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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!

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!


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.

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.
 
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?
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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
 
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.

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...
 
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? ;)


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.
 
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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! :elephant:
 
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!
 
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
 
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.
 
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