Is 2C's Aether REALLY worth it? (the answer is: yes, certainly)

[Andrew Souter]

Thanks for the kind words Doug!

We should also thank Denis, who is the primary coder of the two of us. We're both quite geeky and design the algs jointly and most things together as a team at this point, but it is his genius that translates our wild algorithm ideas into the final effecient code.

And this is just the beginning... now that we have this one, (almost) under our belt, we can proceed with all our other ideas.

...imagine what WE can do in 35 years...

[Andrew Souter]

Having Aether 1.5 in a Cubase 5.1.1 project makes the audio render of that project r-e-a-l-l-y s-l-o-w.

I am finalizing the new manual today together with getting the web updated. We will send out press releases on Monday, and that will be the official launch day. At this point we have only given it to existing users to try a few days early while finishing up these things.

Regarding render times, this will be explained thoroughly in the manual, but the general idea is that render quality vs render speed can be whatever you like it to be. At the lowest quality settings, which are the same as the award-winning 1.0 and are already literally "excellent" and competitive with the best in the market, things are almost exactly the same speed as previously. Things will slow down and require more CPU as you turn the new extreme quality settings.

By far, the setting that will most effect render speed is the "interpolation" setting. "Perfection" and "Obsession" mode are VERY heavy on the CPU, as you have noticed. When facing a tight deadline, it can be a good idea to keep the Interpolation setting at "Excellence" until your very final mix-down and then switch to "Perfection". "Obsession" is REALLY extreme, and really only makes sense if you are working on some audiophile level stuff where the final release media is high resolution, such as SACD, etc... If it's going on iTunes as MP3, there's not much point. Wink

As for over-sampling, my recommendation is to run in real-time at 2X if you can, and save 4x for bounces. The difference between 2x and 4x is subtle, but the difference between 1x and 2x is less so, and there is a definite improvement to the high-frequency response when using at least 2x. You may even adjust EQ and damping settings slightly differently when running 2x, vs 1x. So it is ideal to work in 2x if your hardware can handle it.

Also there is some trade-off between oversampling and interpolation. At higher oversampling ratios, interpolation quality is less important to some extent. So if you don't have the time for the perfection or obsession setting, keeping it at "excellence" and and rendering at 4x will still be AMAZING, and should beat anything else on the market.

So you can maybe consider this as a "best of" scenario for the past, preset, and future:

Past: 1X, Ballanced, Excellence
Preset: 2x, UltraSmooth, Excellence
Future: 4x, UltraSmooth, Perfection

Distant Future: 4x, UltraSmooth, Obsession (really way too heavy to do real-time any time soon... Mostly "proof of concept" unless you are very patient and working on major Hollywood scores, or SACD, etc...)

This will be better explained in the manual...

We like to be on the bleeding edge, and well this is it... but if your hardware is not fast enough, simply use the previous setting. To repeat one final time: LOWEST QUALITY SETTINGS ARE BETTER NOW THAN WHAT WON US SEVERAL INDUSTRY AWARDS. So you're not making too much of compromise to use these if needed.

Also to repeat "interpolation" setting is what can cause the longest render times.

[visa tapani]

Having Aether 1.5 in a Cubase 5.1.1 project makes the audio render of that project r-e-a-l-l-y s-l-o-w.

Regarding render times, this will be explained thoroughly in the manual, but the general idea is that render quality vs render speed can be whatever you like it to be. At the lowest quality settings, which are the same as the award-winning 1.0 and are already literally "excellent" and competitive with the best in the market, things are almost exactly the same speed as previously. Things will slow down and require more CPU as you turn the new extreme quality settings.

I understand the concept, but I'm now fairly convinced that there is actually some kind of bug there with rendering in Cubase 5, especially since Ariston pointed out that his rendering times aren't nearly this long. My computer is a 2.5GHz dual-core Macbook Pro with 2GB of RAM, booted to Windows XP SP3 via bootcamp. Considering the specs, over 1h of rendering a 5 min clip with 3 Aethers (with 2x, UltraSmooth, Perfection) is preposterous. I can try this with some other host soon, but it looks like a bug.

[ariston]

especially since Ariston pointed out that his rendering times aren't nearly this long.

I did some more testing and realized I had used the "lowest" interpolation setting and 2x oversampling. Sorry for the misinformation. This is my result for rendering of a 10-track song with dozens of effects and three instances of Aether in Live:

4x, ultra-smooth, excellence - 400 secs.

That's using an i7 quadcore, 4 Gigs RAM, Win7.

Guess you're looking at a feature, not a bug.

Years from now, we'll look back upon our "weak" computers and laugh. I remember writing an irate e-mail to the makers of Unreal because the performance of the game was horrendous on my ATI card. Cliff Bleszinski himself replied, saying that "you must be joking if you think you can fit Unreal's high-res (sic!) textures onto your 2 MB graphics RAM."

[jensa]

It's like... I don't mind seeing a part of the future now.

[dmbaer]

I will start a new *official* aether 1.5 thread once we release to press and public.

So is there a possibility of a promotion along the lines of a group buy opportunity in the next 12 months? I don't suppose you can even reply unless one is imminent ... but just let me say I'd be on board if you do have one.

[cybertron]

I will start a new *official* aether 1.5 thread once we release to press and public.

So is there a possibility of a promotion along the lines of a group buy opportunity in the next 12 months? I don't suppose you can even reply unless one is imminent ... but just let me say I'd be on board if you do have one.

I think he said recently that they wouldnt do another group buy.

[shogger]

And this is just the beginning... now that we have this one, (almost) under our belt, we can proceed with all our other ideas.

...imagine what WE can do in 35 years...

A demo version?












Shogger

[Andrew Souter]

Thanks for the question. No sorry, no more group buys for Aether. Our personal feelings are in line with Doug a few posts back: Aether is a steal @$250 and competes directly with (and wins in many ways IMHO) things that cost 5-7 times as much.

Originally we were going to price Aether at $350, and we had these new 1.5.0 features in mind since the beginning. Really the 1.5.0 version should be at least this price, probably more, but we are not going to raise prices on anyone, so it will stay at $250. This is a price many people are happy to have paid and are paying and we must look out for their interests too.

Does everyone in the world agree with us? Nope, certainly not. But that is ok. It is a big world with lots of good choices, and if Aether is not ideal for someone's needs or budget, I hope they find something that is, and I hope it inspires them to make great music, and pristine engineering.

We happened to launch Aether 1.0.0 directly into the abyss of the stock market collapse last year when it looked like the financial world was ending. The group buy was a good solution at that time to help everyone out in a time of stress and help us get some additional exposure. It worked out well for everyone at the time, but a lot of things have changed since then.

Aether is currently our high-end "Crème de la Crème" and we feel the price is more than justified. Will we offer other options in the future? ...to be determined...

[Andrew Souter]

yes we have demos of course. They will go up sometime between now and Monday. I want the manual to be in good shape before posting demos.

[dmbaer]

Question though: how does everyone feel about on-line manuals? Do you consider this an acceptable alternative to PDF?
Thoughts?

I don't know if you're still interested in responses on this question (asked over three months ago), but here goes anyway.

Whatever you end up with needs to be printable. My profession puts me in front of a computer (and I don't mean a DAW) all day long. I like to read about music technology but I don't want to have to be in front of a computer to do it. I don't mind the absence of a printed manual to keep costs down (but appreciate it no end when one is included with a piece of software). But I really do want something I can print.

[Andrew Souter]

yes it is PDF as requested...

[Sampleconstruct]

Aether is really more than worth the 250 Bucks, it's an incredible bargain at that price imo!

[cybertron]

Aether is really more than worth the 250 Bucks, it's an incredible bargain at that price imo!

shhh I havent bought it yet. Dont make them up the price.

[jensa]

yes it is PDF as requested...

Great choice! I love putting all my beloved VST-plugin-PDF:s in my Google Docs account and having them at my disposal wherever I am. For example at such uninspiring places like work.