2CAudio Precedence | 1.5 | Move Out Of Flatland. Take Precedence.

[Andrew Souter]

Thanks - how about tooltips then for buttons without labels (or just write P-Link instead of Link)

sure. I was intending to do that with "trackers" (the things that show up when you move knobs/sliders that don't have values on them). We can use these things for button controls also. Just ran out of time to add them.

We are also making custom menus that look really cool for P and B (and well, all products). But it was going to delay release, so we skipped them for now. Next update.

[Andrew Souter]

is this meant to take the place of "pan" controls on tracks?
In other words - pan everything (using precedence/breeze 2) at center - and use Precedence to place things L or R (as well as depth)?

yes!

ALL YOUR PAN R BELONG TO US!

[cthonophonic]

Wow, this is fun! Putting it inside the feedback loop of a delay with the freq delta turned up and azimuth off to one side, you get a really convincing receding echo - that is, it actually feels like it's getting further away! It's downright eerie...

[Andrew Souter]

I have Breeze 2.1, but I first tried it without and got fantastic results.

It's however not great in providing "larger that live" results, so if you'd expect these, you would probably end up disappointed. I think it's doing exactly what it says on the tin - and that is creating a highly realistic yet artifical image around the source material, which is something even the best conventional reverb can not provide all by itself.

Yes, exactly. It creates (if mono input) or enhances/modifies the existing image (if stereo input), positions it using psychoacoustic principals that have been optimized specifically for music, modulates it using VERY unique methods that I don't think I have ever seen anywhere else, and "pre-conditions" it with depth cues in a manner that work perfectly with our reverbs which are expected to provide more depth/distance cues.

And the Precendence/Breeze combo is able to get this amount right automatically for you, which is - as far as I see it - the main advantage of that combo - in other words: you can use any other reverb instead of it, you just have to fiddle a bit with the wet/dry ratio.

Yes, Breeze 2.1 has secret sauce that helps make it pair perfectly with Precedence. And if we can accomplish the inter-plugin communication stuff to establish an automatic link between P and B, you will be able to simply move Positioning P, and B will update itself auto-magically. This will be ultimately cool.

They are also both extremely efficient. They are also both able to turn off processing when not in active use. So they are perfect for huge projects with hundreds of tracks each with an instance of P and B on it, such as large scoring templates.

You can use P by itself too. Absolutely. In the demo sounds, I already gave some examples of using it for vocal ambience. Some vocal styles like RnB/hip-hop/urban have very dry vocals. P can make the vocals more alive without adding verb.

You can also use it with verb on sends if you like. B2 and Aether on sends with P is perfectly fine and good. It's just not as perfectly accurate physically as it could be in the depth topic bc different instruments should have different pre-delay amounts depending on their front/back positioning. So for large ensemble things such as orchestral, it can be more powerful to have the individual pairs of P&B direct on tracks. But for electronic music full of synths, this might not be as important. And if you are talking about electronic music, ambient, dance, whatever B2 and Aether still have a lot more creative stuff than Breeze.

Super duper ultimate might be to have P and B on tracks as inserts and one or two B2s (or Aether if you prefer) on sends for a single shared "tail glue".

Non 2CAudio reverb (what's that!? ) with Precedence is possible too, sure. I am just not sure how they all behave, and some/many sum input to mono to feed their late reflections engine, and that is not cool for P. I'd recommend sticking with our family, but you know I am biased.

Andy, please go ahead and correct me if I wrote something stupid here.

Nope, all very astute and accurate.

[Andrew Souter]

Nope, unfortunately not anywhere - only outside that big position circle, so fine-tuning is nigh impossible using this method.

Shift-click on the Position Randomize, will randomize 10% of the current values for Distance and Angle.

Variation Randomize will retain the position values, but create a new variation, which is probably something similar to micro changes to Position (Distance + Angle).

Shift-drag the circle-node will allow fine-tune changes -- but creates lots of updates very fast so this makes "crackles".

[Andrew Souter]

this worked well for me, but I basically only use real instruments so I can't say how good that works with artificial sources.

Real instruments and those that imitate them as perhaps the best target for P, yes. Anything that is mono-miced in the real world, and/or has a pretty small, almost point-source sound emitter is about perfect: vocals, strings, drums, GTR, orchestral instruments, etc etc. Basically almost all acoustic instruments.

Piano maybe not since the piano is fairly large physically and stereo mics are usually fairly wide apart on piano and sample libraries are recorded well already in this manner. I'm not sure it is overly helpful to piano, at least regarding the positioning topics, but I will do a few new solo piano peices shortly I hope, and I will experiment. Probably it is enough to use Distance 50% and Angle 0% on piano to just benefit some from the modulation.

Synths and electronic music, there are less rules. Things that already have spatial info, such as a synth with a built-in FX engine, or synths that already go through a delay, pads, Kaleidoscope, etc: less rules. For stuff is is already wide stereo, with say 0% correlation on a phase meter, or stuff that has crazy panning motion in it such as Kaleidoscope output etc, for synths in general what is very helpful is to use the Mid-Side manipulation input mode and perhaps NARROW the input width some, perhaps to 25-50% and then use P to repostion it. If you are listening in solo you may be undecided what is cooler, the original ultra wide stereo-everywhere, and nowhere specific kind of ambiguous larger-than life normal synth image kind of thing, or the more targeted result from Precedence, but if you listen to the whole mix and you position different synths in different ways, you can get better separation for all your crazy synths and allow them to each have their own little space, while still retaining some of their original motion, plus extra life from P's modulation.

And you can go about making synths more crazy spatially to if you prefer by using extreme input width, and process width and modulation etc.

[jens]

Presumably the point is 'just start, better to do anything than to do nothing at all'.

And I'm only one person

I like your videos - I often find them entertaining but you tend to talk a long time without actually clearly saying what the plugin is but instead seem to enjoy beating around the bush with so many words.

That was my point.

[Andrew Souter]

I'm using it from close distances - like 9-12 feet, with a small room in Breeze 2 - and when I disable Precedence, it *immediately* sounds flatter (with just Breeze 2). It's *very* noticable, so works here too!

yes, Precedence effectively creates extra input diffusion, and a very novel variety of modulation that actually ENHANCE reverbs. If you completely ignore all the cool positioning and depth topics, and keep Distance at say 50% or so, and Angle at 0%, this will IMPROVE ALL reverbs. It will make Breeze better. It will make B2 better. It will make Aether better. It will generally make ALL reverbs better. It will even help convolution verbs. Try it.

In contrast to HRTF processes, this will actually IMPROVE your verbs. Even completely ignoring the main functionality of positioning. Even if you also make Width 0% so that even have removed P's imaging functionality...

The modulation in Precedence IMPROVES ALL verbs. Try it.

and should do so in a manner that is subtle and transparent for even the highest caliber of cork-sniffing classical and jazz purists -- and I mean that as I compliment bc I aspire to be one. I mean it ain't meant to be a super-saw chorus. it's meant to sound like real life. More real than real. Tm

Thus even if you continue to work in the "verbs on sends" paradigm, P helps your verbs in addition to doing all of its positioning tasks.

[jens]

Andy, please go ahead and correct me if I wrote something stupid here.

Nope, all very astute and accurate.

*phew*

Thanks!

[Andrew Souter]

crikey! (spelling??) who made the edit button look like the reply button!!?

[Andrew Souter]

Surely if this was built into Breeze it would be the definitive reverb

yes, absolutely. At least for "real instrument" use.

We thought about smashing them into one. Like a PB&J sandwich.

I suppose we are still thinking about it. But we sort of prefer to have Precedence separate and have our reverbs be "Precedence aware" and allow them to talk to each other. We want to be able to use Precedence with B2 and Aether also. And we want to be able to use P and verbs separately as well.

and if we were to make them into one, it gets quite complicated to manage this many verbs -- for us and for you. Breeze, Aether, B2, "PBJ", etc. Our thinking at the moment to keep them independent and preserve your investment and indeed enhance it with this kind of intra-plugin communication. We want everyone to own the Perfect Storm Bundle eventually. We're not shy about that. We think we can cover "All the space you need" with this product line: Precedence, Breeze 2, B2, Aether. And as we get to 2.0 for B2 and Aether they will get a little more differentiated so we have less questions about which one to use etc.

We like the Perfect Storm platform. We think this is a big enough container for all our (stereo) spatial ideas.

We do like surround also.

[zadillo]

Would this be a substitute for Parallax Audio Virtual Sound Stage?

[Andrew Souter]

Would this be a substitute for Parallax Audio Virtual Sound Stage?

In my fervor for our own developments I've probably said semi-aggressive things about competitive products in the past, but I am older and wiser now, and I try not to say anything other than compliments about competitor's products. I know the insane amount of work it takes to create these things.

I've seen the web page for this product and it looks nice, and they even suggest using Aether with it to supply tails.

I am also aware of SPAT and MIR which all sort of occupy a similar "goal space". I have not tried any of them, so I do not know exactly what/how they do and can't comment about them.

I will just add: I think we did indeed make a very strong product in Precedence and its integration with our verbs is quite powerful and completely unique AFAIK...

[Andrew Souter]

Wow, this is fun! Putting it inside the feedback loop of a delay with the freq delta turned up and azimuth off to one side, you get a really convincing receding echo - that is, it actually feels like it's getting further away! It's downright eerie...

Cool!

[Beatworld]

Say you want to use Precedence with other reverbs which are set up on a send.
Do you put Precedence as an insert (the last insert?) on the tracks you are sending to the Reverb Send, with the panning on those tracks centered ?