When you hit a cymbal on a traditional stand, much of the cymbal’s energy and vibrations is dissipated away in the stand.
This can be felt if you place your hand on the stand.
You will then feel strong vibrations, you can even feel it in the drum throne sometimes, especially when large cymbals are used or playing swells.
These vibrations can sometimes cause some issues, like rattling or noise in the cymbal stand between the pipes or other parts in the stand.
You can also run into issues if the vibrations reach their resonant frequency in the stand.
When that happens, the stand will go into free oscillation creating loud vibration noises.
This is intensified if the stand is located on a thin stage floor or a raiser.
It’s kind of the same issue as when the snares on your snare drum is sometimes buzz when you hit your tom.
This happens because they are tuned in similar frequencies and the tom activates the snare head. (Then you have to change the frequency on one of them to solve the issue.)
These vibrations can also sometimes transfer to microphone stands and microphones that are EQed to low frequencies. Like bass drums and floor toms.
If the frequency of the vibration hits the range of the mic, it can cause wooing noise in the mix and in-ear monitoring.

History.
It was one of these issues that started the process on developing the CRS back in 2009.
One day when practicing and having the drums on a raiser I played quite heavily on my ride.
I noticed an extremely loud wooing sound, I then started examining where the sound was coming from and what caused it.
I found out that it was the vibrations from the ride that had reached the resonant frequency of the stand and the thin raiser floor became a giant loudspeaker.
So they started making terrible sound on their own, and it was definitely not complimenting to the music.

So, from that day I began developing the CRS. I wanted a solution that isolated the Cymbals as much as possible from the stand and the surroundings, and without change the feel of playing. The CRS was released January 2018.

Cymbal stands in use today have felt fittings to prevent vibration going into the stand.
This alone does not solve the issues.
The bolt on which the cymbals rest is directly attached to the stand and therefore transmits much of the vibration to the stand.
This is because the cymbals often hang at an angle and the cymbals rest directly on the bolt.
(The same issue also arises if the cymbals touch the bolt as they rock back and forth.)

CRS consists of a metal housing and a rubber isolation.
The isolator is removable from the housing by unscrewing the top of the housing.
The rubber isolator is constructed with two rubber discs to give it stability while playing and maximum isolation from the cymbal stand.
The metal housing is constructed with a hexagon tube to give it a stable mounting. Included is also a rubber tube to protect the threads on your existing stand.

The best of Two worlds.
Because of the way CRS is constructed, you get the stability from a traditional stand, and the opportunity for the cymbal to resonate freely without vibrations like on a suspended stand.
You get the best of two worlds.

Studio and Live.
Another issue I ran into was vibrations from cymbals transmitting to microphones.
One time I was hearing a low frequency wooing sound when I was riding my right-hand crash.
I was using in-ear monitoring, so I heard the sound quite well.
After fiddling around I found out that the wooing sound was coming from the floor tom mic. whom is EQed for low frequencies.
When I lifted the microphone stand of the floor the wooing sound was gone.
This was very strange because the stage floor was massive and 4 inches thick!
So, these powerful vibrations traveled down the cymbal stand through the floor and up the stand to the floor tom mic.
I then went home an brought one of the prototypes of the CRS and mounted it on the cymbal stand, then the wooing sound disappeared.
And yes, I could easily remove that frequency from the floor tom in the mix. But then I had to compromise and lose that frequency from the floor tom sound.

Rack and bass drum mounted stands.
One of our artists showed us another useful purpose for the CRS.
When you have cymbals mounted directly to the bass drum or a rack you tend to activate the cymbals when you hit the bass drum or drums on a rack.
So, in this case the isolation goes the other way too. It also prevents vibrations from a bass drum mounted cymbal making wooing sounds in the drum.

Protects the cymbals.
Because of the way the CRS is constructed, the rubber isolator will work just as much as a shock absorber when you hit the cymbal.
This has the potential to extend the life of your cymbals, especially for a heavy hitter.

CRS and percussion.
I one day got an e-mail form a well-known Swedish percussionist, Axel Fagerberg.
He saw the potential with the CRS to solve some problems he’d had with percussion.
So, I sent him some samples.
He said s common problem was tambourines making unwanted noise when attached to the same stand/holder as other instruments.
He also said that with the CRS he could get the same open sound in a wood block mounted on a stand as you get when you hold it in your hand.
He can now get great sound live also even when the instruments are mounted on stands.

The issues with vibrations don’t always occur because it depends on your soundings and their resonant frequency and what frequencies you are touching with your cymbals.
I wanted a solution that worked for all situations and don’t have to worry about it.
And my philosophy is to have less compromises to get the sound you want at all times.
I wanted the same sound as when you play a cymbal on your fingertip or holding a woodblock in your hand. No interference, just the clean pure sound of the instrument itself.

Jarle Johansen