Contact Us (Edit address before sending)
2CAudio Aether 1.5.0 Win Demo (ZIP)
2CAudio Aether 1.5.0 OSX Demo (ZIP)
Download Aether 1.5 Examples (WAVs)
Download Aether 1.0 Examples (MP3)
What's New In Aether 1.5 (RTF)
2CAudio Aether Manual 1.5.0 (PDF)
Screenshot 2: 2C2D Berlin Main (PNG)
Screenshot 2: 2C2D Indigo Main (PNG)
Screenshot 2: 2C2D Berlin Browser (PNG)
Screenshot 2: 2C2D Berlin Info (PNG)
Auto Randomizing Algorithmic Reverb Software plugin. Windows VST, and OSX Audio Units and VST format. Floating point process. 0 sample latency!
Aether is available for Windows VST hosts under Windows XP and Windows Vista, and Windows 7. Both 32bit and 64bit versions are provided.
Aether is available for Mas OSX VST and Audio Units hosts, under Tiger (OSX.4.11), Leopard (OSX.5.8) and Snow Leopard (OXS.6.3) or higher. Aether is currently a 32bit plug-in on OSX. An Intel-based CPU is required for Mac OSX. WE DO NOT SUPPORT PPC.
Aether has been tested in the current versions of the following hosts: Acid, Audition, Cubase, Digital Performer, Energy XT, FL Studio, GarageBand, Live, Logic, Max 5, Nuendo, Peak, Project 5, Reaper, Sonar, Sound Forge, Soundtrack, Wave Editor, Wavelab... Other Various VST and Audio Units hosts for Windows and OSX platforms should function normally as well and will be added to this list as they are tested and confirmed.
2CAudio Aether is available for direct download through our sister company Galbanum's web store. Customers may choose to download a Zipped installer application for either or both the Windows or Mac OSX platform. A personalized serial number is automatically registered to each customer and emailed instantly with the order confirmation email.
The Aether 1.5.0 update focuses heavily on audio-quality-related topics and offers a large list of industry-first innovations in these areas. The features decribed below are designed to work synergistically to achieve a full frequency, perfectly band-limited, artifact-free system. To our knowledge, this is an industry first for algorithmic reverbs. Algorithmic reverbs in the past employed modulation to hide moderate to severe artifacts in their processes, but these compromises in turn created their own side effects such as increased noise floor, unwanted high frequency decay, and the creation of aliasing. In comparison to previous competitive products, Aether 1.0 had very few artifacts. At the highest offline quality settings, Aether 1.5 effectively has none all the way down to our dither noise floor level, and can conceptually be thought of as an analog process within its band-limited frequency range. Numerically this translates to noise and alias suppression of significantly greater than 144dB and a perfectly flat frequency response to 21Khz at a 44.1 sample rate, and 36Khz at a 96K and higher sample rates! In raw technical audio specifications, we believe Aether 1.5.0 is unrivaled in today's market.
All critical aspects of Aether's internal DSP code are now performed at 64bit "double precision" resolution. Aether 1.5 employs a balanced approach in this area by using double precision only in the areas of the algorithm that would see appreciable benefit, while retaining single precision (32bit float) elsewhere to minimize CPU and memory requirements. The result of this change is substantially increased clarity in Aether's filters while retaining roughly the same performance as the previous version. Without the use of double-precision DSP, rounding errors can build up in the recursive structures of competitive algorithmic reverbs, and this can lead to a rapid increase in the noise and muddiness. This can be especially a problem with long reverb times and small sizes. Aether 1.5 completely eliminates these issues and offers pristinely clear reverb tails over its entire huge decay time range.
Aether 1.5 allows 1X, 2X, and 4X oversampling options. Oversampling allows Aether to internally run at a higher sample rate than the host sample rate. Oversampling increases filter quality, improves high frequency response, and reduces self-noise of the algorithm. Oversampling can also significantly increase the clarity in the high frequency range of the Late Reflections, and help transient response in both the ERs and LRs. Furthermore, oversampling allows extremely flexible decay filter and EQ settings to be used which would otherwise not be possible at normal sample rates. Aether's oversampling method is extremely high quality and does not add any artifacts or appreciable latency of its own, which we should note, is no easy task to achieve.
Aether 1.5 offers two modulation choices: Balanced and Ultra Smooth. Balanced is effectively the same quality as 1.0 and represents a reasonable balance between quality and CPU performance. Ultra Smooth provides ultimately lush reverb tails by ensuring that every single internal parameter in the entire Late Reflections engine is constantly dynamic and "on the move". Additionally, improvements to technical precision in Aether 1.5 have also enabled the minimum modulation period length to be reduced all the way down to 0.01sec (100hz). This actually moves the modulation signal into the audio range, and the Low Frequency Oscillators, becomes not so "Low" anymore. In these cases the modulation acts more like audio-rate chaotic FM modulation, and can be useful in moderation for extremely small size settings or in conjunction with the new Cascade control.
Aether 1.5 offers three interpolation quality settings: Excellence, Perfection, and Obsession. Interpolation is used extensively in Aether's Modulation methods and allows non-integer sample delays for the ER engine. The "Excellence" mode is the same as was found in Aether 1.0, and offers the best compromise between quality and performance. The Perfection and Obsession modes employ highly advanced mathematical techniques to achieve completely artifact-free band-limited interpolation, which both is free from unwanted high-frequency damping, and perfectly suppresses aliasing at the same time. Both of these modes are extremely heavy on the CPU and only available during offline bounces. The Perfection mode represents, just that for 95% of all musical needs. The Obsession mode goes beyond all reasonable performance bounds for users who are willing to wait for the ultimate fidelity for high resolution audio production and mastering needs. Be forewarned: it's not a fast process by any means, and is complete overkill for most needs. We offer the Obsession mode anyway as proof of concept, and for those of you out there who may be as obsessive--and patient--as we are.
The perennial "Performance vs. Quality" trade-off has now become obsolete! Aether 1.5 allows two independent sets of its various quality settings: one for Realtime use, and one for Offline bounces. As such users can set Realtime settings to a level appropriately matched to their project needs and available hardware power, while at the same time automatically invoking extreme quality standards during Offline bounces. This concept is quite similar to techniques used in video rendering applications where one has a Preview and a Render quality, except for the important point that Aether's lowest Preview/Realtime quality is already at an award-winning level. Continuing then with the video rendering analogy, Aether's lowest Realtime quality setting could be metaphorically thought of as roughly equatable to Blu-Ray's 1920*1080 resolution, while its highest offline quality settings might be considered as something like 4K or 8K Digital 3D Cinema!
The three variable quality settings on the Info page to allow new extreme levels of audio quality both for Realtime use and Offline bounces. The lowest quality settings represent the same award-winning quality found in Aether 1.0 are already literally "excellent" and competitive with the best in the market. In fact even these settings are improved over the previous generation due to the switch to double precision DSP and additional enhancements. Amazingly, when using these quality settings, CPU usage is almost exactly the same speed as previously, while latency has also been reduced to 0 Samples! All additional quality settings represent further advancements and improvements going beyond even this highly-acclaimed level, and can be enabled for Offline bounces and Realtime use as available hardware power allows. We believe our flexible implementation of these features can be considered as a "best of" scenario for the past, preset, and future. This is the bleeding edge, and we are happy to give you a sneak peak of tomorrow today!
