New IK Multimedia CSR (Classic Studio Reverb) plug...

[Eleventh Hour Sound]

Thanks for the good info Erik!

Hi all,

I just finished mixing a double CD rock album liberally using the CSR Plate reverb on the drums (detail: Gregg Bissonette drumming -- good drummer with good sounding drums recorded with good mics in a good sounding room -- lots of "good"). I thought I would weigh in as I've gotten so much great info from you folks in the past.

The verdict? I am a fan. This plug-in added a thickness to the drums that I have not been able to get from other plug-in reverbs (I use UAD-1 Dreamverb and Plate 140, which I still find great for vocals, guitars and keyboards).

"Classic Studio Reverb" is actually a perfect title for this product, as it definitely has all of the filtered thickness and companding / distortion of units like the Lexicon 224 / 480 and EMT 250. And I love that. I'm one of those guys who always puts an EQ before the reverb and filters the input heavily. Sometimes adding compression, too, before the 'verb. For drums, I usually put a HP at 400 Hz and a LP at 3 kHz, sometimes 2.5 kHz if the hat and cymbals are particularly bright and invasive. So the whole midrange thickness is really important to me, and CSR has it. I'm using fairly short decay times with little to no pre-delay.

I have not used Altiverb, and I can say that truly everyone I know that has it sings its praises. But it seems like CSR is a very different animal. I don't get the impressiong that CSR is meant to be natural sounding. But man, it definitely sounds like rock 'n' roll. Yep.

With the Syncrosoft key, yes, there is a delay when you load CSR onto a track the first time. After that, though, it opens right away. As I mentioned on another thread, I don't see any delay when opening the DP app itself as others have noted. But I'm not running any VIs on my G5 either, so that may account for it. The Syncrosoft key is stashed away in a slot of a cheap multi-port USB hub, and it seems to run just fine (knock wood) without introducing any anomolies into my system.

In my studio I have a Lexicon PCM-91, a PCM-60 and an old Alesis XT:c. I love the sound of them all, and I track these hw units often. However on this project, I didn't use them, going instead to CSR. If you're looking for clear, pure, natural - sounding reverberation, this one may not do it for you. But for big hairy gnarly aggressive rock 'n' roll drum 'verb, this one is certainly now my first call.

I don't work for IK Multimedia nor do I have any stake in the company. Just makin' records over here, looking for the good stuff. Hope this is helpful.

Best regards,
Erik

[Eleventh Hour Sound]

Nice review thanks!

I got CSR today, and it installed easily, authorized immediately, and while I'd prefer to not add another dongle to my system - so far so good.
What Mr. Norlander wrote about CSR helped me decide to buy it.
My first impression is that this is very flexible, and as easy to use as you want it to be. I like the "easy" page that can be expanded to the advanced page with one click and all the parameters are there if you need them. I haven't dug into the macro mode yet, where you can do complex modulations and filtering (and save your macros for future use like presets).
This might be best used on rock and pop styles of music, but with some experimenting, the hall reverb might be made lush enough for symphonic or deeply reverbed vocal uses.
They reverb tails can be modulated to sound more or less natural, as you need.
I'm liking the input and output imaging controls. I was playing around with a simple stereo drum loop, and I could make it sound, in my headphones, like it was coming from the back of my head without messing up the sound.
I really like the sound of the reverbs, but I hesitate to use words like warm or natural or digital, when reverb seems to be one of the most subjective effects we can discuss. What I can say is that I think I'll be able to dial in the sound I want for most purposes.
Some other reverbs I looked at and/or tried the demos:
ArtsAcoustic - very nice sound, and well-designed GUI.
Wizoo W2 - I almost bought this instead. I still might. I really like the ability to use convolution, non-convolution or a blend. Another very well-designed GUI.
Sonic Flavours R66 - I liked it but it didn't seem as flexible as the others.
Nomad Factory BlueVerb - I really liked this one too, and I may still get it. It definitely adds coloring, but I like the coloring. Some would say it generally sounds too 80s. They might be right.
Oh - another thing - so far the Syncrosoft dongle hasn't caused me any trouble. I will be keeping a watch on it though, and will report back if this changes on my system. I do not have any instruments using this dongle - just CSR. I think somebody else mentioned that performance doesn't seem to be affected when its used with effects (non-library types of plugins, maybe?).
Maybe what I wrote made it seem that CSR is only adequate, but I want to stress that with about 20 minutes of playing around with it, I am VERY happy with what it can do.

[Eleventh Hour Sound]

If you're able to use it in demo mode, please add the CSR to the list!
Thanks! -V

...the biggest on I hear is that the plugins seem to "add" the reverb sound to the mix, whereas with the Lexicon, I can hear the music itself in the reverb tail. The verb tail is rich with the music itself. The Altiverb tail sounds more like a clever sound effect, kind of like the reverb tail of something else (gee I wonder why). Try this test. Set up a long verb and abruptly stop playback so you can hear the reverb tail. Compare that against a Lex 300 or similar, on a similar patch. The difference is rather startling.

Thanks for sharing that! That's VERY interesting. You don't suppose there's a way you could somehow record this test? I'm wondering if HiJack or one of those things could record this... or actually if you have a DAT laying around you could maybe record this using analog outs. I'd love to hear the difference in the reverb tails. Would be cool if you could post two high quality MP3s of the A/B test.

I'd love to. Can we use AAC (iTunes Music Store) format? MP3 is too smeared sounding. Anyone with Quicktime or iTunes would be able to play them.

I can do several - AltiVerb, Waves RVerb, and maybe a couple of the Digi platform ones. Then of course the high-end Lexicon one.

To record it, I will import a good sounding commercial CD, and have the track mute at a certain spot, thereby exposing the (added) reverb tail. I will take DP's output digitally into my Masterlink, thereby preserving the real-time effect, as one would hear over the speakers. I will then re-import the Masterlink files (AIFFs) into iTiunes, and convert to AAC.

Where do I upload to?

It will take me a few days, as I am away from my studio until tuesday.

-Mark

[Eleventh Hour Sound]

Here's the link to their product info page on the CSR...

James, from the CSR demo download page, it looks like you can use the demo without a key:

"Classik Studio Reverb Demo Download

The Classik Studio Reverb demo is fully functional for a grace period of 10 days. After 10 days the demo will expire. After having installed the demo, when using Classik Studio Reverb, always click CANCEL on the Authorization Wizard. This is because this Demo cannot be Authorized, and will emit a small noise, from time to time, once the 10-day trial period has expired"

[Eleventh Hour Sound]

I just listened to CSR on some vocals and it does seem to have a pretty rich sound to it

[wheever]

Huh? Where did this thread come from? James started it on the 23rd of march? More than a month ago? How did I miss it?

I KNOW I've gone back and forth with shoosh about 'verbs in the last month. And modulated tails. But not in this thread? Yikes indeed!

Well, I'm as big a fan of CSR as Shoosh is of AltiVerb, and had I been conscious, I would told y'all a month ago that you don't need the dongle anymore; the demo runs for 10 days without a hitch; and CSR sounds F'n wonderful at a relatively small price both $ and CPU.

I really might be losing my mind. Seriously.

Andrew

[mhschmieder]

I think the topic title may have been cryptic at first and then modified. I know a few other topics have progressed that way recently. This topic has seen quite frequent posts so has always been fairly near the top of the stack, even if you only check the forum once a week.

[Shooshie]

Huh? Where did this thread come from? James started it on the 23rd of march? More than a month ago? How did I miss it?

I KNOW I've gone back and forth with shoosh about 'verbs in the last month. And modulated tails. But not in this thread? Yikes indeed!

Well, I'm as big a fan of CSR as Shoosh is of AltiVerb, and had I been conscious, I would told y'all a month ago that you don't need the dongle anymore; the demo runs for 10 days without a hitch; and CSR sounds F'n wonderful at a relatively small price both $ and CPU.

I really might be losing my mind. Seriously.

Andrew

James started it on the 23rd of March, 2006. It's over a year old. Mschmieder resurrected the thread last Sunday, for the first time it's seen light since last July, so it hasn't been getting frequent traffic after all. Just since last Sunday, 3 days ago.


Shooshie

[wheever]

Shoosh...oh thank you for that info! I only recently re-found this board, and would never check threads that old. (Missing 2006 in the post date, however, is typical of me. )

I *really was* worried about my sanity, especially since, as a recent purchaser of CSR, It's pretty much in the forefront of my awareness. And I couldn't come up with an explanation that didn't include early-onset dementia/brain damage from too much drug use in the 70s.

Whew!

[mhschmieder]

That's really strange, and I apologise. I accidentally responded to the wrong CSR thread after doing a quick search to locate another one that had fallen too far down the list. I only looked at the first page when I responded, thinking it was the OTHER thread and not noticing the 2006 year but just noticing the "late March" start date. I hope this is not grounds for dismissal .

[Shooshie]

Stuff like that happens all the time. It's easy to get confused.

Shooshie