CSR Classik Studio Reverb vs P100/A100
astroman wrote:
it's not about pirating devices - it's about spreading the receipe how to build your own.
Exactly - It has nothing to do with piracy.Shroomz wrote:
Sounds like Warp69 is hinting that someone with the appropriate Scope dev rig & knowledge could steal his designs.
I really like Scope and it's a rather sad situation, since the Hall, Concert Hall, Chamber, SP2016, DN780 are finsihed and I have a working prototype of the EMT250.
@suthnear : The algorithms are different. You can do things (modulation) on Scope that would be too heavy on native systems. The filter implementation is totally different.
Cheers
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Warp69 on 2006-04-13 01:42 ]</font>
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tnx for confirming what our ears have been telling us all the timesOn 2006-04-13 01:31, Warp69 wrote:
... You can do things (modulation) on Scope that would be too heavy on native systems. The filter implementation is totally different...
but hey - it's completely outdated, hasn't been changed for some time now there is no... blrb..blrb...
btw that convenient little cigarette-box-sized-Korg-PX4 (guitar input) has some of those infamous shattering reverbs - an A100 small room after it sucked all the metal out of the thingy...
It expensive-analogized the sound to an amazing degree, really stunning.
cheers, tom
Now this is a great pityOn 2006-04-13 01:31, Warp69 wrote:
I really like Scope and it's a rather sad situation, since the Hall, Concert Hall, Chamber, SP2016, DN780 are finsihed and I have a working prototype of the EMT250.
Scope could become THE reverb dsp platform with a line up like that. Is there no way to protect these algorithms? Surely the internals of, say, minimax are not available for inspection. Can't creamware do the same for you?they could have... by never releasing SDK to the public...
Since I don't have it myself I dunno if this approach may work:
usually routine names aren't used at runtime (except for debugging) and the system effectively uses a table(position) to pick the respective execution. Thus the label names can be replaced by random chars and (named) variables just numbered A1, A2 etc.
to reverse build the screwed names is a tremendous effort, but of course still possible (in theory)
I have a Javascript lib that is treated this way to protect intellectual property (to a degree at least).
cheers, Tom
Since I don't have it myself I dunno if this approach may work:
usually routine names aren't used at runtime (except for debugging) and the system effectively uses a table(position) to pick the respective execution. Thus the label names can be replaced by random chars and (named) variables just numbered A1, A2 etc.
to reverse build the screwed names is a tremendous effort, but of course still possible (in theory)
I have a Javascript lib that is treated this way to protect intellectual property (to a degree at least).
cheers, Tom
Yes there may be as Warp69 says " it still possible to look at the algorithm inside the device (with the right tool) ".On 2006-04-14 04:24, Shroomz wrote:
I don't have an SDK, but anything is possible & if Warp69 won't release his new Reverbs on Scope because they could be pinched, then there must be a way Aries.
That tool must be external to the SDK and probably might be used on VST's as well.
Most likely the expensive AD kits.
<a href="http://www.analog.com/processors/proces ... tml">Sharc development tools</a>
...which are owned by Creamware amongst many others. Warp69 is more than likely not worried about Creamware nicking his work, it's all the other big sharcs (so to speak) that he's watching out for I'd imagine.
<a href="http://www.analog.com/processors/proces ... tml">Sharc development tools</a>
...which are owned by Creamware amongst many others. Warp69 is more than likely not worried about Creamware nicking his work, it's all the other big sharcs (so to speak) that he's watching out for I'd imagine.
The list of audio hardware manufacturers using Sharcs is becoming quite long. Due to the costs & time involved for a company to do things properly, some of them may well be tempted to 'cheat' when coding their hardware.
..by pinching other peoples code & making it their own. This sort of conduct must be commonplace. Companies will take shortcuts if they think they'll get away with it.
..by pinching other peoples code & making it their own. This sort of conduct must be commonplace. Companies will take shortcuts if they think they'll get away with it.
VSTIs and SFP modules have nothing at all in common - in particular the 'effective code' of the first one is the CPUs native machine code, while the DSP algorithms are on a higher 'block level' (probably) pseudocode.
Machine code is easy to disassemble, but with 'label off' code generation almost impossible to understand. 1KB of object code unfolds to (say) 15 KB assembler source.
Without labels for subroutines you're entirely lost.
With some routine you'll easily find protection schemes but you cannot tell what processing strategy the program applies on it's data.
Warp is concerned about the latter only.
The original Scope DP was licensed for a 'horrible' fee, and available for a relatively small number of persons who were more or less focussed on it's intended use (you don't throw out several K Euro for nothing) - and most likely neither had the time nor motivation to fiddle around with it.
Now that it's available to literally anyone, anyone can play with it.
The tool Warp mentions may exist as a regular part of the original developement system which was licenced even more restrictive (and expensive) than Scope DP.
Sometimes thing like this leak over the years...
But there's also the possibility to 'study' the systems 'locking process' in detail.
You make a supersimple device, lock it, look at the binary. Do it again and again and again - observe pattern changes.
Then you modify a part you know, repeat the process above, again observe pattern changes, compare the 2 versions - etc, etc.
It's just a matter of time until things will make sense.
You most likely know that a WLAN key of 128 bit is revealed within a couple of minutes, by flooding the net with defined packets and observe the systems behaviour - a couple of years agao noone would have thought it's possible so easily
cheers, Tom
Machine code is easy to disassemble, but with 'label off' code generation almost impossible to understand. 1KB of object code unfolds to (say) 15 KB assembler source.
Without labels for subroutines you're entirely lost.
With some routine you'll easily find protection schemes but you cannot tell what processing strategy the program applies on it's data.
Warp is concerned about the latter only.
The original Scope DP was licensed for a 'horrible' fee, and available for a relatively small number of persons who were more or less focussed on it's intended use (you don't throw out several K Euro for nothing) - and most likely neither had the time nor motivation to fiddle around with it.
Now that it's available to literally anyone, anyone can play with it.
The tool Warp mentions may exist as a regular part of the original developement system which was licenced even more restrictive (and expensive) than Scope DP.
Sometimes thing like this leak over the years...
But there's also the possibility to 'study' the systems 'locking process' in detail.
You make a supersimple device, lock it, look at the binary. Do it again and again and again - observe pattern changes.
Then you modify a part you know, repeat the process above, again observe pattern changes, compare the 2 versions - etc, etc.
It's just a matter of time until things will make sense.
You most likely know that a WLAN key of 128 bit is revealed within a couple of minutes, by flooding the net with defined packets and observe the systems behaviour - a couple of years agao noone would have thought it's possible so easily
cheers, Tom
first of all you'd have to be able to do it at all...On 2006-04-15 19:57, voidar wrote:
And this "study"-time is < than the time it would take to produce a device by "scratch"??...
to stay with the reverb example you'd need a unit to study, analyse it and pick the proper math representation - a time consuming and not error-free process.
with the opportunity to peek (lets assume for simlicity that the names of the building blocks appear in proper sequence) at a well functioning piece of code you could:
a.) write your own version which would have been impossible without the assistence.
this would apply in my case (for example) - I have a lot of programming experience , but none with signal processing.
b.) compare and improve your own design if you're working in this domain.
Most likely it will even inspire you to certain improvements, so you could effectively outperform the original 'blueprint'.
that is what's done industry-wide and is has always been done - since the days of analog hardware
When Apple released the original Mac they didn't document the ROM - a sacrileg in the eyes of their 'technically interested' customers.
So someone wrote a disassembler to reverse engineer the thing - based on nothing but the table of system calls and the public (more or less abstract) programmer documentation.
...why did ALL makers of software samplers started with disk streaming only AFTER Nemesys released Gigasampler ?
...all those transient processing appeared only after SPL had explained their differential envelope principle
...supersaws suddenly appeared in all oscillator section after Roland's JP trance success
cheers, Tom
ps: the only point Warp didn't mention (see his response further up) is that he will effectively have to do 'the courseware' for free, due to the low number of customers on this platform
maybe 10k copies sold could change his mind, but according to experience this will not happen
okay suthnear,On 2006-04-12 12:10, suthnear wrote:
I spent hours and hours with the CSR and the STW 'verbs last night and I think I did my head/ears in. Will need a few days of totally dry musical twiddling to recuperate
My overall view is that the scope plugs sound better. I know they're the same algos and I am very conscious of the possibility of some sort of selection bias, but whatever I did I could not get CSR > STW. Often I liked them both equally and I did miss a hall-type algorithm on the scope side, but, for the most part, the STW verb always had a little extra in the tank. The A100 and P100 seem more three-dimensional, more lively, less ringy and less hissy (y'know, that white noise wash that cheap(er) verbs seem to get) than Room and Plate.
I hope that it didn't make a difference to my evaluations but I really don't like the CSR interface. There is loads of wasted space but still lots of panel switching, with only a small number of parameters in each section. I've never been a big fan of the hardware paradigm for plugin GUIs generally but why IK felt the need to model one of the worst examples of hardware interfaces escapes me. The STW plugs also suffer from this a bit, although not nearly as badly and at least they use graphical EQ displays and signal flow diagrams. Both could take a leaf out of the artsacoustic reverb's book, though. CSR also has a really lousy preset handling system.
I then compared the STW plugs with some of my better lexi impulses and again I liked them just a little better. I'd doubt whether I'll ever get the opportunity but I wouldn't mind running the stw plugs up against a pcm91 just to see how they really stack up.
I've always liked the P100, but I seem to be liking A100 more and more as well. I will test some more over the next few days, but I have got a feeling that I'm buying P100 next paycheck and A100 the next one after that, DSP resources be damned. It's a lot cheaper than buying a decent reverb unit
Excellent work all around warp69...
I also did A/B the IK CSR Plate and the Scope Plate Demo against each other and I absolutly agree to your statement.
The Scope version does sound more 3dimensional....
And I also like it more...
If the CSR would be an 8 out of 10, the Scope vsersion is an 10/10.
This may be due to better internal EQs, filters, ...
I think I`ll sell the CSR pack and jump over to the P100/A100 and I100.
I will miss the hall, but the additional 3D character is worth the jump and loose of Hall...
On the other hand the CSR really is very lite on CPU demands. I think I could probably load 20 of them at the same time...
The P100 is a small DSP killer. But its worth it...
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: hifiboom on 2006-09-04 13:54 ]</font>