KVR Audio

hifiboom · Post by **hifiboom** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 9:12 am

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...

BertKoor · Post by **BertKoor** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 9:31 am

You're comparing apples with apples alright, but comparing Golden Delicious with Jonagold! Both apples, but different! Some are large or small, some green yellow or red, some great for apple pie but not to be eaten raw... Even two big juicy yellow apples of different makes will differ. Get the picture??

Every reverb unit is unique, and has it's place in the rainbow spectrum from harsh to smooth. Everything can be used productively. If you don't like one, then move on to the next. It's not like we're limited to having only one reverb that has to do it all the time. And each unit has controls to change how it sounds, so it has endless combinations. Too harsh?? Apply some roll-off to the highs with the EQ.

When does this stupid reverb comparison business stop... Just my opinion.

fred-hal · Post by **fred-hal** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 9:33 am

BertKoor wrote:You're comparing apples to aplpes

I like aplpes the best..

snooky · Post by **snooky** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 9:34 am

*sigh*

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

go away!!!

BertKoor · Post by **BertKoor** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 9:36 am

fred-hal wrote:
BertKoor wrote:You're comparing apples to aplpes
I like aplpes the best..

Saw that after pushing the submit button, it's edited.

hifiboom · Post by **hifiboom** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 10:01 am

okay I exclude answer to most stupid post ...

won't be unmuted this life... hehe stupi.....

@BertKoor: the point is there was no VST plug-in that could generate such sound ( or should I say apples ) since CSR appeared.
Not even come close with one of every of the VST plugs that were available since the beginning of this year...

If I am wrong, give me a hint which plug-in can do this...

snooky · Post by **snooky** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 10:05 am

brok landers · Post by **brok landers** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 10:22 am

hifiboom wrote: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 ...

BertKoor · Post by **BertKoor** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 10:34 am

Now compare this to that

Not that many simularities

hifiboom · Post by **hifiboom** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 10:43 am

@Brok: I tried to achieve the sound with AA quite a long time even before CSR was announced...

So yes, I did not try to eactly match them both 100% in size and other settings, but the AA at every time has that metallic character, even if you change the size from big to very small... that makes it sound like an ultra big plate...

That may be the cause, that you like its sound so much ?

sascha · Post by **sascha** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 10:59 am

Brok et al... maybe my ears are totally misleading me... but my suspicion is that the AA is 'just' a Schroeder/Moorer thingy. If that's the case, it's a good one, surely. But you can't achieve an increase in density over time. Some algos in the CSR sound a bit like the Dattoro/Griesinger design with the nested allpass along the figure 8 loop. More pleasing, at least to me, as the tails get more complex when circulating.
So it's really apples & pears then.

brok landers · Post by **brok landers** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 11:07 am

hifiboom wrote: So yes, I did not try to eactly match them both 100% in size and other settings, but the AA at every time has that metallic character, even if you change the size from big to very small... that makes it sound like an ultra big plate...

you have to check out the different roomshapes, they sound very different. then it heavily depends on how you tweak the roomsize corresponding to the density and the diffusion (which plays a big role in the illusion of where you place the source signal in the reverb).
this all plays together ...
i _always_ managed to avoid the metallic behaviour in the aar.
the aar gives you so many tweakability that you actually _have_ to tweak it to get the right sound.
so it can sound bad, if you just apply it right out of the box. there are simply too many parameters corresponding to each other ...
even only one step in roomsize can make it sound completely different, so it's not the obvious tweaks that you know from other reverbs that you have to do ...
by using the aar you have to let go this thinking. the aar has it's own way to achieve perfect results ...
read the manual

, it's clearly stated there where the differences are ...
you will be surprised ... as i was too, in the beginning ... if you follow the philosophy of the aar you'll have totally different results than if you follow the usually tweaking of reverbs as you know it ...

hifiboom wrote:That may be the cause, that you like its sound so much ?

no, actually i think that the plate is the only thing that other reverbs can do a little better ...
but i don't really like plates _because_ of their natural metallic character ...
just follow my suggestions, you'll be surprised ... however, it of course _can_ be that you just don't like the character of the aar, then it's just not for you ...

hifiboom · Post by **hifiboom** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 11:08 am

sascha wrote:Brok et al... maybe my ears are totally misleading me... but my suspicion is that the AA is 'just' a Schroeder/Moorer thingy. If that's the case, it's a good one, surely. But you can't achieve an increase in density over time. Some algos in the CSR sound a bit like the Dattoro/Griesinger design with the nested allpass along the figure 8 loop. More pleasing, at least to me, as the tails get more complex when circulating.
So it's really apples & pears then.

thanks Sascha... you exactly hit the nail to head....

It sounds more dense, or should I say "heavy"... You cannot achieve this just with High freq roll off or size parameter or decay nor any other parameter in AA or other VST reverbs...

The reverb gets more and more dense over time, which makes the perfect room/hall impression

Its just an other overall sound...

Try it with the dry sound, you won't get AA sound like this and also no other VST reverb...

brok landers · Post by **brok landers** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 11:38 am

sascha wrote:Brok et al... maybe my ears are totally misleading me... but my suspicion is that the AA is 'just' a Schroeder/Moorer thingy. If that's the case, it's a good one, surely. But you can't achieve an increase in density over time. Some algos in the CSR sound a bit like the Dattoro/Griesinger design with the nested allpass along the figure 8 loop. More pleasing, at least to me, as the tails get more complex when circulating.
So it's really apples & pears then.

hey! nice to see you again finally!

about the nested allpass structures:
funny thing, i was just on that theme in another thread, where we discussed about the behringer v-verb ... i love nested allpass structure based reverbs, but they have one weakness.
samll rooms. the buildup in density takes a relative time to the decay of rt60.
when chosing a short decay this doesn't sound good (at least in most nested allpass reverbs i tried) ...
you'll always hear a "swoosch", no "diskrete" buildup ...
also, because of the buildup the reverb mostly doesn't allow that "impact-roomness" that you can achieve on, say, a l960 ... the room impression in the first 40-60 msecs ... the room is more in the tail with a nested allpass structures algo as it seems ...
but i m no dev, so i just know that from listening and reading aout that stuff ...
about the schroeder/moorer:
well i don't know, you have to ask the dev's ...
but i doubt it strongly ... there are so many schroeder/moorer reverbs out there, freeverb, etc ... the aar sounds totally different to me in it's basic character ... well, you have to ask the aar guys ...

how's things going with your stuff?
will we see any stuff in the vst section from you? i absoluteley love your dff stuff ... whish it could be continued, be it free or commercial ... i'd love to see a decent hiquality eq from you ... but i think you are bound to samplitude-stuff ... too bad the stuff you did for samplitude is samplitude _only_ ...
tell michael rubner greetings from me!
or are you in dresden?

sascha · Post by **sascha** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 12:21 pm

brok landers wrote: when chosing a short decay this doesn't sound good (at least in most nested allpass reverbs i tried) ...
you'll always hear a "swoosch", no "diskrete" buildup ...
also, because of the buildup the reverb mostly doesn't allow that "impact-roomness" that you can achieve on, say, a l960 ... the room impression in the first 40-60 msecs ... the room is more in the tail with a nested allpass structures algo as it seems ...

Yeah, the nested thing produces a noise burst which you need to make sufficiently long in order to get signal dispersion in the next round (with every delay line wrap). It's the bursts that forbid exact positioning and - my god - a sense of 3D. That's why FDN reverbs sound more three-dimensional from the start. Though it's harder to make them stop ringing here & there. Often, people find FDN-based reverbs too 'analytic'. I think they are 'better' by design but there are often situations where the allpass smearing just sounds more appealing and up-front.
In the VariVerb design, I've implemented both FDN and nested structures (I've uploaded mp3s of it to my page to have a listen). It's like with women... there must be something special under the makeup, a bit of makeup can be like icing on the cake while women that only consist of makeup are... well...

brok landers wrote: how's things going with your stuff?
will we see any stuff in the vst section from you? i absoluteley love your dff stuff ... whish it could be continued, be it free or commercial ... i'd love to see a decent hiquality eq from you ... but i think you are bound to samplitude-stuff ... too bad the stuff you did for samplitude is samplitude _only_ ...
tell michael rubner greetings from me!
or are you in dresden?

We are 3 Dresden guys here in Berlin. I'll send the greetings to Rübe but I think he's on holidays right now (IIRC).

Yes, the stuff is Sam/Sequoia-only but I don't care that much as I finally switched from Cubase...

CSR-1 compared to AA