2CAudio B2: Full Body. Maximum Attitude.

[metalifuxx]

Why on earth would you want to have sex with a pizza?

Unless you are the actor Jason Biggs and you are making the movie "Italian Pie", maybe...

But wow, that one flew right over your head. Maybe it was a culture misunderstanding if your not from America/English speaking native etc.

I'll explain it this way, what this (analogy) means:
-Sex: Even when it's bad, it's still good.
-Pizza: Even when it's bad, it's still good. (It can be debated, but usually any pizza is good)
-Putting sounds through B2: Even when its bad, it's still (sounds) good.

[ChiTown24]

Why on earth would you want to have sex with a pizza?

Seriously though....

pity we can't animate colors in forum code.

[antithesist]

Why on earth would you want to have sex with a pizza?

Seriously though....

pity we can't animate colors in forum code.

Thank you, I am understood. My smiley boycott has its downside, but it's also a filter of sorts. Of course, I'd have also said that face to face in a room with a deadpan that would leave listeners wondering.

That said, I still appreciate metalifuxx's (metalifuxx'?) in depth breakdown.

Oh, and I should add that if you live long enough, you will have bad pizza and bad sex, both of which are not in any way conceivable as good, possibly at the same time. That also somewhat legitimizes the premise of my question.

[antithesist]

Italian Pie is actually very clever. You win.

[Andrew Souter]

I've been combining reverbs in series and parallel, and with additional outboard dynamics, EQ, waveshaping, etc. for over thirty years. In fact, my first experiences were with around $500,000* worth of gear if you count the console and tape machines. The reverbs then were a 224 and EMT 251, plus countless other suspects that came and went.

Well in my estimation that makes you much more experienced than many other people and I am quite sure you have some really great and deep knowledge on this subject then... This may seem simple to you, but for many others it is a rather complex thing to set up...

That's all a preface to the question: since I haven't been able to really run B2 through its paces, what is truly unique and or revolutionary here? You can combine the two engines inserting processing in between them. Okay, that can be convenient for recall sake, and of course, great if it just sounds great.

Let me put or pose this another way, what is unique and/or revolutionary within a single engine compared to other single engine reverbs sans the additional processing and combining? I mean, other than the extensive EQ/filtering, the additional processing can't really be put within the reverb, can it? Before, after and in between are fine, but that kind of thing can be accomplished with multiple processors.

A similar question was asked on GS a while ago. I will cut/paste it here for sake of laziness/efficiency:

Originally Posted by Synthpark View Post
At the risk of sounding like the devils advocate or something like that, I would like to know what makes the new reverb a unique product.

Why I am asking this is for the following reason:

Any experienced mix engineer knows tricks how to combine several engines of different reverb plugins in order to create something "higher". So to take the ERs from one plugin and combine it with let's say a PCM 70 hardware reverb tale, is quite common. I could also just use two Breeze devices in serial mode (on one FX channel) or two FX channels for parallel mode, using panning techniques and so forth.

Same thing applies to additional effects like bit crusher, saturation, compression, exciter etc. I could insert any sort of effect which is part of the DAW or third party, and use it. And some people do that.

I understand that there is a whole bunch of ready-to-use presets and there has been a lot of work / passion done in order to create them. So if somebody likes them, it saves a lot of time.

But on the other hand, it would be nice to understand if there is anything not possible to create just by using the routing and instantiation capability of the standard DAW, what would make this a unique DSP device.

thanks

It's a good question.

Well first of all, B2 single Engine DOES NOT equal Breeze. Structurally it is similar, but it has many changes, enhancements additions, etc. It is a different alg based on similar fundamental ingredients. If you simply load a Breeze Engine preset into B2, and compare to the same preset in Breeze, you will notice they are not the same for example...

So Breeze and B2 are not the same. Neither is Aether.

Secondly for sake of argument, let's say that one B2 engine was exactly equal to one Breeze instance (it's not). To recreate what is possible in B2, you would need at least 6 plug-ins: 2-Breeze, 2-Dynamics, 2 Distortion. And you would need to be able to configure them all in very complex ways involving multiple send busses and groups to achieve semi-serial, semi-parallel structures. And you would prob need at least several different distortion and dynamics processors to cover the full range of what is already built into B2... Our relative mode is rather unique as well AFAIK, as our extreme attack times...

Doing the above would be very hard for me, and generally I am kinda geeky... I am sure there are people out there more skilled than me, but it gets quite complicated to set all this kind of thing up... And what about side chains? What about side-chains in the B-engine that partially, but not fully tied to the A Engine output etc etc... very very hard. And if you are working composer or mix engineer with real deadlines, do you really have time to build this kind of stuff with 6 different plugins?

And what if you want to try a different config? Now you must rebuild the whole thing in some new structure?

So even if it were true the B2 single engine = Breeze, and you could obtain the exact distortion models dynamics models we use, it would be very, very challenging to recreate this stuff for the average user...

Furthermore the ingredients themselves, offer some very unique things...

Also see the post above about the various example configurations for dual engine.

Finally, the ingredients we use for all this stuff, are all A++ and sound stellar in isolation. Check Den's Single Engine presets which generally don't get into really crazy programming territory... Even the simple things just sound great. And ultimately that is what matters, right? The rest are just technical details...

Okay, I remembered that I downloaded the preliminary manual that wasn't available when I was attempting to demo. I read the available sections pertinent to the above questions and get the complexity of variation and control over the engine. That's a seller. I anxiously await the unfinished sections.

Coming shortly...

Back to optimization: other disconcerting things were artifacts from control adjustment for parameters, that when adjusted in other reverbs, or automated in B2 demos, don't produce artifacts. I don't know if this is inherent, or another CPU headroom issue, etc.

Many of the parameters in B2 are not continuous in nature by design. These will not automate smoothly. The only way to really do this would be to basically run two copies of the plug behind the scenes and then crossfade between them. This would result in more than double the current CPU and RAM usage. Some controls (such as Time, EQ/Damp, Cascade, Balance, Mix, etc) can be more smoothly automated and this is something we intend to explore for future updates.

I'm getting it on paper, but put some of that non-linear behavior inside feedback paths, if not already there. I assume that time is feedback in some sense. Is there additional feedback around and through cascaded configurations? I'll leave it at that.

Sure, you can think of time = feedback to some degree. That is a good general level understanding. There are more subtle levels of understanding where this might not be perfectly literally/academically true, but as a user/musician/producer vs a developer/DSP/compSci/EE/math-guy this can can be generally thought of this way, yes.

Regarding how, where and why we use various non-linearites in the algorithm, we will opt out of answering that in detail for IP reasons... I will think about it more as I finish the more detailed sections of the manual and maybe we can discuss it in more detail.

But I can say that the Attitude function is Applied either the input or the output of the given engine. But if you use Cascade the input of the B engine contains the output of the A engine, so Attitude in B will interact with A in complex ways if Cascade is used. Also Dynamics can be pre or post Attitude. This can be a subtle or not so subtle difference depending on how aggressive of Attitude and Dynamics settings you use.

[antithesist]

Thanks, I'm going to give the demo another spin after I finish the project I'm working on. I hope that's soon. Anyway, I went back through the preliminary manual. I'm getting it more, but I also see it as a little too complex for my purposes. That doesn't mean it's not great, though. I'd like one B2 engine (B1?), without all the other stuff. From my recollection of demoing Breeze, I don't think it gets close enough to that. Please consider B1 as a subset of B2 or as a separate product. I'd probably give the $100 to $125 half B2 price just for that, even without the second engine and other sections. I guess there's always keeping the other things turned off. Don't get me wrong, I just think for me, the level of control in the engine is the selling point. I know I said all that stuff about combining reverbs, and I certainly have, but I'm really more of a purist user and rarely even use internal EQ, filters, damping, etc. Often times I don't use pre-delay or early reflections either. Also, I'm not really interested in imitating real spaces anymore. Now, it could have some reiterative attitude. That would be cool. I kind of think that's what might be missing from modern reverbs for me. I'm still fence-sitting though it's more like where two fences intersect making four quadrants: this sale, the next sale, B1 or not at all. I guess that gives about a 75% chance of becoming a 2C customer.

[Echoes in the Attic]

Thanks, I'm going to give the demo another spin after I finish the project I'm working on. I hope that's soon. Anyway, I went back through the preliminary manual. I'm getting it more, but I also see it as a little too complex for my purposes. That doesn't mean it's not great, though. I'd like one B2 engine (B1?), without all the other stuff. From my recollection of demoing Breeze, I don't think it gets close enough to that. Please consider B1 as a subset of B2 or as a separate product. I'd probably give the $100 to $125 half B2 price just for that, even without the second engine and other sections. I guess there's always keeping the other things turned off. Don't get me wrong, I just think for me, the level of control in the engine is the selling point. I know I said all that stuff about combining reverbs, and I certainly have, but I'm really more of a purist user and rarely even use internal EQ, filters, damping, etc. Often times I don't use pre-delay or early reflections either. Also, I'm not really interested in imitating real spaces anymore. Now, it could have some reiterative attitude. That would be cool. I kind of think that's what might be missing from modern reverbs for me. I'm still fence-sitting though it's more like where two fences intersect making four quadrants: this sale, the next sale, B1 or not at all. I guess that gives about a 75% chance of becoming a 2C customer.

Sounds like you just want Breeze. When you load breeze presets into B2, the presets sound the same after setting the quality and other parameters to the same position (the mix is usually wrong and I've seen other params different). I demoed them side by side and after correcting any parameter that came in different (or different quality setting), I'd say it was pretty hard to tell the difference. But then of course you have all the extra EQs and quality settings etc. to be able to make it different. I've been on the fence about B2 and I'd use it mostly as a single engine as well (just too cpu demanding usually as dual engine). But it certainly sounds lovely. That nano setting can be used for interesting effects as well. I imagine it might be good for some early reflections and then use high quality for the tail in the second engine. I'm pretty happy with Aether though for the pristine 2caudio reverb sound.

[Sequent]

I'm really really liking it so far. Right now it's my favorite of the three (Aether/Breeze/B2) and I think my favorite overall, including my hardware reverbs. The quality of the sound is (at least for me) exceptional. As others have said it's a fantastic sound design tool.

At the very least it definitely merits a trial run of the demo, imo.

[Echoes in the Attic]

edit, accidental post.

[antithesist]

Thanks, I'm going to give the demo another spin after I finish the project I'm working on. I hope that's soon. Anyway, I went back through the preliminary manual. I'm getting it more, but I also see it as a little too complex for my purposes. That doesn't mean it's not great, though. I'd like one B2 engine (B1?), without all the other stuff. From my recollection of demoing Breeze, I don't think it gets close enough to that. Please consider B1 as a subset of B2 or as a separate product. I'd probably give the $100 to $125 half B2 price just for that, even without the second engine and other sections. I guess there's always keeping the other things turned off. Don't get me wrong, I just think for me, the level of control in the engine is the selling point. I know I said all that stuff about combining reverbs, and I certainly have, but I'm really more of a purist user and rarely even use internal EQ, filters, damping, etc. Often times I don't use pre-delay or early reflections either. Also, I'm not really interested in imitating real spaces anymore. Now, it could have some reiterative attitude. That would be cool. I kind of think that's what might be missing from modern reverbs for me. I'm still fence-sitting though it's more like where two fences intersect making four quadrants: this sale, the next sale, B1 or not at all. I guess that gives about a 75% chance of becoming a 2C customer.

Sounds like you just want Breeze. When you load breeze presets into B2, the presets sound the same after setting the quality and other parameters to the same position (the mix is usually wrong and I've seen other params different). I demoed them side by side and after correcting any parameter that came in different (or different quality setting), I'd say it was pretty hard to tell the difference. But then of course you have all the extra EQs and quality settings etc. to be able to make it different. I've been on the fence about B2 and I'd use it mostly as a single engine as well (just too cpu demanding usually as dual engine). But it certainly sounds lovely. That nano setting can be used for interesting effects as well. I imagine it might be good for some early reflections and then use high quality for the tail in the second engine. I'm pretty happy with Aether though for the pristine 2caudio reverb sound.

Yes, but Breeze with Random, Curve, the other 11 Contour settings, all the B2 Diffusion and Modulation modes and the additional 30 sec. to infinity of Time. Throw in some damping for occasional use, etc. I could see it being even more of a dilemma if I had Breeze or Aether, though. The next thing is to see how stable it is this time. I assume a newer version isn't available to demo, so I need to start with a single engine and skip all the other stuff. I think jumping around trying different presets made it go unstable for me the most before.

[Echoes in the Attic]

I think jumping around trying different presets made it go unstable for me the most before.

Oh did you get that weird behavior where the cpu usage started going up like crazy? I saw that a few times and yeah I'm pretty sure it was when I was jumping around lots of presets quickly and tweaking things here and there. Didn't happen last time I tried it though.

[antithesist]

I think jumping around trying different presets made it go unstable for me the most before.

Oh did you get that weird behavior where the cpu usage started going up like crazy? I saw that a few times and yeah I'm pretty sure it was when I was jumping around lots of presets quickly and tweaking things here and there. Didn't happen last time I tried it though.

Yes, I did. There were some other things that seemed to make it go haywire too, though I don't really remember what they were now. I figured since it was happening to other folks, they might come up with, uh, I guess it would be a warm fix, at this point. Maybe it's not fixable though and just needs a quad or better. That's another reason for wanting a B1. I hope I have better luck this time.

[Andrew Souter]

I think jumping around trying different presets made it go unstable for me the most before.

Oh did you get that weird behavior where the cpu usage started going up like crazy? I saw that a few times and yeah I'm pretty sure it was when I was jumping around lots of presets quickly and tweaking things here and there. Didn't happen last time I tried it though.

Yes, I did. There were some other things that seemed to make it go haywire too, though I don't really remember what they were now. I figured since it was happening to other folks, they might come up with, uh, I guess it would be a warm fix, at this point. Maybe it's not fixable though and just needs a quad or better. That's another reason for wanting a B1. I hope I have better luck this time.

If there are any issues that can be reproduced of course we will fix them. So far we have one or two reports like this with no reproduce recipes and a few orders of magnitude more of people who do not report any issues. I am in no way saying that it is impossible that something like this exists. Anything is possible and this is a 1.0.0 version. I'm just saying we need to be able to reproduce it before we can figure out what it is. Once that it is done, it is usually a simple matter to fix such things.

So if you discover more details please let us know. Please note your host and OS as well. We will look too, but so far we do not see this on our machines so your help is appreciated.



And speaking of issues: does anyone have any problems with Studio One V2 when using STEREO tracks?

[antithesist]

Okay, I cheated and spent a little time with B2 before finishing my project. Don't tell. I kept it to one engine and didn't do any preset switching, even though I think there are some specifically single engine presets. It only choked once, from spiking my C2D 2.4 I think, but the CPU usage came back down on its own and I never had the more and more usage scenario I and others reported previously. It sounded really good, but like most reverbs, it stayed within a notable signature sound territory, rather then seeming like I was moving from one brand to another. That's not a bad thing and I imagine the distortion, dynamics and even EQ/filter/damping would have made for some broader strokes. The parameter clicking is a total buzz kill though, and renders B2 completely useless as dynamic playable instrument for me. That also makes it very hard to tweak. Admittedly, I was doing mostly long stuff, 100% wet, etc. Next time I'll go short with percussive elements and the like. That said, it's a very versatile reverb lab. Remember, I was only using one engine with no EQ, damping or attitude adjustments (har). Actually they were turned off, but I wanted to say attitude adjustments. CPU ranged from a few percent to a little over 50% other than the spike incident. It certainly offers more control than any reverb I can think of playing with, ands begs more understanding of what some of the parameters are actually doing in physical terms. It was worth spending some more time with and left a better, less daunting, impression this time. I guess it just takes a lot of CPU for certain things. If fact, I can't think of another plug-in that varies so much in its usage. Soundhack pvoc kit comes to mind, but that's more of a go/no go scenario on my current personal machine. I do have access and use others with a lot more power, but it's pretty impractical for me to demo software on those. Anyway, I digress. I give it a few gold stars out of some undetermined number and a caveat champion CPU hog state fair ribbon.

[cyphersuit]

Andrew,

how can you say you have no reproduce recipes? i told in this thread that it is a) fully reproducable and b) even invited your team to log onto my computer to see it live...

Phil