Computer Music Mag, UK

“10/10! Editors Choice Award! Performance Award! One of the best algorithmic Reverbs we've ever heard! Fantastic Sound quality. Great for both mixing and sound design. Highly useful tail envelope controls. Excellent categorized presets. ER Space presets system is very cool.”

Mark Russell, London

“I didn't even try the demo. It just looked great. I love Galbanum's Abstraction Sample Series so I knew it would be good. Aether looked so good and fitting for my current BBC TV project, "Kingdom" that I didn't really mind... So I bought it instantly. And now that I have it working, I can say, I love Aether.”

Nexusdawn, KVR

“Being somewhat a reverb junkie, I recently demoed and purchased Aether. In an ocean of VST plugins, and sea of reverb plugs, it can be very difficult to keep track of software that truly stands out. And in that sense, I would recommend anyone currently seeking out a reverb plugin, to take a look at Aether.I really appreciate its open, spacious, and smooth sound. Organic, breathing, and alive, with none of the metalicness found in many, if not most plugin reverbs on the market today. ”

Evan Margol, Michigan

” I just want to say that I truly appreciate the amount of work, effort, passion and creativity that you've put into Aether 1.0 and 1.5. It's designers like you who incite change into the entire musical software industry for the better. As I am beginning to wrap my head around this incredibly deep plugin (instrument?), I can see myself growing with Aether for years to come and it becoming a staple in my aural arsenal. I look forward to learning even more about what is possible with this sublime piece of kit. ”

Fretwizz, KVR

” Aether 1.5 is fantastic. What an incredible update. And free as well. I am simply blown away with all the new features, quality settings etc etc. One of the cleverest things I've ever done was getting in on this... ”

Johnathon Hilton, UK, www.audiosabre.com

” Aether can do it all. I don't think any reverb I own can be as transparent as Aether. It can have a really natural sound; something hard to come by in a algorithmic verb. Yet Aether can be colorful and dense too. It can do the spacey, ambient, super-duper long tail stuff. It can do the modulated EMT style sound. For me, where Aether sets itself apart are the tail shaping and spacial controls. I'm still getting my head around what I'm actually doing. I don't know what I'm doing, but I like the result. Hopefully I'll have it nailed soon. The latest update sealed the deal for me. I wasn't all to keen on the first Aether GUI. The new one is a massive improvement to me and now that it isn't as attention seeking I can see how it makes total sense from a design POV. Regarding oversampling: in most plugins I don't notice much of a difference when I turn oversampling on so I've never thought of it as much of a big deal. However, with Aether it seems to make a substantial difference. I can actually hear how it makes the tail smoother and clearer. At highest setting I don't think I've heard anything as smooth that doesn't (I tried to avoid saying this) come rack fitted, with a lexicon logo on the front. Aether is brilliant! ”

Daniel Hogan, Dublin, soundcloud.com/daniel-aloysius-hogan

” I was reading the KVR forum, thinking these guys are getting a bit carried away. It's just a VST after all. I'm getting a few Sax Fills together using SaxLab 2. While I was reading, I decided to stick the Aether Sax Hall presets on it and f*ck me, well it sounds fantastic. I literally jumped back from my Monitors. I wasn't expecting that!!! I would like to take this opportunity to say how very much I am enjoying Aether. It is a teriffic product. I feel very lucky and privileged to have a VST of this quality, available to me. ”

Yoko K, Washington DC

“This is the best freakin reverb ever!”

Eric Matlock, Nevada, ericmatlock.com

” Hi, just wanted to say hell yes! I am so happy to be one of the lucky ones who heard about Aether and picked it up. I used at least one instance on every song on my band's album which has been getting great reviews, especially on the "big budget" mix I managed to achieve in my project studio. I contribute much of that on the quality of Aether. The update is phenomenal and I would have paid for it, but genius move on Galbanum's part on the preset expansion packs. I instantly picked them up as soon as I heard about them. I may be done hunting for reverbs. If you are going to buy just one, this might be the most versatile and best sounding verb you can get on any budget. ”

Is worth 1000 words or in our case over 75 parameters. Aether's algorithm is conceptually divided into two parts: Early Reflections, and Late Reflections. The early reflections stage provides discrete delay patterns, which provide spatial cues that identify the nature of the given acoustic space. Aether mathematically calculates and subtly randomizes these ER delay patterns in pure floating point precision based on an incredibly complex algorithm that is designed to accurately mimic physical reality. This part of the algorithm consists of over 75 variable parameters which control the characteristics of the resulting ER patterns. In effort to maximize usability and user friendliness, this complexity is hidden from the user, and is instead wrapped into a single visual macro called Space Type. Thus the user does not have to deal with complex esoteric DSP parameters that only a physicist would understand and instead he simply chooses visually the type of environment he would like to use, and Aether makes the appropriate changes to the algorithm behind the scenes. 33 different default Space Types ship with Aether, and the interface provides five additional control knobs to customize their most important aspects. These controls allow adjustment of the size and geometrical shape of the Space Type default as well the positioning models used to determine where the sound source and listener are in the room.

In a real acoustic space there is no real distinction between Early and Late Reflections and the entire composite response of a real acoustic space consists of ERs, LRs, and frequency characteristics of the given environment. Thus in order to truly represent a given space accurately all three of these things should align to meet the characteristics of the acoustic environment. Aether offers an intuitive solution to this issue by providing a Link button that allows various parameters to be linked to the Space Type macro control. The additional ER controls, the LR controls, both set of controls, or none of the controls can be linked to Space Type. This way, when a user selects the "Telephone Booth" space for example, an appropriate size and reverb time can optionally be set automatically as well. Of course the linked parameters can then be adjusted by the user as desired and hybrid presets can also be developed by quickly combining the characteristics of two or more different space types. The end result is a balance of maximum ease of use and ultimate flexibility.

Aether 1.5 ships with a new default GUI which has been redesigned based upon customer feedback and market needs. The new GUI retains the same layout as the previous version, but focuses on improvements to readability, usability, and communication of relevant parameter info such as measurement units. As the product continues to mature we feel Aether has the potential to continue on its path to becoming the "go-to" industry standard for all reverb needs, and as such we feel the majority of our users are better served with a slightly more conservative interface. This is delivered in version 1.5. The new GUI also implements the new features in an aesthetically pleasing manner, and drastically improves the functionality of the Browser page which we have enhanced to function even more like an "easy-mode" page for new users. The original GUI style will be updated and made available again at a later date for users who prefer and are accustomed to the previous design.

Aether 1.5 implements a Frequency Profile menu system. This feature functions in a similar way to the pre-existing Space Type system used in the Early Reflections engine. It is effectively a macro control that allows the Input EQ, Damping Curve, and High Frequency Softening filters to be saved and recalled as a set in different fashions. Frequency Profiles consist of a total of 15 different parameters on the GUI, which can all be changed as a unified whole with a single click on the display of selection from the menu system. Furthermore, we employ a Link control to allow users to customize the recall behavior of the system. Aether 1.5 includes 100 Frequency Profile presets organized into different categories for maximum ease of use. The new Frequency Profile system works together with the Space Type system to create a very simple way for new users to try over 3,000 possible preset permutations simply by clicking on two controls. Furthermore it allows over 60,000 preset combinations when used together with the new preset expansions.

Aether 1.5 offers a new Browser page which has been enhanced in several ways. Folder lists have been added to limit the preset display list to only the desired folder(s). Folders are clearly delineated from presets in the browser list so that it is very easy to see what folder group a certain preset belongs to. Additional controls have been added to the Browser page to allow it to effectively become a complete Easy Mode page as well, where users can quickly scan presets, and adjust Mix setting, Gains, Size and Time all from one simple page. All controls can be independently locked from this page for exploring new presets in different ways too. For example, the user could lock Time to 6 seconds, and Size to 50 meters and browse all presets this way to find experimental combinations and permutations that add up quite quickly to an almost infinite number of possibilities.

Simply take a look at our interface and then compare to the competition. Aether's engineering robustness, precision, and sound quality are second to none, but who is to say that a reverb interface must be cold, sterile, and unwelcoming? We did not get the memo. Most of our customers are musicians, not scientists, and so as such, we took the liberty to have a little fun and get a little creative. We use things like color coding, macro controls, and parameter linking to make things intuitive and painless. We think you will appreciate it, and will find our efforts welcoming and inspiring. At the same time, we did not sacrifice any degree of control for the power user. Consider as one simple example, that behind our sexy and good looking knobs, lies a floating-point parameter system whereby you may text-enter any value you choose in full floating-point precision and this is the value that will be used by the algorithm and saved in the preset. Want input gain to be -11.347841 dB for some reason? Simply text enter it and that is what will be used. Or just move the knob by feel like a normal human. You decide. It's up to you.

If you have just read all of the above detail and are left thinking "I just want a great verb sound! What do all these details mean to me? Do they really matter?" The honest answer: maybe not to you. For you, we have two things to say: First, as stated above, we believe Aether is one of the best sounding reverbs on the market. Period. Second, did we mention the preset browser page? The preset browser page displays approximately 200 world class, professionally designed factory presets which are only a single click away and load instantly. When we say instantly, we really mean it--there is no waiting for an impulse response to load from your hard-drive. A quick scan through these presets will allow you to quickly find exactly the right sound you need for your application and using the browser page instead of the main page will keep you protected from becoming a Space-Time-Freq like the rest of us here at 2CAudio!

Audio quality is the number one design goal of Aether, and we have taken a no compromise approach to achieve that goal. Having said that, we recognize that most users do not have a supercomputer in their basement and we are very well aware of the need to run the plugin on real-world systems of varying degrees of processing power. Aether's core DSP engine is highly optimized. Most of the processing code is written in low level assembly language and is manually tuned to squeeze the maximum power out of your existing system. Our development is Intel-only and this allows us to focus our energies on doing one thing very well instead of spreading our resources thin by trying to support too many obsolete platforms. SSE media acceleration instructions are used extensively throughout the algorithm. Additionally, the ER and LR sections of the algorithm may also be independently turned on or off to save CPU power when one is not needed. We've gone to great lengths to ensure that the plug-in takes as few cycles as possible so you can load more instances without sacrificing quality.

Aether 1.5 is available for the first time as a 64bit-native (x64) plug-in for 64bit Windows OSs and hosts. Aether 1.5 is currently being ported to and tested on the Digidesign RTAS format, and we look forward to offering Aether to the Pro Tools community in the very near future.

Despite offering many advances in sound-quality which are dependent upon highly advanced, resource intensive mathematics and signal processing techniques, Aether 1.5.0 also reduces latency from 4 samples to 0 samples! Aether 1.5.0 is zero latency! Additionally, All presets in Aether 1.5 have been calibrated to have the same average level. Finally, a myriad of behind-the-scenes tunings and refinements to both the Early and Late Reflections Engines have been made to further enhance clarity, spatial image, depth, and left-right balance.

In addition to the Input Gain and Mix settings, Aether 1.5 allows Gains, Bypass states, and stereo mode settings to be locked independently for both the ER and LR engine. This allows extreme flexibility in scanning presets for various needs. All Aether presets are saved for use as inserts on audio tracks, and the mix setting is an important part of the desired sound of the preset. This can be a source of great inspiration for musicians who are playing and composing directly into Aether, as each preset is designed to elicit a different feeling or emotional environment. Professional mix engineers on the other hand, generally like to use reverb on busses. For Send/Aux/Bus use, simply set the mix setting to 100%, set the input gain to 0dB (or potentially +6dB or +12 dB to offer a wider range of possible relative wet/dry settings) and lock both of these controls. It is now possible to browse all presets in "send mode". We consider this the best of both worlds. Furthermore, the same technique can be used to bypass the LR engine and scan presets as only ER presets, for use as inserts on audio tracks, while a single LR instance is used on a send. Welcome to the ultimate in flexibility.