2CAudio B2: Full Body. Maximum Attitude.

[Sampleconstruct]

Artists are often so focused on their work, that they need special partners who are willing to cope with that artistic insanity, otherwise they will live (and often feel) alone. Creating plugs like Andrew does is just as artistic and creative as composing music or sculpting something beautiful out of a raw piece of stone.

[Andrew Souter]

Withxall due respect, it's not really something we should take further on open forum IMHO. Nice of Andrew to reveal his dedication to his project but I don't think it is something to debate here.

It's fine. I brought it up. But I don't wish to profit from it, and am not trying to play "poor me". It was my choice. I made it freely. I knew subconsciously what was happening and yet I persisted in my ways until it was too late. Sometimes us guys can be a little obtuse and insensitive.

I was not playing enough piano at the time. It keeps me centered and more compassionate... That's part of my hope for my piano material: that it might possibly help others (as well as myself) keep these things in mind...

anyway, let's talk about reverb now, OK?

[Breeze]

Artists are often so focused on their work, that they need special partners who are willing to cope with that artistic insanity, otherwise they will live (and often feel) alone.

And I would venture to suggest that maybe the person Andrew was with was simply not the right person. It took a long time before I found that special someone. But I have to say that sedentary passions like writing and code have the non-trivial quality of involving the brain more than the body; it's very easy to ignore the body and work extraordinary hours, much more so than a miner, lumberjack or oil rigger. It took me a long time to temper my creative activities and learn to tend other gardens, like relationships, exercise, nutrition, spirituality and family. I've found that making time for everything is more rewarding, but it's also more challenging.

But enough OT whimples and heartfelt honesty, back to the OT: where's that B2 update!!!

[elxsound]

Sorry for adding to the OT, but I have to say that I'm thankful for the info Andrew has shared. It helped when he first shared it in a beta response email and continues to help me keep things in perspective.

Funny enough, since I'm actually taking a break from projects (month and a half so far), playing Piano is keeping me centered too (because otherwise I still behave like a tweaker in need of a fix, since I'm used to working constantly).

I plan on keeping up the practice habits I'm trying to build now, through my busy periods for the same exact reason. To remain compassionate... Something so simple, but also easily forgotten when consumed.

[33tetragammon]

Sometimes we can get so lost in technology that we forget why we make music in the first place. The reason is the human narrative. It is to communicate emotions and experiences. It is to transcend language barriers and ineffective communication. It is to attempt to express the ineffable and the spiritually sublime where words are often inadequate.

This is truly inspiring! It gives me warm feelings in my heart when i read this. Do you mind if i use that quote on my website?
Music technology is good, but it's a tool we use to express ourselves emotionally/spiritually, whatever.
And sometimes, in this day and age it feels to me like quite a few people are being used by those (and other) tools instead of the other way around ( I had such an experience that ultimately provided me with some really life hard lessons that i HAD TO deal with. But i endured and moved on with the core message of the experience intact. And to this day it still feels like a truly wonderful experience.

If our silly little products help people do that in any way, or augment the message they wish to convey, then we have done our job and I am proud to be a part of it...

They really did it for me and my musical mate Apollonius, so a HUGE WARM THANKS TO YOU FROM BOTH OF US!

[ftech]

Withxall due respect, it's not really something we should take further on open forum IMHO. Nice of Andrew to reveal his dedication to his project but I don't think it is something to debate here.

It's fine. I brought it up. But I don't wish to profit from it, and am not trying to play "poor me". It was my choice. I made it freely. I knew subconsciously what was happening and yet I persisted in my ways until it was too late. Sometimes us guys can be a little obtuse and insensitive.

I was not playing enough piano at the time. It keeps me centered and more compassionate... That's part of my hope for my piano material: that it might possibly help others (as well as myself) keep these things in mind...

anyway, let's talk about reverb now, OK?

Sorry to add to the OT, but to read such emotionally intelligent posts here
on KVR is a wonderful change of perspective.

And the 'verb ain't bad either!

B2 does have a richness all of it's own, and the spaces sound superb.

I'll be taking the giant leap to Logic X as soon as my music comp OS
gets updated, so good to know 64 bit B2 will be there waiting for
me when that occurs.

[Andrew Souter]

Sometimes we can get so lost in technology that we forget why we make music in the first place. The reason is the human narrative. It is to communicate emotions and experiences. It is to transcend language barriers and ineffective communication. It is to attempt to express the ineffable and the spiritually sublime where words are often inadequate.

This is truly inspiring! It gives me warm feelings in my heart when i read this. Do you mind if i use that quote on my website?

Sure, go for it.

Music technology is good, but it's a tool we use to express ourselves emotionally/spiritually, whatever.
And sometimes, in this day and age it feels to me like quite a few people are being used by those (and other) tools instead of the other way around ( I had such an experience that ultimately provided me with some really life hard lessons that i HAD TO deal with. But i endured and moved on with the core message of the experience intact. And to this day it still feels like a truly wonderful experience.

Ya it's quite true. For me, this is why I wanted to do a purely solo piano album with using very minimal studio tricks and no sound-design. When I work creatively with various people I am usually asked to do freaky futuristic sound-design. This is great and I love it too, but I wanted to do pure music for a change. So It was a creative decision to limit my tools to piano, reverb, and gentle mastering EQ/compression -- no sweetening with extra synths or sound-design stuff. At least for the first two albums --maybe later I will do hybrid stuff or remix/future-ize my own piano compositions.

It's actually kinda ironic that SC put the "With Purpose" track on the "Explore Classical" page as this one actually diverges from these goals some and uses extreme reverb and one instance of Diva that supplies some pad support here and there. I think i certainly have other pieces that are more "authentic" in the classical music sense, but oh well, I'm not complaining.

If our silly little products help people do that in any way, or augment the message they wish to convey, then we have done our job and I am proud to be a part of it...

They really did it for me and my musical mate Apollonius, so a HUGE WARM THANKS TO YOU FROM BOTH OF US!

Thanks man.

[djanthonyw]

I'm trying the current demo on Logic 9.1.8 on 10.6.8 (32 bit) and it causes all of Logic to run dreadfully slow and lag.

[Andrew Souter]

I'm trying the current demo on Logic 9.1.8 on 10.6.8 (32 bit) and it causes all of Logic to run dreadfully slow and lag.

What hardware?

All presets in B2? If you go to the Info page of the GUI, and set the "load last" pref to "no" and close and reopen your host project and reinsert B2, does this default preset still make things slow?

If yes, what Quality Settings are you using on the Info page? Are they all set to the lowest setting and is Auto/ForceOffline set to "Auto"?

Finally in the 32-bit version that you have (build 171) the B2 GUI respose is slow. This is known. This does NOT occur in the 64-bit version. And actually it no longer occurs in the latest 32-bit version that we will give out in a couple days either. This should have no effect on the rest of the host though.

Thanks for the question. Hope it helps.

[Moonlight]

we will give out in a couple days either. This should have no effect on the rest of the host though.

I can't wait!!! Is it the version with big gui?

[Andrew Souter]

we will give out in a couple days either. This should have no effect on the rest of the host though.

I can't wait!!! Is it the version with big gui?

Yup:

http://www.2caudio.com/sitecontent/prod ... 0_Main.png



We have AAX working now too, so getting quite close.

[xanderevo]

B2 It's a fantastic reverb,
to my ears one of the best sounding in the market.

However depends on what kind of music do you make,

we barely open it and actually we intend to sell the plugin,
because two or few more istances will kill our workflow,
bringing a mac pro 12 core on its knees.

Same as Lush-101,

Having both opened with a huge supersaw pad it's near impossible, not to mention the oversampling.

[Andrew Souter]

B2 It's a fantastic reverb,
to my ears one of the best sounding in the market.

Thanks. I agree. I would go a step further than that, but well, you guys don't believe it when I say it, so I'll be quiet.

However depends on what kind of music do you make,

we barely open it and actually we intend to sell the plugin,
because two or few more istances will kill our workflow,
bringing a mac pro 12 core on its knees.

Same as Lush-101,

Having both opened with a huge supersaw pad it's near impossible, not to mention the oversampling.

It can qet quite heavy on the CPU depending on the preset that it true. CPU usage varies drastically per preset. Smallest to largest in easily more than a factor of 100 to 1. ONE HUNDRED!

XTRM mode compared to Nano mode is 10 times as heavy. Modulation takes a lot of CPU usage. Turning it off or reducing Modulation Density decreases CPU usage significantly. Using dual engines can take twice as much CPU power. OS can take 4x os much CPU power (and more if considers cache saturation). Etc.

B2 is pay as you go. It depends completely on the preset. Each preset uses only as much CPU and RAM as is absolutely necessary. But complex presets using the max settings are VERY VERY complex computationally and arguably they need to be to achieve the level of realism it is capable of.

We have made a couple preset expansions for B2. One of them is all Single Engine presets which should be good for lower CPU usage needs.

We have also recently done some optimizations for CPUs with AVX. This includes the new Mac Pro iCylinder, and Sandy Bridge or newer Laptops and Windows machines.

We will continue to reduce CPU usage as much as possible, but B2 is about giving ultimate control to users and preset designers to achieve things that have never been heard before either in hardware or software.

Also note , technically speaking it does not take over a full 12-core machine. What happens is the CPU load or memory bandwidth on a single core gets maxed out in some cases and if the single core is overloaded this will cause drop-outs etc. But yes, it is disruptive the workflow in this scenario, I understand. A suggestion is not the put B2 directly on an instrument track that uses a CPU heavy synth such as Diva. Most hosts process everything on a single channel with a single core. So using Sends for B2 can help in this scenario.

Hope it helps. We are always exploring ways to make our products lighter on the CPU without changing the sound.

[Breeze]

Also note , technically speaking it does not take over a full 12-core machine. What happens is the CPU load or memory bandwidth on a single core gets maxed out in some cases and if the single core is overloaded this will cause drop-outs etc.

I would think that B2 implements multi-core operation by default, right? Diva maxes out a single core on some complex presets in the HQ mode even with 3.2 gHz Sandy Bridge; but its multi-core switch is very effective at spreading the workload.

If there's contentious multi-core management between B2 and a host, would an alternate host like VEP5 help?

[jackmazzotti]

B2 It's a fantastic reverb,
to my ears one of the best sounding in the market.

stunning is how i describe b2
it's software heading into the realm that belongs to symbolic sound kyma