Ik is going to release a demo soon

Good news Attalus, and yes I will be putting it through the cycles as soon as the demo is released. It seems to be getting good reviews around the web. I was going to fork out for the 140, but would like to see the IK verb first.

zumba

Darn, I really want this reverb, but like others have said, the dongle is keeping me from buying it. I already have 2 dongles plugged in my rig, and I'm most definitely not looking to adding yet another

IMHO it's far superior to ILOK just because ILOK comes from Pace, who has a lousy track record for quality on the whole.

While I don't dissagree on the lousy past of Pace, the iLok really does work very good here. IMHO it's much better, because you just need one usb key for up to 100 licences of softs where for Synchrosoft protections you need one for each soft (please correct me if I'm wrong) and don't have an additional authorisation.

Ofcoarse, no dongle is always better, but I understand that companies want to protect their software, it's in the interest of users as well that a company survives...

Hans

While I don't dissagree on the lousy past of Pace, the iLok really does work very good here. IMHO it's much better, because you just need one usb key for up to 100 licences of softs where for Synchrosoft protections you need one for each soft (please correct me if I'm wrong) and don't have an additional authorisation.


Syncrosoft allows multiple licences to reside on a single dongle.

BUT (and this IS a big one), dongles can and *DO* fail. I (very recently) had a client who was in session with a very famous guitar player... and they had to postpone that session (and others) due to the Syncrosoft key completely losing a license.
The dongle still shows up as a protection device... but you can't transfer a licence to/from it. We had no means of recovering the licence!! It's gone to Never Never Land...
Tech support was absolutely useless... saying that the dongle was fine (simply because it showed up)... and treated us/me nearly like theives. As far as they were concerned, the licence didn't exist.
IMO, That's 100% pure BS.
Ironic that a true theif wouldn't have to deal with the hassle at all.
Long story short, I'll never recommend/use that product again.

ORIGINAL: harmony gardens

I'll just make these comments on the dongle. So far so good here. I have Philharmonik and CSR on the same key. While I'm sure there are those horror stories about dongles, let's keep it in perspective. Both my dongled products are high quality, and at least in a league with anything that UAD has.

I had my UAD for 6 months before I finally got it operating correctly. I had to learn about IRQ's, latency settings, and I ended up removing two USB ports, and my Firewire port, and try the card in three different slots. Every once in a while I still get a message that it cant find the plug. While I had those problems, I got no use out of it. While they are great plugs, I don't totally rely on my UAD for any of my work. It's more of a fine adjustment/sweetener thing. Also, the more UAD plugs you want to run, the more UAD cards you need. If anything goes wrong, (which I constantly fear it will), I can't use that either.

I consider the CSR to be AT LEAST as high quality as the UAD. In fact when I got CSR, I did make a choice between that, and the Plate 140. My price on this was just a little more, and I got the four reverbs, as I mentioned before. The CPU hit is surprisingly light, which helps to offset the one advantage that I consider the UAD to have, which is extra resources because of the card. If my UAD goes down, and I depended on it, it would probably mean me lugging my sytem off to some pro tech guy to do it for me. I'll be down during that time, too.

My point is, I don't hear people ****ing about the UAD plugs depending on a good working UAD card in your system when they trash dongles. I hope they will admit that a UAD card is in fact a dongle, too. CSR is a reverb. If something happens, to my dongle, I'll have to go without a reverb for a while. I bought mine through eSoundz, and I have a good relationship with them. I know for sure Squids and crew will do what they can to get me going ASAP. I don't have such a good feeling about UAD. They put out a product that has known issues, and I haven't had much support from them, I got my help in this forum. I think anyone who would recommend a UAD, and trash dongles is being a little disingenuous. (not that I've seen that in this thread)

My two cents.

You make a valid point, uad cards are a huge dongle as well, and although i have had no problems yet i have read alot of complaints now on all the different problems uad cards cause.

My comments were in no way specific toward the CSR plugin...
But rather the fact that dongles can/do (albeit rarely) fail.
It's not even the failure itself that's so upsetting. It's the fact the company didn't aknowledge the failure... and wouldn't cooperate in resolving the issue. Their 'solution' was for us to buy another copy. Telling a big-name client that the session must end/be postponed over a dongle is NOT impressive. Having to shell out for another full copy (and being treated like a theif) is adding insult to injury.

As for the UAD1...
I've been using two UAD1 cards since they were released... and have had them installed in MANY different configurations (I upgrade/change my machine continuously - as it's my job) over the past several years.
I've *never* had any problems/issues with them.
I also have many clients who use them... without problems.
Motherboard choice/configuration (especially for a dual core AMD system) is absolutely critical for a trouble-free UAD1 experience. UAD1 cards are rock-solid in the right configuration.
IOW, The UAD1 is not blanketly known to be problematic.

Having said these things, I've never had a problem with my personal USB protection keys.
I've currently got iLok, Wibu, and Syncrosoft USB dongles attached to my main studio DAW.
In fact, I have 3 audio interfaces (Emu 1820m, TonePort UX2, Firewire 1814)... and two UAD1 cards installed on this machine. All the above works flawless...

As for the quality of the CSR plugin, I hope it is excellent. If so, I'll definitely be using it... and recommending it.
In the (rare) event of dongle failure, I also hope IK has a better solution than simply, "Buy another copy."

ORIGINAL: Jim Roseberry

My comments were in no way specific toward the CSR plugin...
But rather the fact that dongles can/do (albeit rarely) fail.
It's not even the failure itself that's so upsetting. It's the fact the company didn't aknowledge the failure... and wouldn't cooperate in resolving the issue. Their 'solution' was for us to buy another copy. Telling a big-name client that the session must end/be postponed over a dongle is NOT impressive. Having to shell out for another full copy (and being treated like a theif) is adding insult to injury.

As for the UAD1...
I've been using two UAD1 cards since they were released... and have had them installed in MANY different configurations (I upgrade/change my machine continuously - as it's my job) over the past several years.
I've *never* had any problems/issues with them.
I also have many clients who use them... without problems.
Motherboard choice/configuration (especially for a dual core AMD system) is absolutely critical for a trouble-free UAD1 experience. UAD1 cards are rock-solid in the right configuration.
IOW, The UAD1 is not blanketly known to be problematic.

Having said these things, I've never had a problem with my personal USB protection keys.
I've currently got iLok, Wibu, and Syncrosoft USB dongles attached to my main studio DAW.
In fact, I have 3 audio interfaces (Emu 1820m, TonePort UX2, Firewire 1814)... and two UAD1 cards installed on this machine. All the above works flawless...

As for the quality of the CSR plugin, I hope it is excellent. If so, I'll definitely be using it... and recommending it.
In the (rare) event of dongle failure, I also hope IK has a better solution than simply, "Buy another copy."

I understand your point about clients. I'm trying to say that if a reverb fails, it's not going to shut me down. Also, I've always been in the anti dongle camp, until Philharmonik came out. It was too good a deal, on too cool a library, and I caved into the dongle. I'm not at all unsympathetic to the anti dongle cause,,, but I feel a little weird cause I sort of abandoned a worthy fight,,, (and I like to argue sometimes) It was kind of fun to jump in and say I wouldn't buy something with a dongle,,, but I can't do that anymore, cause I have one.

Also, please don't think I'm trying to trash UAD. I merely was posting a small taste of my personal expirience with it. I'm happy with my UAD's operation now, but whenever I use it, I have to surpress my frustration with my expirience. I'm a keyboard player, and computers are something I've had to stretch my grey matter to get my head around. I mostly like playing with my sound collection, jamming along to loops, trying to make orchestrations, and try to make it into something worth listening to. If I had taken it to someone like you when I bought my UAD, and had you put it in, I wouldn't have had so many problems. So, maybe I'm venting back, because I can't **** about dongles anymore. lol It was clever of the folks at UAD to be able to add functionality to the hardware it's tied to. ,,, but it serves as a dongle, too.

I suppose it was growing up Lutheran that makes me listen to my conscience so much,,, lol. I've had to think of ways to justify what I've done by getting a dongle. I don't like my freinds thinking of me as a sell out to dongles,, but hey,,, I have one. Hmmmmm,,, what do I do???

So I'm posting my thoughts about it FWIW. I don't know, if I lose or have something stolen, it's gone, no matter if it's a dongle, or a peice of hardware. I have a whole cabinet full of old hardware stuff I don't use anymore, that I payed tons of money for. I had a few microphones stolen,,, that was pretty traumatic. That's what reinforced the wrongness of stealing to me. I can go along with a dongle, and I'll treat it very carefully. I personally think this thing would go away, if there were some guarentee of a spare key.

The last thought is the hostility. Hey, I'm with you guys in wanting to let IK know that I took a chance on getting this dongle. I am a paying customer. We'll see how they react when someone loses their key. I will definately join in the chorus of distain if we start hearing it's a common occurance that paying customers have to rebuy software.

CSR is much better than I expected. It does need a demo. I just really like the reverb, and the fact it isn't in my UAD isn't a bad thing to me. That's what I'm really saying. Normally I would say, try the demo. ok,,, we gotta wait for that.

EDIT,,, Afterthought. You know, perhaps UAD could somehow consider making the card work to register other compainies software.... now that's an idea.

The last thought is the hostility. Hey, I'm with you guys in wanting to let IK know that I took a chance on getting this dongle. I am a paying customer. We'll see how they react when someone loses their key. I will definately join in the chorus of distain if we start hearing it's a common occurance that paying customers have to rebuy software.

Same here ...

Hans

So I'm faced with this question:

(forget about the dongle - I don't like them, but if their track record isn't a mess, I'm open to using one)

I have Sonar 5, so all the plugs that come with it, plus some from earlier versions. I've also used the free kauerhauseenhowmer (or whatever those things are called) effects. I have SampleTank2 XL and Sonik Synth 2 and I like them. I also use vdrums with a Td-20 module. I have a Toneport UX2 attached to my Layla 3G.

I'm considering the following two products:

TrackPlug - newest version
-or-
This CSR reverb

I know they are very hard to compare because of function and range and whatnot, but I have to pick one and I'd like one that it likely to make the bigger difference. They are essentially the same price for me.

Thoughts?

ORIGINAL: attalus

The first link to round 1 of reverb shoot out is no good anymore, i guess the bandwidth has been used up, here's another link where the effected song files can be downloaded and heard-
http://s65.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3ENWVTLLLOMID3DSP80EY04RVJ

attalus,

First, thanks for taking the time and effort to make and post these files!

I'd suggest using 192Kbit mp3 files instead of the wav files. You won't lose anyting significant in sound quality (for this test, anyway) and you'll save expensive bandwidth (both for you and the people who download the files).

ORIGINAL: attalus
I don't have a mp3 file converter, i think i'd have to pay to have that added to sonar.

attalus,

Here's the one that I use - it uses the LAME encoder and it's great and best of all IT's FREE:

CDex

Altiverb is the best reverb out there.

Round 2 is ready, this round i used a higher quality vocal sample to start with and i put on a heavier dose of the reverb, please pay attention to CSR soft and silky smooth alorithm it is what separates it from the rest, for several of the reverbs used are great.I also used a not so great reverb {sonars lexicon pantheon) because its harsh rough algorithm will help you to hone in better on CSR's smoothness once you listen to it afterwards.This test should reveal more. As far as CSR compared to altiverb, i don't like to compare convolution to algorithms but i will, CSR's has many selling points and one of them is that it is more flexible then convolution, i believe i can get a higher degree of musicality with CSR, but i look forward to be proven wrong.And i hope altiverb is soft and silky smooth.

Here is round 2 link- http://s44.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2GR1W7WLQNYAE2RUVZ5RKVTBOR

After listening to round 2 demos IMO it's not an apples to apples comparsion. The CSR preset appears to have an extreme boost on the low end which may cause vocal tracks "P's" to be extremely Plosive. I would have not seletced that preset for my vocal track. It actually made my vocal track to dark. I'm also guessing that the predelay may be really short in how it changed the EQing of my vocal track.

The masterverb 5 decay time is really short compared to the CSR so it's rather difficult to judge the tails and it has less low end. It appears that the predealy may be a little longer.

The Plate 140 has an extremely long tail but a similar EQing as the masterverb 5.

I did not even consider the Sonars Lexicon Pantheon. It's to grainy for my taste.

I did manage to get something close to the CSR with my DSP-FX Studio Verb but it didn't have the extra low end. Just the High cut as far as coloration of the verb

Looking at the Specs for the CSR I can see that is has quite a few ways of coloring the verb with EQ (COLOR: LO CUT F, LO CUT G, HI CUT F, HI CUT G)

I may end up getting the CSR and use it inconjustion with my DreamVerb, Plate 140, DSP-FX Studio & Acoustic Verb, GigaPulse, Pristine Space & my hardware Lexicon, TC & Roland Verbs

ORIGINAL: ByronSanto

After listening to round 2 demos IMO it's not an apples to apples comparsion. The CSR preset appears to have an extreme boost on the low end which may cause vocal tracks "P's" to be extremely Plosive. I would have not seletced that preset for my vocal track. It actually made my vocal track to dark. I'm also guessing that the predelay may be really short in how it changed the EQing of my vocal track.

The masterverb 5 decay time is really short compared to the CSR so it's rather difficult to judge the tails and it has less low end. It appears that the predealy may be a little longer.

The Plate 140 has an extremely long tail but a similar EQing as the masterverb 5.

I did not even consider the Sonars Lexicon Pantheon. It's to grainy for my taste.

I did manage to get something close to the CSR with my DSP-FX Studio Verb but it didn't have the extra low end. Just the High cut as far as coloration of the verb

Looking at the Specs for the CSR I can see that is has quite a few ways of coloring the verb with EQ (COLOR: LO CUT F, LO CUT G, HI CUT F, HI CUT G)

I may end up getting the CSR and use it inconjustion with my DreamVerb, Plate 140, DSP-FX Studio & Acoustic Verb, GigaPulse, Pristine Space & my hardware Lexicon, TC & Roland Verbs

It probably would never be a totally fair test because each plugin has different parameters, masterverb has control parameters that neither CSR or plate 140 has, CSR has parameters that both masterverb and plate 140 does'nt have, and has far more parameters for far more control then both, and that is where its strenghth lies and key to it's diversity, even if i could figure out the same settings for CSR as masterverb those settings may be stronger on one plugin then the other, i used image parameter on CSR to adjust it in the stereo field neither of the other plugins has this.And also to be quite honest i don't know how to really work CSR i've only had it a couple days, it has alot of parameters that are somewhat adjusted upon launch so all i can do is tweak to taste so to speak.But CSR's many parameters is it's advantage for if someone says it sounds as good as plate and masterverb then its indepth verb shaping ability would give it an edge, the only way CSR can loose is if someone says it sounds worse, and i don't believe many will say this.
The next round you tell me how you want things adjusted and i'll do my best in setting, but also know that CSR has 4 different plugins, so wich ever one i use is going to give different results then the other, CSR is a different sounding plugin at a whole.