2CAudio Breeze | 2.5 | Simple. Light. Pristine. Intelligently Adaptive.

[jensa]

I can't find it in the retail version.

[Andrew Souter]

It IS in the demo versions... thanks for the info Jon... fixing...

I have to apologize for my previous post to you also Jon. I assumed you where a beta tester since your first posts were made before we released anything and you were mentioning seeing the "Aether logo" on the skins, which I thought only happened in the earlier betas. I should have listened to you yesterday and checked the demos then. Sorry about that. I see now, that you are not a beta tester, and you had access to the demo when the page was live for a couple hours while I was working on it, before I hid it... So it was my mistake. Thanks for spotting this issue.

While making the Breeze skins, I started from using the same style as Aether, since we want them to feel like they belong to the same family. I was going to have some graphic designers do a new Breeze logo, and was waiting for that, so I kept the Aether logos on the skin temporarily so that I knew how to position everything else... In the end no designers were available on short notice, so I made the logo myself, deriving it from the style of the Aether logo...

It seems in the 24-hour work days, and sleep deprivation that goes along with it, I somehow did not replace this graphic with the final one in the Day Demo skins as you say. Both we, and the testers were using the full version so we missed this in the demo...

Simple silly little error, but I can see how it leads to confusion...

The windows demo versions are replaced already on the server, and I am waiting for Denis to send me the OSX demo installer with the updated graphic.

Thanks again for pointing it out. I will address your other points separately...

[audiosabre]

We're cool Andrew. You have every right to question beta testers who leak information. I also know how deadlines affect sleep patterns, so no worries.

Glad I could help.

John

[Andrew Souter]

Cool. To clarify the Info page should look like this:

[Andrew Souter]

Also we have 4 skin variations. Light, and Dark, and two color variations:









number values, can be shown or hidden on knobs, at your preference (same as aether). ...or only "while tracking" i.e. using a knob.

double-click on all controls (including sliders) gives text entry mode.

the mix setting is an "anti-knob". it always displays as text and is scrollable just like a knob, but there is no physical looking knob... this is b/c many users will set too 100% and lock, and use on sends, so the mix setting is then basically not needed, so it should not draw attention from an ergonomics standpoint...


also the Gain control and meter do not display numerical readout values, b/c the gain is so freakin perfectly optimized in Breeze that adjusting the gain control is basically obsolete! (yes, we are proud of that.) In fact we have a script whereby we match all presets levels to a pink noise source at the end of development.... Aether presets have done this too... but notice in Breeze that the gain setting for 95% of the presets is less than +/- 1dB!! That's pretty incredible. Basically it is very hard to make a bad-sounding preset in Breeze. It's a Breeze to edit presets and make your own! Pun definitely premeditated and fully intended!

[Andrew Souter]

CPU usage in Breeze is variable by:

1) The Lo-Hi switch. Low uses only 50-60% of high!
2) Modulation: When mod depth is Off, a lot of CPU usage is saved (~40%)
3) The Density control. Density of 0 and less uses progressively less CPU.

With All options set to MAX, CPU usage in Breeze should be ~2/3 the CPU usage of Aether's LOWEST settings.

However, to fairly compare Aether to Breeze, Aether should be set to "ultra-smooth" modulation on the prefs page, 1X OS, and the LR-Stereo mode should be set to "LR-Stereo", NOT "LR-Mono".

Now you are talking about a much more significant difference. Again, USING MAX settings in Breeze.

Now, start changing settings in Breeze... Use some negative density setting. Try the Lo density/diffusion setting. CPU usage will drop considerably...

Don't make the mistake to think, these kind of settings confine you to bad sounding presets. Very nice presets can be made this way. Check out the first two Cathedral presets--they use these kind of settings. Check out Sparse Hall, etc.

We have a "pay for what you use" policy in Breeze DSP: if a preset does not need some part of the potential processing in Breeze it is removed from DSP and the load is lighter on the CPU. So it varies by preset.

At the absolute minimum settings, I can load over 500 instances on my 8-core Xeon system. I need to do exact comparisons to other products, but this informally seemed lighter than most...

[Peevy2000]

I think I just might have found the reverb I've been looking for

I've tried a few of the top Reverbs (for my very low budget) like Redline, AAR & RP-Verb (RP-Verb totally chewed up my CPU unless I put my buffer size up to 1024 samples) & while they're all very good I was really looking for a Reverb that matched or was better than my favourite verb which is Audio Damage's EOS.

EOS is my favourite for a number of reasons. Firstly the sound quality it has for $49 is brilliant & the UI is so simple & easy to work with a child could get a decent sound out of this Reverb no problem. Actually the user friendly UI is my main reason for loving EOS so mutch but at times I was finding myself wanting a few more parameters to tweak to further sculpt my sound & a 64-bit Reverb would be nice to have too. So the hunt began.

While the reverbs mentioned above definitely sound better than EOS I still wasn't comfortable with the UI of any of them & was just about to give up hope until Breeze came along. Breeze is a delight to work with, the GUIs very nice with the UI offering just that little bit more tweak-ability I was looking for & to my ears it also shines in that all important department, the sound. Does it sound better than EOS? I'm still not 100% sure yet but in some ways it does because of the extra tweak-ability but I won't be throwing EOS away anytime soon because of those times you just want something really simple to work with, plus you can get some really massive sounds out of it & its extremely light on the CPU. As for the CPU where Breeze is concerned, I found it to be pretty easy on the CPU & only adding about an average of 8% load on the CPU, so no complaints there.

I know I've said it before but I'll say it again, I really love Breezes GUI. Its just so easy to work with & the preset browser is a delight to sift through too.

I'll definitely be snapping this up at the introductory price of $99.95
but I do have a suggestion or even a request to Galbanum. Since this seems to be a Reverb geared toward Laptop home studio or live use, why not keep the price at $99.95. I'd say it'd definitely sell a lot more & speaking as a home studio hobbyist myself (for now) I always think twice about buying a plugin when its nearing the $150 or above mark. I think $99.95 is a nice in between price. I'm Sorry if I seem rude telling you how to price your products but I do really like Breeze & would like a lot more people to have the chance to use it.

[Breeze]

Ha! Well, I'm, uh, honored!

But seriously: I just tried Breeze (the plugin...) and it really is very nice. In fact from the get-go, the very first Cathedral preset is a joy to listen to. Some quick A/Bing with Aether clearly shows the lineage and I was able to get very close to some Breeze presets from modding some Aether presets, but others clearly demonstrate that Breeze has something new to offer: a overall warmer and more present sound along with deeper modulation effects. For someone who doesn't have Aether, Breeze is a good deal at $99.

I've had to put the brakes on new gear for financial reasons, so maybe my perspective is tainted by this, but why can't Aether do everything Breeze can? On the surface, it almost looks like a macro editor for Aether, with some GUI enhancements bringing the style of editing more in line with traditional reverb parameter editing (I'd love to see more of this in Aether too). Throw in CPU consumption control and Macro/Complete GUI selection per preset, and you'd have Breeze covered by Aether.

But more importantly, will Aether ever sound the same as Breeze? I'd pay to hear these sonic improvements in Aether. It's somewhat disquieting that in some regards, the underling outclasses the flagship and I'm sure I'm not the only Aether user puzzled by this strategy. But I understand the financial imperatives that impose feature distribution, and of course you're free to market your products as you see fit. Like I said, I'm not a good consumer these days...

Congrats on the "little brother"!

Breeze (the artist...)

PS: isn't there some unwritten KVR rule that says that if a Dev uses a KVRist's name as a product name, he gets the product for free?...

[Andrew Souter]

PS: isn't there some unwritten KVR rule that says that if a Dev uses a KVRist's name as a product name, he gets the product for free?...

Yes, you can have an NFR... really. send us an email.

Maybe you can make a demo song/clip or two in exchange....

seriously. send us an email.

[A.M. Gold]

Damn, I need to change my screen name to Lexicon...

...or better yet, Bricasti.

[Andrew Souter]

Ha! Well, I'm, uh, honored!

But seriously: I just tried Breeze (the plugin...) and it really is very nice. In fact from the get-go, the very first Cathedral preset is a joy to listen to. Some quick A/Bing with Aether clearly shows the lineage and I was able to get very close to some Breeze presets from modding some Aether presets, but others clearly demonstrate that Breeze has something new to offer: a overall warmer and more present sound along with deeper modulation effects. For someone who doesn't have Aether, Breeze is a good deal at $99.

But more importantly, will Aether ever sound the same as Breeze? I'd pay to hear these sonic improvements in Aether. It's somewhat disquieting that in some regards, the underling outclasses the flagship and I'm sure I'm not the only Aether user puzzled by this strategy. But I understand the financial imperatives that impose feature distribution, and of course you're free to market your products as you see fit. Like I said, I'm not a good consumer these days...

I would not say one is better than the other at everything. Each has its strengths. Breeze definitely does not outclass Aether on the whole.
Aether is still king of the family. Breeze is a promising young prince.

There are some things in Breeze that we intend to add back to Aether yes. A few areas have improvements from recent research/discoveries that are quite powerful. These will go back into Aether. But it will likely not happen until 2.0 though.

We probably want to release a few new non-reverb products before we do Aether 2.0. We've been waiting to do them for 2 years now.


Our pace should quicken now that RTAS is done though, and the other systems stuff we did in Aether 1.5.0. We have a very powerful development platform now...

[Andrew Souter]

Damn, I need to change my screen name to Lexicon...

...or better yet, Bricasti.

ya.

But you would have to do it before they used it...

It's only fair to him... I actually thought about this when we choose that name--strange as that may sound...

[Andrew Souter]

Congrats on the "little brother"!

I would/do say "cousin" instead of "brother". They are optimized for different purposes to some degree.

The right tool for the right job... that's part of the idea.

[A.M. Gold]

Damn, I need to change my screen name to Lexicon...

...or better yet, Bricasti.

ya.

But you would have to do it before they used it...

It's only fair to him... I actually thought about this when we choose that name--strange as that may sound...

Well, I wouldn't feel bad, I ripped off a (at one time) fairly well known CD series here in the states that was sold via television ads. It had classic stuff like John Denver, the Carpenters, the Osmonds etc. on it.

[metalifuxx]

Damn, I need to change my screen name to Lexicon...

...or better yet, Bricasti.

ya.

But you would have to do it before they used it...

It's only fair to him... I actually thought about this when we choose that name--strange as that may sound...

Well, I wouldn't feel bad, I ripped off a (at one time) fairly well known CD series here in the states that was sold via television ads. It had classic stuff like John Denver, the Carpenters, the Osmonds etc. on it.

Ahh ha. I knew your name was from somewhere, I just could not pinpoint it. Damn late night infomercial did not brainwash me enough I guess .