CSR-1 compared to AA

[hifiboom]

hey sascha,

that plugs on your homepage look awsome not only the guis are nice...

If samplitude is getting a decent midi implementation, I'll jump over...

That 'chorus guitar reminds me of pulp fiction...

[snooky]

Okay here we go...

As I said before I like the CSR reverb very much as it does fit excellent to my needs...

Listen to the following sound demos

First original sound from mastered CD which is about ~ 7 years old.
http://home.arcor.de/soundspace1/reverb ... iginal.wma

CSR sounds like this
http://home.arcor.de/soundspace1/reverb/clap_csr.wma

AA sounds like this
http://home.arcor.de/soundspace1/reverb ... oustic.wma

the dry sound for you to check your own reverb plug or hardware unit...
http://home.arcor.de/soundspace1/reverb/clap_dry.wma

I do not like the AA, although the overall character seems good, it has this metallic character that alters every sound in some way...
CSR comes very close to the original sound and has a nice hall impression.
With a complete mix on AA it will print its metallic stamp to the hole mix, but on a single sound like broks synth sound the metallic character will maybe add that lust tail he is looking for...

As always it depends on what you are searching for...

sorry hifiboom ... but i really think this test completely fails for various reasons (just adding two here):
1. the source material ... you don't really mean it, don't you??
2. the reverbs you added on are totally different in size, lenght, buildups and frequency response ...

it seems you took a csr preset that you like.
great. sounding good, btw.
but if you want to compare another reverbunit with it, you have to tweak the best out of the other, trying to reach the _same_ result or better, wich you obviously did not do as there are, like i said, too many obvious differences.
now go and tweak the aar or any other unit you want to compare to what you actually wanted to achieve with the csr, to see what the unit _really_ offers, and _then_ post these examples.
that's what i'd call a fair comparsion.
if my studio was ready (i moved with my studio), i'd really would've sit down and waste my time to do an mp3 with some other reverbs and post them here ...
don't get me wrong, i love the csr from what i know of it (it's just the dongle that will not ever be sticking in my machine), but this particular test you did here is just misleading ...
no offense meant at all ...
just my 2 cents ...

I have tried oh so many times to tell him that his "tests" leaves A LOT to be desired.

[hifiboom]

snooky you remind me of some kind of inverse reverb:

somebody puts in positive dry signal, and you give back a negative response.

so just STFU

I found the button to mute you (that does not help at all), but where is the button, to hit you in the face.

[snooky]

snooky you remind me of some kind of inverse reverb:

somebody puts in positive dry signal, and you give back a negative response.

so just STFU

I found the button to mute you (that does not help at all), but where is the button, to hit you in the face.

for you:

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1993633

[Warp69]

......the Dattoro/Griesinger design with the nested allpass along the figure 8 loop.

The Dattoro design doesn't use any nested allpass filters. Gartner uses some nested allpass filters in the inner structure.

Cheers

[friteuse]

hifiboom,

I see absolutly what you mean, but the comparasion is still quiet useless. It's like to determine what's faster, a bicycle or a car - a car is obviously faster at the highway, a bicycle can be much faster in town, where you stick in traffic jam, search for a car park etc. if you know what I mean.

First of all, if you want to compare two reverbs, you should begin with an analytic test. Choose a few technical signals like impulses, sweeps, sins/saws to analyse the mechanisms behind the reverb.
Second, you should test it in *various* music and mix situations. From classic to pop, rock to jazz, vocal to drum, synth to acoustic guitar.

The first test might give you the chance, to objectivly judge some technical qualities of a reverb, like density, buildup behaviour, resonances, etc. They say nothing or not so much about the second thing, the musical qualities, though.

After you went through this second test, you can state which of the reverbs you *personally* liked better in which production and why, say the musical qualities of a reverb, which are mostly subjective.

Comparing the AAR and the CSR should be done like this and I promise, you will find as much situations, where AAR sounds better to you, as you now think that CSR sounds better.
Both of them are really high quality verbs, no one is better or worse, just different, very different.

For what you are looking for with that (for my taste very crappy) clap sample, I Suppose the CSR might be the better choice.
You simply won't get this from the AAR in the way CSR, does it (as other things where AAR excells, CSR fails).

If I was looking for a bright color to paint my room, I wouldn't buy black paint...

[hifiboom]

First of all, I did not won't to prove anything or so...

either in a scientific way nor in any other way, as this is not possible with reverbs...

As you cannot prove that one woman is more beautiful as the other one...
That is something that depends on personal taste...

So with reverbs too.

I have loads of professional mixed CD with these kinds of reverbs, that I consider as kind of magic and I tried to achieve this special sound with nearly every reverb plug that is out without success...

So now that I found CSR I also tried to recreate this kind of sound, and I am quite happy to achieve it as good as I can now...

MAny people here praise the AA to be "the best reverb" out there what just is wrong, because this also depends on taste...

So with my thread I just wanted to share my happyness with others and maybe there some out there that do search exactly for this same sound...

So this is no direct comparison, this also is not possible at all as these are different algos in AA and CSR and you cannot match parameter exactly...

I just used the AA sound demos for reference, and to show what I like to achieve and how CSR does the trick and AA cannot...
But I could also have compared it with impulse response or the v-Verb or something other...

Its not: this is better than that.
Its: CSR fits perfectly for this task, and AA or any does not...


Thats all.

If I was looking for a bright color to paint my room, I wouldn't buy black paint...

Of course thats right, but if there are only black paint available it can be quite unsatisfying.
That was the situation on VST market, before CSR was released.

And there also was the possibility that CSR is another "black paint" sound. That would have meant another 300 bucks for wastebaket.

So I am just happy.

So big compliments to Warp:
There are so many crappy VST and VSTis out there, you cannot even try all.
A good VST programmer does not only need to be a good coder, but he also needs to have the right ear for the music...

I think that many VSt plug-in coders are not to good with the musical side.
Warp seems to be top-skilled in both areas, which is also some kind of art. BIG RESPECT!!!

[Warp69]

Hi Hifiboom,

The real heroes are - the masters of reverb algorithms:

* Dave Griesinger (Lexicon)
* Chris Moore (Ursa Major, AKG 68K, Kurzweil KSP8)
* Barry Blesser (EMT 25x)
* Tony Agnello (Eventide, Princeton Digital)
* Wolfgang Schwarz (Quantec)

* TC Electronic
* Bricasti (engineers from Lexicon and Kurzweil)

Cheers

[hifiboom]

Hi Hifiboom,

The real heroes are - the masters of reverb algorithms:

* Dave Griesinger (Lexicon)
* Chris Moore (Ursa Major, AKG 68K, Kurzweil KSP8)
* Barry Blesser (EMT 25x)
* Tony Agnello (Eventide, Princeton Digital)
* Wolfgang Schwarz (Quantec)

* TC Electronic
* Bricasti (engineers from Lexicon and Kurzweil)

Cheers

of course, but they avoid releasing VST plug-ins, and thats just step backwards.
Lexicon comes up with toys like Pantheon VST...
TC wanna sell its Powercore for large amounts of money... You hardly cannot check the algos and the sound, only if you buy one...
I was raving years ago about Scope system as Quantec intimated that they considered porting their famous Yardstick algo to Scope plattform. It's a shame they never did.


IK has at least the possibility to check the plug-in with an iKey, which is from my point of view not the best solution. You could have bring out a demo version with fixed paramters for trying out without iKey...

mmmhhh Warp, I've read somewhere on PlanetZ that you also have some more algos on your harddisk, why not just release them as CSR-2 Pack....
Any plans?
I'm on your 100%-buyer list.


for sure

by the way, obviously you are a very expirienced Scope user, I got one question:
I always had the feeling that the better Scope synths like prophet clone sound much more authentic and alive than everything on VST market...
What do you think about that...

My local music dealer always dissuaded to buy a Scope system, because being very unstable, ...

But I always loved the design and ideas behind it... and mostly the sound of it....
I still consider buying it, although the DSP Cards seem quite outdated...

[living sounds]

by the way, obviously you are a very expirienced Scope user, I got one question:
I always had the feeling that the better Scope synths like prophet clone sound much more authentic and alive than everything on VST market...
What do you think about that...

I had a Pulsar system a few years ago, and it did sound rather good. I'd also like to know what is different about it to native processing. Especially since Martin (Warp69) wrote in the Planetz (Scope) forum some time ago, that he had to modify the algorithms he used in the Timeworks Lexi emulations in order to work properly on a PC (in CSR), as the Scope platform was capable to do things that would cost far too much CPU on an x86 CPU. Could you elaborate a little more on this?
I still haven't heard a plugin that sounds as clear and defined as my Lexicon hardware, so there seems to be a reason in DSP architecture.

[friteuse]

Of course thats right, but if there are only black paint available it can be quite unsatisfying.
That was the situation on VST market, before CSR was released.

There wasn't any paint at all on the market before AAR was released...

So this is no direct comparison, this also is not possible at all as these are different algos in AA and CSR and you cannot match parameter exactly...

You named the thread "CSR-1 compared to AA", what else should one suspect?

If you are happy with CSR and want to share this, no problem, do that, but why this comparsion/relation to the AAR?

Why do you need people like me have to feel like stupids, just because they use and love AAR? Ok, you do not blame us directly, but I have the impression you take every chance like a missionary to show up, how bad you think it is. It isn't, like CSR isn't a bad reverb, so just leave this stupid a/b comparsions.

Don't take me wrong, I surely got your intended point, but I think it was just a bad way to communicate it.

[pdxindy]

I'm quite happy with AAR. It took me a while to learn what Brok was saying. That to get the reverb to sound 'right' means tweaking it in ways not expected for the usual reverb (By 'right' I mean it hits a kind of sweet spot where it just works for that music)

CSR is of no interest for me because I refuse to buy dongles.

AAR is less expensive, and they have a nice user agreement that allows use on more than one computer. It has a simple serial number so I never have to worry about down time due to a lost or broken dongle. There is no doubt which reverb works better for me.

[Funkybot]

Hi Hifiboom,

The real heroes are - the masters of reverb algorithms:

* Dave Griesinger (Lexicon)
* Chris Moore (Ursa Major, AKG 68K, Kurzweil KSP8)
* Barry Blesser (EMT 25x)
* Tony Agnello (Eventide, Princeton Digital)
* Wolfgang Schwarz (Quantec)

* TC Electronic
* Bricasti (engineers from Lexicon and Kurzweil)

Cheers

of course, but they avoid releasing VST plug-ins, and thats just step backwards.
...

Well, Tony Agnello did put out two of the Eventide 2016's algo's as VST plug-ins. The Stereo Room is amazing for small to mid size rooms but isn't what I'd call a great all rounder or particularly lush a la Lexicon. It's a great reverb though for what it does, and I use it a lot. Unfortunately, by the time they released the Plate plug-in they had decided that they'd use a dongle, which means I went from really looking forward to it, to just having to ignore it. I talked to Tony at AES for a second and asked if they were going to keep making VST plug-ins and his response was something along the lines of "yeah, as long as people actually buy them." The implication of that statement was that cracks were hurting sales, so I wasn't surprised when I heard about the dongle. I did tell him I actually bought the plug-in and he was cool and gave me a hat and some other goodies. It's just sad about the dongle though...

[ObsoleteAcc99]

[DELETED]

[Jason Brian Merrill]

*sigh*

wannabe enginers doing these pseudo-scientific test to prove non-existing points.

go away!!!

not that i disagree,

but you could just stay out of the thread... and ignore it