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

[Andrew Souter]

Great, but now leave it as simple as it is... this is why i use breeze over aether. Good update, but no new features please, it will be perfect just the way it is now:)

That's our plan basically... no more "stuff" for Breeze as far as we foresee... I think the new additions are very valuable without undoing our KISS principle...

New features, more complexity, etc. will go into Aether 2.0... and we DO have a bunch of ideas planned... (Still some time away from this... a few other plugs first...)

BTW, ttoz, how do you like the new filters? I guess you probably like using new Hi-Cut mode for Damp, and also the ability to use Hi-Shelf and Hi-Cut fro EQ as demoed by some of the new presets... This can achieve a more "classic" sound as I think you like??

[ObsoleteAcc99]

[DELETED]

[Andrew Souter]

PS the cpu usage on the 2.3 macbook pro sandy bridge i7 quad is twice as efficient per core as the 2.4 i5, even at a lower clock speed, so aether is a contender again if i want to tweak. I think the 8mb L3 helps alot and that sandy bridge ramps it's clock speed much quicker.

Yes large Cache is important to Aether (and most reverbs in general to a lesser extent). Sandy Bridge CPUs are an EXCELLENT choice for Aether & Breeze and our future products... I'm eagerly waiting for Xeons based on Sandy Bridge...

It's a pretty insane time we live in. You could build an 80-core Intel Xeon system today if you had the desire and $:

http://www.supermicro.com/products/syst ... 6B-TRF.cfm

http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=53580

10 core xeon CPU. 30MB cache! 8 on a single motherboard!

160 threads with hyperthreading....

would *only* cost $30-40K or so to build such a machine

hence breeze is my happy medium and funnily enough i prefer it to aether vastly on electronic drums and i don't even think of using anything else any more, so there you go, i got a real good use for breeze and very happy i bought it.

Cool. We like it on drums too...

[Sequent]

Hm, no emails here either. I just checked my account settings at Galbanum and I AM set to receive update notifications as well as the general email. Back on my email side, I have shop at Galbanum dot com on my contacts list. Don't know what else I can do. Is there another email address that I need to add? Andrew, please let me know if you need me to pm with my details. Thanks!

[Andrew Souter]

Hm, no emails here either. I just checked my account settings at Galbanum and I AM set to receive update notifications as well as the general email. Back on my email side, I have shop at Galbanum dot com on my contacts list. Don't know what else I can do. Is there another email address that I need to add? Andrew, please let me know if you need me to pm with my details. Thanks!

send me an email so I can reply with the info...

[Breeze]

Hm, no emails here either.

I found mine got caught in my ISP's spam filter. I received my notice 2 days ago and would have missed the news if I didn't visit here regularly. I'm not sure what triggers that spam filter, but I do find it effective 99% of the time so I keep it on. But every so often it traps something it shouldn't.

Actually I have really really minor complaint about both Breeze and Aether. I like the darker skins, but the choice of grey letters on a black background in their browser window makes it hard to read at a distance on my hi-rez monitor. And because of some eye trouble, I'm finding the contrast in the Breeze's bright skins lower than in Aether's, making it "glarey", but that's just me...

[Andrew Souter]

We describe Breeze as: "Simple. Light. Pristine." Sometimes people ask what "Pristine" means to us.

We interpret "Pristine" to mean a very clean signal free of noise and unwanted artifacts. We don't think these things should be a part of reverb if at all possible. We go to incredibly extreme measures to avoid these things in Aether. We were able to achieve similar things in Breeze as well without using the extreme techniques we use in Aether (oversampling, off-line interpolation modes, etc.) that require a decent amount of CPU power.

People have asked us for audio examples of what we mean on occasion. The best/easiest way to demonstrate this is to use sine wave test signals. I've uploaded some test signals here:

http://www.2caudio.com/products/breeze/WAVs/TestTones/

Usually artifacts are most easily identified using sources at the extreme frequency ranges. So i've provided some sine-wav test tones, (rendered from C code in the same way I make Galbanum Architecture waveforms -- i.e. mathematically perfect) at various extreme frequencies. These can very easily show noise and artifacts from aliasing and other problems.

To test first download these files. You can grab the zip for an easy download:

http://www.2caudio.com/products/breeze/ ... _Tones.zip

(These are 32bit floating point wav files at 44100 sample rate.)

Then:

1) Load you host. Turn master gain to -12dB to avoid any potential output clipping.
2) Add a mono audio track.
3) Add the test tones to the audio track in sequence one after the other.
4) Insert Breeze (and/or Aether) on your master bus.
5) Insert 3rd party competitive reverbs on the master bus as well using other insert(s).
6) Bypass all plugs except the one you wish to actively test.
7) Make the following settings to all reverb plugs:

Mix = 100% wet
Filters = Off (or as high as possible for Hi Cut filters)
EQ = Off
All frequency ratios = 1.0

Now start with the 20000hz (20k) sine test tone. Bypass all reverbs. Play it back. You should most likely not hear anything at all, as most people can not hear this high.

*) Side note: For a pure test you should stop playback in-between changing reverb parameter settings, and bypass, and re-enable the plug while playback is stopped to kill the tails. You should always start playback from the beginning of the file. The files are faded-in over 15sec using a cosine envelope. This is because the act of simply starting/stopping a sine-wave generates "spectral splatter". i.e. if you simply start a sine-wave without a fade-in it acts like a sine-wave convolved with a step function, which is similar to an impulse... in simple terms, you will have a pulse fed into the reverb, and this will cloud the purity of the spectrum you are trying to evaluate... In geeky terms, an FFT of a sine wave gives only one one partial (the fundamental) with any energy, but in order for this to be 100% technically true, the sine-wave must be of infinite length with no beginning or end. So practically to get around this fact we need a long fade-in, and the shape of the fade should not contain any additional harmonics i.e it should be a sine/cosine.

10) Now enable Breeze. Make the following settings:

Modulation Depth to maximum
Modulation Rate to maximum
Size to minimum (this will typically exaggerate many design weaknesses)
Time to something large/long. Let's say 10sec if possible--or longer.

11) Play back the audio file. If you could not hear anything with the playback bypassed, you should still not be able to hear anything now. This should be the case in Breeze (and Aether) Anything you hear will be an artifact most likely caused by aliasing. While playback is stopped, change the settings. Try less extreme modulation depth and modulation rate. Try larger sizes. Try shorter times. Change any other parmeter you like. Do you hear any artifacts with ANY Breeze settings?

12) Bypass Breeze and enable one of the other plugs you are testing. Start with the same extreme settings. Be careful! Some plugs don't pass this test very well and will create very loud noise. Listen at low to moderate volumes until you know what the outcome will be. While playback is stopped, change the settings. Try less extreme modulation depth and modulation rate. Try larger sizes. Try shorter times. Change any other parmeter you like. Try different modes if available. Do you still hear artifacts? The artifacts may lesson to some degree, but once you know what to listen for, you will likely still be able to hear them clearly.

Now you may wonder "well 20K is a bit extreme isn't it? is this really an issue with normal musical signals?" So...

13) Repeat the above with the 16k test tone. Try it with the 11025hz (one quarter of the same rate) test tone. Do you still hear any issues? Many instruments definitely have engery at 11025hz and higher...

14) How about extreme low frequencies? These can also help identify other artifacts. Try the 20hz file, try various setting as explained above. Some plugs show obvious artifacts on low freqs. Most speakers will not be able to reproduce 20hz, and if they can you will feel it more than you will hear it. But you will hear artifacts clearly...

Now you may wonder "well 20hz is a bit extreme isn't it? is this really an issue with normal musical signals?" So...

15) Repeat the above with the 30hz test tone. Try it with the 50hz test tone. 50hz is definitely into normal bass freq range now. Do you still hear any issues?

If desired I can upload some more mid-range test tones too...

In summary we define our "pristine" claim to mean that you can feed Breeze (and Aether) pretty much any properly band-limited audio signal from DC to nyquist and you will generally not experience any artifacts or unwanted noise even when using extreme parameter settings.

This is not always true in the competitive market-place... Some do better than others. Inquiring minds can try for themselves.

There are many other aspects to reverb algorithm design as well of course, but we feel this is a fairly important one for algorithmic reverbs which use modulation, since the modulation is a large part of what sets algo verbs apart from static convolution verbs for example...

This is our design aesthetic at 2CAudio. Other companies are free to disagree of course and may have their own design goals and tolerances...

[Andrew Souter]

Some cool audio examples of 1.1 from beta testers:

Cinematic Scoring Work by Josiah Christensen:

http://www.2caudio.com/products/breeze/ ... Asgard.mp3

Udu Drums by Douglas McGee:

http://www.2caudio.com/products/breeze/ ... Breeze.wav

Great stuff guys!

[Andrew Souter]

A few people still asked how to get the update. And asked about the current $99.95 promo price... So:

Here is the update info. This will only work if you are an existing Breeze customer.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

BREEZE UPDATE INSTRUCTIONS

To get the 1.1 update please follow these instructions:

0) Go here:

http://galbanum.com/shop/product_info.p ... ucts_id=85

1) Select your desired OS format(s) from the drop down menu(s)

2) Add this update to your shopping cart and proceed to the checkout page

3) On the checkout page enter the following coupon code and click on Redeem:

2CAudio_Breeze_110_Update

This will change the price to $0.00. There is no cost and no payment info is required.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


Regarding the $99.95: The price has not been changed. We are doing a 10-day "flash promo" to celebrate the 1.1 release. It was intended to go to the existing Galbanum/2CAudio database as a customer appreciation thing, but I guess the idea of these things remaining private in the info-age is unrealistic...

So here is the info for everyone:

http://galbanum.com/promo/Breeze_110/

The price is $99.95 to new customers until April 18th. That's one week from today. Then it is back to normal price of $149.95 and we are unlikely to do another promo on it any time soon.

Orders are still handed through the galbanum web store, and this is where you can find your order history and SN, and additional downloads etc. Go into the "My Account" section of the web store and check your order history:

https://galbanum.com/shop/account.php

[milosh_]

I just bought the Breeze.

It doesn't show up in Ableton Live 8.2.2
My DAW is on Windows Vista 64bit

I installed 32 bit version of breeze..
I find the dll in the VST folder but Live doesn't see it.

It works OK in Reaper though.

What might be the problem in ableton ?

[morelia]

Anyone know, orhas it been asked if the Aether expansions work in Breeze?

[evanclay]

I know you want to KISS, but any thoughts on adding oversampling as an option? The addition would still keep things simple, and why wouldn't you? Then again, I know nothing about plugin dev.

[ObsoleteAcc99]

[DELETED]

[Andrew Souter]

Anyone know, orhas it been asked if the Aether expansions work in Breeze?

No. Aether presets do not work in Breeze and vice versa. They are two different products. They have some similarities, but they also have many differences even for the same controls so presets do not translate.

[Andrew Souter]

I know you want to KISS, but any thoughts on adding oversampling as an option? The addition would still keep things simple, and why wouldn't you? Then again, I know nothing about plugin dev.

We thought about it yes. The concern is that offering it would undo the perception of it being light on the CPU. Of course logically if we offer an OPTION to ELECT to use OS, as we do with Aether, this has no effect whatsoever on CPU usage when the option is not elected... but our experience is that people seem to forget this and just "turn it to 11" and then wonder why CPU usage is higher than the competition. So we elected not to include it in Breeze.

We may change our position on this at some point in the future in a future update. I would be interested to see who else is interested in it?

Feel free to discuss here...