CSR-1 - Lexicon300 - Comparison

[martian]

I would throw ArtsAcoustic in there, too, Bmanic. I don't see it as any better than RoomVerb.

I disagree. It's less metallic but yes, it does have problems too (especially when running long tails). I've been experimenting with the AA reverb today and trying to recreate some of the sounds I've heard from the CSR and it seems to be impossible. I prefere the sound of CSR everywhere. The only demos I have not heard are the subtle, very short ambience ones. Doing these the AA reverb is at it's best. It gives a nice little subtle widening and glue to a mix that is very typical for modern dry pop/dance/rnb stuff.

Cheers!
bManic

bmanic, any chance you can do an AA equivalent to living sounds mix?

last year i tried for ages to get to grips with AA and despite loving the interface i couldnt get to like its sound (small/med halls are what i usually go for), i think because i find it quite unique, and a marmite scenario. whereas i seem to prefer what ive heard of lexi and vss3 sound. but id like to hear it in the hands of someone else, even if it cant sound like the lexi mix, just an equivalent.

[skm80]

Maybe it's just me and I'm a born skeptic...but...skm80 has been a member of kvr since july of 2004 and has only posted 2 times, both in this thread...

Simple answer. Busy working and when I get breaks from work I'm busy making music. I don't spend much time on computer cruising Forums.
The only reason I posted with regard to CSR was to keep some of you rushing out and buying it like I did based on the sounds they have posted on their site.
Reverb sound is very subjective to say the least. Some will like certain signature sound and use it. Others like me will stay away from it. Almost like speakers. I had Mackies for several years. Excellent monitors. But, I never could get a good balanced mix and ended up spending many hours A/B with other monitors and playing back in car.
To me not wasting time was more important so I sold them. And yet there are others that swear by them.
No reverb will sound bad all the time with every instrument or vox (there are few crappy exceptions ).
I mainly use VSTi reverbs on snares and having used CSR with default settings on several different samples, played through real monitors and not computer speakers,It sounds metallic on most samples. I don't want to spend too much time tweaking and filtering. If I get a chance later on, I'll post few of the samples and you can judge for yourselves if you hear the same thing or not. If you still want to rush out and buy it then more power to you. Either way since realistically speaking most reverb users will use reverb on their own different samples or track with different results then it will make my posting as useless as the samples posted on CSR site.

[beergeek]

Maybe it's just me and I'm a born skeptic...but...skm80 has been a member of kvr since july of 2004 and has only posted 2 times, both in this thread...

Simple answer. Busy working and when I get breaks from work I'm busy making music. I don't spend much time on computer cruising Forums.

Fair enough...always good to have another pair of ears on board! I happen to spend all day on the computer (I'm a programmer) so when I need a break, I come here.

I mainly use VSTi reverbs on snares and having used CSR with default settings on several different samples, played through real monitors and not computer speakers,It sounds metallic on most samples.

Does it sound better to you through computer speakers? Doesn't sound metallic on drum samples through my Events. But as I have said, my ears got pretty fried in the 70's

Well, I hope you can cut your losses on it or find something useful in it for you...

[skm80]

If someone wants me to email them few CSR verb snare samples and they can upload them for the rest.

[martian]

If someone wants me to email them few CSR verb snare samples and they can upload them for the rest.

just upload a zip here: http://www.yourfilelink.com/ and paste the link they give you in the forum, simple. would be good if you could do a few different snares and reverb types if possible, but personally id prefer it if you used a full 1 bar beat since that gives a more complete picture of the verb across all freqs imo.

thanks,

[Warp69]

Some tests - www.relab.dk/SNARE_TEST.wav

Cheers

[Animus]

skm80 and all,

Well I got CSR yesterday and loaded it up in demo mode to play around with. My first impression was the same as skm80's. I was like what is this crap? It indeed sounded metallic. I was using the plate on female vocals. I found it to be very sibiliant, moreso than any other reverb I have on default presets. Needless to say I was very discouraged but wanted to give it a fair chance. Well, after playing with it welll into the wee hours of the morning I changed my initial impression. It sounds pretty damn good. THe key is tailoring the reverb to the source material, finding the right shape etc. Once I did that it really started to sound really interesting. I was ABing with some 480l impulses (namely Fat Plate) and also an outboard Lexicon MX200. I got a better sound I think than either of those. THe MX200 is very limited in editability and of course impulses are too.

I love the delay lines that are possible within CSR! Reflection and Echoe. I was able to get a really lush sound without having real long reverb tails, by setting up the cascading delays and feedback. That was what I always lacked with convolution, as I always seemed to have to increase reverb time to get the required density I wanted and that always muddled the sound clarity too much. Add modulation on top of that and you are golden. And CSR only takes up about 6 percent of cpu on this PIV 3 ghz as opposed to Waves IR1's 12 to 14 percent.

The verdict is still out for me but at the moment I am digging it. I encourage everyone to go beyond the presets and get to know what everything does as you can pretty much get a variety of sounds from dark to metallic. And for pittance of money I spent it seems worth it.

Couple of minor quibbles... How about enabling the scroll wheel to work in the gui! jeeesh This is 2006! I find it hard to get specific settinga turning the knob manually. Also please utilize the shift key to make more refined increments with the jog wheel. And why can't we use text fields to manually input values? I still wish all four plugs were integrated into one consolidated gui. I guess you lose the marketing hype of getting 4 plugs for the price of one but it's a lot less efficient workflow for me. Plus you can't do what the original 480l does with Stage + Hall type presets. The manual is kind of lacking and doesn't really go into detail at all.

Question... In the Echo tab of the Plate there are settings for the left and right Feedback. THese values range from positive and negative which I am sort of confused about. I assume they affect the phase of each delay line?

[LiteOn]

Hi Animus,

I love the delay lines that are possible within CSR! Reflection and Echoe. I was able to get a really lush sound without having real long reverb tails, by setting up the cascading delays and feedback. ....

Could you post a sample of that, edit: please ?


Thanks & Cheers,
LiteOn

[kilroy]

What I would really like to know is how the Creamware Scope P-100 plate compares to the corresponding CSR plate in terms of sound. If the CSR is a "direct port" to VST then I am most curious to see if the sound that I hear on my Scope system P-100 survived the transposition intact.

I am not about to purchase the CSR plugs just to satisfy my curiosity however.

[Animus]

Hi Animus,

I love the delay lines that are possible within CSR! Reflection and Echoe. I was able to get a really lush sound without having real long reverb tails, by setting up the cascading delays and feedback. ....

Could you post a sample of that, edit: please ?


Thanks & Cheers,
LiteOn

Sure, I will see what I can do. I can't show the current stuff I was working on as the material is another artist's unreleased work and they wouldn't appreciate me showing samples of it. But I will see what samples I can rummage up from my own work I could demonstrate this.

[Animus]

http://www.animusmundi.net/CSRtest_plate_room-02.wav

Here is something quick I did using living sounds raw tracks and some random vocals I had lying around (just for a test). I used the same Plate on the piano, guitar and vocal and the Room on everything else. It's really wet. The Plate has Reflection and Echo delay lines with feedback and a moderate dose of modulation, Probably a little too bright overall but I had some master buss eq going on as well and compression..

[Broken]

Some tests - www.relab.dk/SNARE_TEST.wav

Cheers

The second hit sounded better to me.

[Broken]

,,

[Animus]

Here is another test except I replaced out the CSPlate with Waves IR1 using a tweaked 480l Fat Plate preset from Altiverb. THe CSRoom is still on the drums and bass. The tail is alot longer on the Plate but I still couldn't get the density CSPlate had and there is some exaggerated resonance you can hear on the isolated vocal at the end.


http://www.animusmundi.net/CSRtest_IR1p ... oom-03.wav

[Animus]

http://www.animusmundi.net/CSRtest_plate_room-02.wav

Here is something quick I did using living sounds raw sounds and some vocals I had lying around (just for a test). I used the Plate on the piano, guitar and vocal and the Room on everything else. It's really wet. The Plate has Reflection and Echo delay lines with feedback and a moderate dose of modulation, Probably a little too bright overall but I had some master buss eq going on as well and compression..

That sounds very clear for a mix that wet. I don't know why people are saying its an average reverb.

When I get my copy I'll take it to the studio and do some 480L comparisons

Probably because they are expecting instant results with presets.