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

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.


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


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


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...
 
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!
 
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.
 
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.

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.


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
 
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).
 
@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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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


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!
 
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).


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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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
 
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.)
 
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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