd have been perfectly happy if Precedence and Kaleidoscope lived up to my expectations, so far it is a lot more.

If you can swing it I would suggest folks consider going all in - it represents a really good value, and all the tools are really well done. Even the expansions are proving to be helpful.

No, I don't have any financial interest in 2CAudio, don't even know anyone involved. I know how challenging it can be to make such a big investment in plug-ins, I seldom do so myself, and I am really pleased with this bundle, so I figured I should share.

Take everything I said with a grain of salt, all of these decisions are very personal, and my ears certainly work differently.


----------



## Zoot_Rollo (Jul 22, 2019)

nabbed the B2 Expansions.

https://www.designersound.com/index.php?id_category=11&controller=category


----------



## averystemmler (Jul 22, 2019)

I finally picked up B2 and have spent quite literally the entire weekend with it. It really is an endless reverb sandbox.

It's full of surprises, but the biggest so far has been how little CPU it takes on its simpler settings. I made a small, simple room for depth, of the sort for which I'd usually use Nimbus, Valhalla Room, or Pro R - and B2 was lighter than all of them.

I'm excited to keep poking at it!


----------



## JEPA (Jul 25, 2019)

Hello Guys,

I am looking for sponsor for this sale as a new customer. @MarcelM has offered it to me, but he isn't online and doesn't appear active today. I will wait till today later hours. If he doesn't show would anybody from you want to sponsor me as a new customer? (Referral Program)


----------



## wst3 (Jul 25, 2019)

Happy to help if Marcel is not available - send me a PM and I'll refer you.


----------



## JEPA (Jul 25, 2019)

wst3 said:


> Happy to help if Marcel is not available - send me a PM and I'll refer you.


thanks!


----------



## MarcelM (Jul 25, 2019)

done!


----------



## JEPA (Jul 25, 2019)

MarcelM said:


> done!


Thanks @MarcelM


----------



## JEPA (Jul 25, 2019)

It's done, thank you very much, next week will be playing like a child...


----------



## TomaeusD (Jul 26, 2019)

I picked up Precedence during this sale and somehow just discovered that it is most effective working in tandem with Breeze 2.5 for orchestral placement. I am tempted to jump on Breeze as well, but there don't appear to be any bundles for the two. Unfortunately the crossgrade voucher *Crossgrade_2CAudioReverbs* doesn't work for Breeze or B2, even though I now own Precedence. I'm wondering if there's a bug or if there really is no added price incentive to purchase both even though I've been reading that Precedence Link and Multi-Instance Editing are new game-changing features.


----------



## dzilizzi (Jul 26, 2019)

I bought Breeze last year on some sale and picked up Precedence for just that reason. The cross grade price might not work because the sale is a better deal?


----------



## TomaeusD (Jul 26, 2019)

dzilizzi said:


> I bought Breeze last year on some sale and picked up Precedence for just that reason. The cross grade price might not work because the sale is a better deal?


That could be. Do you find yourself using the two together much, or would you think just having something like Valhalla Room as needed is good enough?


----------



## dzilizzi (Jul 27, 2019)

TomaeusD said:


> That could be. Do you find yourself using the two together much, or would you think just having something like Valhalla Room as needed is good enough?


Well, since I just bought it and haven't installed it yet, I haven't really used it. But I want to say Precedence is more along the lines of Mir than Vahalla Room, which I don't have. I think the big thing is the link though.


----------



## TomaeusD (Jul 27, 2019)

dzilizzi said:


> Well, since I just bought it and haven't installed it yet, I haven't really used it. But I want to say Precedence is more along the lines of Mir than Vahalla Room, which I don't have. I think the big thing is the link though.


Right - sorry I meant that I already have Valhalla Room. The link looks very useful and from what I've noticed in using Precedence alone, the Distance parameter doesn't add much depth without accurate corresponding reverb.


----------



## jneebz (Jul 27, 2019)

JEPA said:


> Hello Guys,
> 
> I am looking for sponsor for this sale as a new customer. @MarcelM has offered it to me, but he isn't online and doesn't appear active today. I will wait till today later hours. If he doesn't show would anybody from you want to sponsor me as a new customer? (Referral Program)


Can you elaborate on the benefits of this? Is there a new customer discount if you’re sponsored?


----------



## TomaeusD (Jul 28, 2019)

jneebz said:


> Can you elaborate on the benefits of this? Is there a new customer discount if you’re sponsored?


I didn't know about it when I signed up, but it looks like each person gets a $20 voucher towards their next purchase, which is generous because you already get loyalty points which accumulate with each purchase (I believe it's about 10%) and those are turned into voucher codes whenever you want. Check the referral program on Designer Sound from the site.

I ended up getting Breeze 2 to go with Precedence because impatient me couldn't wait. Once you load up instances of both Breeze and Precedence in each channel (and make sure to click the link for both) it completely works. These people are wizards. The combo goes super well with dry samples and physically modeled instruments. I cannot wait until B2 links with Precedence.

The only suggestions I would have for the developer (for each plugin) are to make a context box on the top or bottom that briefly explains what each button does when hovering over it, and also to allow automation for placement in Precedence to simulate movement in the spacial environment. But I realize that last request probably wouldn't work without popping and clicking from the algorithm changing in real time. Still... this is amazing.

EDIT: Also the option of sound direction for each instrument like MIR Pro would be nice. Not sure how feasible that is or even how beneficial it would be.


----------



## JEPA (Jul 28, 2019)

jneebz said:


> Can you elaborate on the benefits of this? Is there a new customer discount if you’re sponsored?


sorry I was off the weekend, but I see the post above this answer your question!


----------



## Andrew Souter (Jul 31, 2019)

TomaeusD said:


> I ended up getting Breeze 2 to go with Precedence because impatient me couldn't wait. Once you load up instances of both Breeze and Precedence in each channel (and make sure to click the link for both) it completely works. These people are wizards. The combo goes super well with dry samples and physically modeled instruments. I cannot wait until B2 links with Precedence.



Thanks for the compliments! Glad you like them!



TomaeusD said:


> The only suggestions I would have for the developer (for each plugin) are to make a context box on the top or bottom that briefly explains what each button does when hovering over it,



Yes, a "help mode" like this would be super useful for all our products. It's definitely on the wish list!




TomaeusD said:


> and also to allow automation for placement in Precedence to simulate movement in the spacial environment. But I realize that last request probably wouldn't work without popping and clicking from the algorithm changing in real time. Still... this is amazing.




Automation of Position (i.e. Distance and Angle) are tricky for many reasons:

1) much of the dsp used is done as minimally as possible as to keep CPU usage down, so we don't always do things like "delay line interpolation" if delay lines don't need to change. Without adding it, it's simply not possible to change a delay length smoothly for example. There are other examples. Adding everything needed to allow smooth automation would increase the CPU usage drastically. Maybe 4 or 5 times as much as it uses currently.

2) automation with Multi-Instance Editing gets a bit tricky

3) automation with Precedence-Link gets even more tricky bc now Breeze must update it's entire alg in a smooth manner too, and that is VERY CPU intensive. If Precedence is smooth but Breeze is not, it still does not really solve the goal perfectly.

Probably we will choose to make a dedicated motion-FX/doppler kind of plug-in derived from Precedence that is designed for smooth automation and extreme motion FX. Such a plug would likely be more limited in it's usage than Precedence where we might expect to have an instance on almost every track in a project. So Precedence would remain light-weight and focused on positioning and the derivative product would handle special effects if/when needed.



TomaeusD said:


> EDIT: Also the option of sound direction for each instrument like MIR Pro would be nice. Not sure how feasible that is or even how beneficial it would be.



I have read academic papers espousing the importance of directivity in instrument models, but as a composer/sound-designer/mix-engineer, I am not 100% convinced this is particularly helpful or meaningful to include in applications targeted at making music sound good. Directivity of an instrument would more or less translate to variable energy/gain at the microphone pickup, in a manner similar to microphone directivity patterns. I am not sure that is musically desirable. It seems rather annoying actually to have to adjust gain of the track again just bc you rotated the direction of your instrument relative to the virtual microphone location. This is my intuition at the moment; perhaps it will change over time, but this is my current thinking.

In theory I suppose this would also have some effect on things such as direct to reflected energy balance since it would be logical to assume the reflected energy would be close to omnidirectional, and so if an instrument was highly directional and pointing away from the microphone the direct signal would be attenuated drastically, while the reflected signals would be mostly unaffected.

In terms of more relevant musical psychoacoustic cues this would effectively mean:

1) more initial density/diffusion
2) higher wet/dry mix value
3) probable reduction in Pre-delay
4) potential "instantaneous diffusion" and increase to "audio source width" do in part to all of the above.
5) amplitude modulation if position/rotation is changing such as string players swaying to the music

Precedence and Breeze already allow you to make adjustments to all of these in a more direct fashion. This is what listenens will experience. They will not have any idea if an instrument is rotated or not. So at the moment I think working directly in the domain of the psychoacoustic RESULT is more powerful and intuitive than woking one up one level at (one of its) CAUSE(s).

To illustrate: ask yourself, will you ever think "I want to rotate the second violin to point 30 degrees away from the mic and 60 degs up towards the sky/ceiling"? Probably not. But you may very well think I want more density/diffusion, a wetter result, less pre-delay, more width, more or less modulation etc. These things are easier to think about and experience directly IMHO.

That's my current thinking at least. "Directivity" is still an interesting academic topic of research however, so maybe my opinion will change eventually... we'll see.


----------



## JEPA (Jul 31, 2019)

Andrew Souter said:


> Probably we will choose to make a dedicated motion-FX/doppler kind of plug-in derived from Precedence that is designed for smooth automation and extreme motion FX. Such a plug would likely be more limited in it's usage than Precedence where we might expect to have an instance on almost every track in a project. So Precedence would remain light-weight and focused on positioning and the derivative product would handle special effects if/when needed.


what are the uses for? I mean, I don't want a walking violin from left to right. A tuba walking right center back to the front of the stage, all this in orchestral setting for me would be static. Is this aimed to SFX like cars, moving objects, animals, etc?


----------



## Andrew Souter (Jul 31, 2019)

JEPA said:


> what are the uses for? I mean, I don't want a walking violin from left to right. A tuba walking right center back to the front of the stage, all this in orchestral setting for me would be static. Is this aimed to SFX like cars, moving objects, animals, etc?



Right. Orchestral and other standard positioning needs is what Precedence is for. You don’t want your instruments getting up and walking around stage usually. Exactly. Precedence motion is subtle. 

Sound FX and various electronic music applications might like more crazy motion and specific extreme automation of position. So for such applications we think maybe it could be interesting to make something specifically for such needs because it will take a lot more cpu usage and it is generally not necessary to have it part of a multi-instance environment. So hypothetically it makes more sense as its own separate thing. IF we ever make such a tool. It’s NOT imminent at the moment.


----------



## Andrew Souter (Aug 19, 2019)

Precedence 1.5.0 Beta 2 and Breeze 2.5.0 Beta 2 are available for customers. 

You can find them here, listed under your Breeze & Precedence order downloads:

https://www.designersound.com/mydownloads
Changes:


Various Minor Bug Fixes to Multi-Edit/Link/Group topics as reported from Beta 1
Windows installer fix to allow custom install paths for all files
Custom Menu Objects in the GUI
Precedence Link Name Match is now case-insensitive

Please let us know your experience. Thanks.


----------



## kgdrum (Aug 19, 2019)

I love Breeze and have been intrigued by the concept of Precedence but it seems way too complicated for my simple mind to understand & utilize.
I hope as development moves forward the workflow utilizing Breeze & Precedence becomes easier,I have held off adding Precedence to my setup for this reason as cool as it seems conceptually.


----------



## JEPA (Aug 20, 2019)

Andrew Souter said:


> Right. Orchestral and other standard positioning needs is what Precedence is for. You don’t want your instruments getting up and walking around stage usually. Exactly. Precedence motion is subtle.
> 
> Sound FX and various electronic music applications might like more crazy motion and specific extreme automation of position. So for such applications we think maybe it could be interesting to make something specifically for such needs because it will take a lot more cpu usage and it is generally not necessary to have it part of a multi-instance environment. So hypothetically it makes more sense as its own separate thing. IF we ever make such a tool. It’s NOT imminent at the moment.


wow! I've just downloaded the @AuburnSounds Panagement2 free and it has lot of similarities with Precedence. And it lets automate that positioning spot... maybe some collaboration between developers could arise? 
I am still learning Precedence and would be grateful if some walkthrough videos come around.. I've got a clean sound with Precedence but still wishing some deepness manipulation, I have to admit I have had very few little time to play with Precedence till now. Because I don't have Breeze2 yet I can't imagine which would be the improvements.. thanks for listening!
Best,
Jorge


----------



## Andrew Souter (Aug 21, 2019)

kgdrum said:


> I love Breeze and have been intrigued by the concept of Precedence but it seems way too complicated for my simple mind to understand & utilize.



How so? Do you refer to the Multi-Edit, Group, Precedence Link topics?

If you speak only of using one instnace of Precednce and one instance of Breeze, it is extremely simple actually:

1) Load P on a track
2) Load B on the same track
3) Enable Link mode in B
4) Change a preset in B. (optional)
5) Edit position simply by dragging around the position node/circle/puck, in P and B will follow.

You can even keep the B GUI closed at the point if you are happy with B preset. You can just use ONE control in P (the position node) to control ltterally hundreds of complex things in the P and B algorithms. In this sense it's a "one knob" system.

Once, you get into multi-instnace, etc it gets more complicated, yes, but so would using 100 instances of plugs in the DAW in the normal ways.



kgdrum said:


> I hope as development moves forward the workflow utilizing Breeze & Precedence becomes easier,I have held off adding Precedence to my setup for this reason as cool as it seems conceptually.



Can you elaborate on what is confusing and how you think it could be better?

We are making video demos/tutorials also...


----------



## Andrew Souter (Aug 21, 2019)

JEPA said:


> And it lets automate that positioning spot... maybe some collaboration between developers could arise?



Why? We are well aware what is required to automate the system, but our system is not simply gain panning, and smoothly and arbitrarily automating its complex dsp would require tons of extra CPU and other complications described earlier that would make it less appropiate for many-instnace workflows. And you said yourself earlier that you genrally don't want your instruments to get up and walk around the stage, right? 




JEPA said:


> I am still learning Precedence and would be grateful if some walkthrough videos come around.. I've got a clean sound with Precedence but still wishing some deepness manipulation, I have to admit I have had very few little time to play with Precedence till now. Because I don't have Breeze2 yet I can't imagine which would be the improvements.. thanks for listening!
> Best,
> Jorge



Videos are coming.

Precedence provides about 50% of the depth positiong, and the reverb engine (i.e. Breeze 2) provides the other 50%. The reasons for this are described in detail in the manual and dsicussed earlier in the thread.

In summary if you ignore reverb/reflections and speak only of direct sound in an anechoic enviroment, gain loss and high frequency loss are the two strongest distance cues. IMHO you don't want extreme gain loss or extreme high frequency loss for music mixing applications. These are generally subtle in Precedence -- unless you engage the X-Range Loss Mode. So generally the most important depth/disantce cues in musical applications come from reflections in one way or another... This is the domain of the reverb engine.


----------



## JEPA (Aug 21, 2019)

Andrew Souter said:


> Why? We are well aware what is required to automate the system, but our system is not simply gain panning, and smoothly and arbitrarily automating its complex dsp would require tons of extra CPU and other complications described earlier that would make it less appropiate for many-instnace workflows. And you said yourself earlier that you genrally don't want your instruments to get up and walk around the stage, right?


Yes! that's fair, you have explained this before. I only tested this on the other plugin and wanted to give some head ups. I don't need this automation, but was referring the other comment from another user. Still I don't find it useful for orchestral music.

Thank you for videos coming!


----------



## JEPA (Sep 5, 2019)

I want to say, after one or two months with only Precedence (without Breeze2) this plugin has helped me to clean dense mixes. Applause and thanks a lot for this awesome plugin!


----------



## unclecheeks (Sep 26, 2019)

Is there a demo for Precedence 1.5? The demo on the site seems to be 1.0, which doesn't have any link functionality from what i can tell. Interested in the Precedence/Breeze combo but can't demo with 1.0


----------



## Andrew Souter (Sep 28, 2019)

unclecheeks said:


> Is there a demo for Precedence 1.5? The demo on the site seems to be 1.0, which doesn't have any link functionality from what i can tell. Interested in the Precedence/Breeze combo but can't demo with 1.0




Hi,

Precedence 1.5 and Breeze 2.5 updates are still in “customer beta” phase and so we have not posted new demos yet. We’ve been hunting down a tricky issue that only surfaces with extremely complex projects the past few weeks. This one had us scratching our head a lot and exploring everything but we think we have solved it now. In the process we improved other things as happy side effects including:

1) MUCH less RAM usage. The current builds were maintaining memory usage for GUIs for all instances regardless of being open or closed and with the multi-edit workflow we advocate using a single or a few shared GUIs set to large GUI sizes. If you did as we advocated in the pervious/current build it consumes quite a lot of ram. That ain’t cool. So we fixed it. Memory usage is now comparatively tiny.

2) Additional Reductions to cpu usage. Things were already crazy fast, but we seem
to have gotten even faster.

3) A “design improvement” to Breeze modulation that keeps things perfectly clean even when using extreme mod depth. Orchestral material would typically not use use extreme mod depth, but anyway there is some improvement to this scenario.

4) Misc stability fixes/tweaks/enhancements as related to the issue we were exploring in effort be completely reliable for huge mission critical projects with tons of instances of both P and B

We will likely post these builds this coming week. Official release shortly after that together with new demo versions.


----------

