2CAudio B2: Full Body. Maximum Attitude.

[Andrew Souter]

B2 1.2.0 (b228).

Significant New Features:


1) Max Size is now 625 Meters. This is RIDICULOUSLY huge... (cool for FX and granular delay kind of things, and actually huge sizes just generally work well on synth pads too.)

2) Max Mod Rate is now 16hertz. (cool for FX) Min Mod Rate is now 1/16 hertz (cool for slowly evolving spaces that don't produce noticeable detuning)

3) Major changes to filters for EQ and Damping.

a) All "II" filters have a second filter parameter. This is accessed by switching the I/II view switch that is next to the respective label.

b) The second parameter is used to control a second characteristic of the filter. In most cases it controls filter Q (but not always).

c) In the case of Cut and Shelf filters (most commonly used for regular reverb presets) the II parameter controls Q. Q range is customized to our own scale. It is bipolar from -100 to 100%. Exactly zero, or center, the default value gives a "maximally flat" "Butterworth" filter response. This is like the old "II" filters. It is also like -12dB/oct filters used in other products and synths. Negative values of Q give more gentle slopes. Q = -50% is equivalent to the old "Soft" filter modes. And we go even more gentle than that. Positive Q results in a resonant filter. There will be a resonant peak around the cutoff freq as you can see in the graph. At +100% this is fairly extreme. This is cool for special FX. Most traditional reverb presets will want to use -100 to 0% at least when used for Damping. Resonant filters inside feedback (i.e. used for Damp) will evolve into band-pass filters over time.

d) There is Q now for Band Pass and Band Reject filters. If you use Band Pass with a very low Q )like -50 to -100, you will get a very wide band-pass filter. This can function like having BOTH a High Pass and a Low Pass at the same time. It is VERY convenient for Damping and EQ. Try II/Q of -75% or so, and then move I/cutoff around to effectively control how much HF loss vs how much LF loss there is... Quite useful!

e) There are peaking EQ filters. the II parameter controls both the Q and the gain of the peak or dip. There are "T" variations of this. These are like the T self filters in B2 and Aether. In these cases you can consider the Freq display to be a % of decay time, instead of the actual magnitude response of the filter. There are three variations of each which control how Q changes compared to gain.

f) There is an experimental "Pole II" filter. This can have very high resonance at some freqs for special FX making it function like a narrow band-pass, and it can also achieve slightly different decay curves compared to the other Hi cut/shelve filters.

g) There are several All-Pass filters. The AP Int filter allows you to achieve non-integer delays and can tune the resonance of the reverb structure. This is useful when Size is VERY small for special resonant FX.

There are AP M filters. These function like "Input Diffusion" found in various classic designs. AP M 1, provides one stage, 2 two, 4, four. These can give VERY dense responses, and really smooth out the Early reflections so that you do not hear any grainy-ness in the ERs if/when desired. You can think of it as replacing every single delay with a micro cluster of hundreds of more delays in a small period of time. For these filters the the I parameter controls the "size" of these clusters, and the II parameter controls their attack/decay response and general "thickness".

h) There are two "Air filters" these provide both "input diffusion" and HF filtering. p I controls the HF damping. p II controls how much "input diffusion" there is. Both HF loss and "input diffusion" are scaled according to size, so that larger spaces have more HF loss and more "input diffusion". This can be used with feedback off also, so that you can get a series of discrete delay clusters that each one appears to be father off in the distance. (You could then cascade this into a second engine for even more imaginative spaces...)

4) Some older filter types have been removed. These include the Soft filters. In these cases they are remapped to use the new II filters with the appropriate Q value set. There should not be any change to the sound of old presets.

All of the changes to Damp and EQ filters really open up new universes of sound for you to explore with B2. At this point you are limited only by your own imagination and your willingness to put on your thinking cap a little to learn how things work in B2 (as it is not a traditional verb design, and we do things a little differently in it.)

B2 does not have "a sound". Rather it is a platform to achieve anything from classic device sound to full ultra-modern, 2CAudio-only things.

We realize it is a bit geeky. That is the nature of the design. It is a "spatial synthesizer" and it can be programmed however you see fit. Not everyone will be an expert at programming presets from scratch... (but was that ever true for any algo verbs in the past, or any modern complex synth??)

B/c of this we have just made 4 (FOUR!) new preset expansions, totaling over 800 new presets!! I made two, and Den made two. Den is known for his awesome preset skills from his work with Aether, and he spent an equally obsessive amount of time of these as well. My presets are broken into two packs: one focuses on standard use verbs, and other on creative effects--much like the Aether preset expansions. My expansions, are all purposefully designed to exploit and show off all the new features.

Preset expansions will be available with the final/official update with full AAX support. We expect this at the end of the month or so.

I will make some other demo presets to show off the new features also, and we can discuss how to get the most out of programming presets here as well at that time.

I think some videos are definitely in order too...

[xtrax]

AU 1.2.0 on Logic 9 stable here...No problems at all.
Sounds stunning now!

[elxsound]

Woohoo!

Will give it a go tonight!

[Andrew Souter]

Super! Thanks! Love the HD size!
The only issue so far is a déja-vu: there's occasional crashes if the presets are changed too fast. This seems more true of the reverbs than the short effects.

how are you changing presets. we saw this early on, but thought we had fixed it. I have like 2000 presets now, and I can hold down keyboard "<>" arrows and scroll through them all at absolute max speed without crash. Any insights on how to crash it? Host? OS? Send us a crash log if you get one.

**Update: Actually I just realized that all of the Factory presets are buggered: selecting the category results in all the presets being selected at the same time.

Screenshot? I don't see this. Can you look in your presets folders. Do you find organization like this:

Full/
Pacakge/
Subfolder/
preset 1
preset 2
...

All presets in "subfolders". One level of sub-folders. All subfolders in a pacakge.

Are these rules followed? (the installer *should* make sure of this)

[Breeze]

B2 does not have "a sound". Rather it is a platform to achieve anything from classic device sound to full ultra-modern, 2CAudio-only things.

[Echoes in the Attic]

Will you let us know when this version is available as the demo download for non-owners?

I like "spatial synthesizer" idea, but i think what would really make this come to fruition would be some way to change parameters in real-time without the crackles, as is possible in for example ValhallaShimmer and some others. It's infinite fun to tweak reverb parameters as sound plays (other than just wet/dry etc). Not sure if this is something that will ever be possible with the B2 design but would be cool indeed.

[JorgV]

About the preset thing:

I had that too - it's when you use the 'update' option in the installer - it leaves the old factory presets in place, which cause that behaviour. It also installs new factory presets (the ones on top of the list in B2) which do work well.

Also my downloaded 'den' presets didn't work anymore - I had to change the folder structure as suggested by Andrew to make them work again.

So... just look in your presets folder in the windows/mac explorer, and delete the old ones (look at the date).

[Andrew Souter]

Will you let us know when this version is available as the demo download for non-owners?

yes of course. Demo's will be available with the final official version.

I like "spatial synthesizer" idea, but i think what would really make this come to fruition would be some way to change parameters in real-time without the crackles, as is possible in for example ValhallaShimmer and some others. It's infinite fun to tweak reverb parameters as sound plays (other than just wet/dry etc). Not sure if this is something that will ever be possible with the B2 design but would be cool indeed.

On the wish list. Some things can change more smoothly (at the expense of extra CPU usage). Others are more challenging. But it could be cool, sure.

[Andrew Souter]

About the preset thing:

I had that too - it's when you use the 'update' option in the installer - it leaves the old factory presets in place, which cause that behaviour. It also installs new factory presets (the ones on top of the list in B2) which do work well.

Also my downloaded 'den' presets didn't work anymore - I had to change the folder structure as suggested by Andrew to make them work again.

So... just look in your presets folder in the windows/mac explorer, and delete the old ones (look at the date).

Are you on Win or Mac?

We have scripts in both installers that should do this automatically... Works for us.

Maybe there is some permissions thing going on that is not letting us delete our own files?

[JorgV]

I'm on Win 8 x64

[Andrew Souter]

And the factory preset folders where:

Dual Engine
Single Engine
Special Effects

this should be deleted by the installers and replaced with:

00 Dual Engine
00 Single Engine
00 Special Effects

you should not have put anything into these folders. We expect these to be our content only and subject to replacement by updates etc.

[Andrew Souter]

I'm on Win 8 x64

What version did you have installed previously? 1.0.0 or 1.1.0b?

[Breeze]

how are you changing presets. we saw this early on, but thought we had fixed it. I have like 2000 presets now, and I can hold down keyboard "<>" arrows and scroll through them all at absolute max speed without crash. Any insights on how to crash it? Host? OS? Send us a crash log if you get one.

Originally I was just clicking in the browser trying different presets and then B2 became unresponsive and required a host restart. I then tried clicking quickly and randomly on purpose and it took a while, and it does happen after a time. Skipping across categories seems to make it more probable. But it's certainly not as frequent as it used to be.

Screenshot? I don't see this. Can you look in your presets folders. Do you find organization like this:

Full/
Pacakge/
Subfolder/
preset 1
preset 2
...

This is my current folder struction in Win7-64\...\My Documents for B2:

Code: Select all

 \Documents\2C-Audio\B2
 \Documents\2C-Audio\B2\B2
 \Documents\2C-Audio\B2\B2\Presets
 \Documents\2C-Audio\B2\B2\Presets\Dynamics
 \Documents\2C-Audio\B2\B2\Presets\Dynamics\Factory
 \Documents\2C-Audio\B2\B2\Presets\Dynamics\User
 \Documents\2C-Audio\B2\B2\Presets\Engine
 \Documents\2C-Audio\B2\B2\Presets\Engine\Breeze
 \Documents\2C-Audio\B2\B2\Presets\Engine\Templates
 \Documents\2C-Audio\B2\B2\Presets\Engine\User
 \Documents\2C-Audio\B2\B2\Presets\Full
 \Documents\2C-Audio\B2\B2\Presets\Full\00 Dual Engine
 \Documents\2C-Audio\B2\B2\Presets\Full\00 Single Engine
 \Documents\2C-Audio\B2\B2\Presets\Full\00 Special Effects
 \Documents\2C-Audio\B2\B2\Presets\Full\Factory
 \Documents\2C-Audio\B2\B2\Presets\Full\Factory\Dual Engine
 \Documents\2C-Audio\B2\B2\Presets\Full\Factory\Single Engine
 \Documents\2C-Audio\B2\B2\Presets\Full\Factory\Special Effects
 \Documents\2C-Audio\B2\B2\Presets\Full\User

Does that look right?

This is what I see in the browser:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/jgers96dxdlr5 ... 0_b228.jpg

I updated the last release to the previous beta and then to this one.

[Untamed Spirit]

seems to be crashing Reaper 64bit on windows 8 but fine in Studio 1 and Cubase 7.
Maybe GUI related as I can get it to load as a "separate process" but the GUI reverts to generic with no graphics. ideas?

[Andrew Souter]

This is what I see in the browser:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/jgers96dxdlr5 ... 0_b228.jpg

oh... no this is not right. Just delete the "Factory" folder. That should not be there.

...and this bring up an issue. We forgot about that folder being there in 1.0.0. In one of the intermediate steps a few months ago, we reorganized this to get rid of the factory folder level to move to this three tier system:

Packages
Subfolders
Presets

So now "Single Engine" or "00 Single Engine" as well as "User" are all considered Packages. They should all be at the same directory level in /Full/ there should not be a "Factory" folder anymore in B2. (semantically speaking there are three factory folders now called, 00 Dual Engine, 00 Single Engine, 00 Special Effects)

So if you delete the old "Factory" folder everything should be fine.

We will update the installer scripts to handle this.