KVR Audio

Skorpius · Post by **Skorpius** » Mon May 20, 2013 10:56 pm

I've only just discovered that Cakewalk are selling Dimension Pro for only 99 $:

http://www.store.cakewalk.com/b2cus/cat ... egoryID=39

I'd like to know your general opinions on the quality of the integrated sounds and the sounds of the expansion packs which are also sold at relatively low prices at the moment.

Also, since Dimension Pro has been around for several years, I'm wondering whether its sounds are outdated, i.e. can't compete with the sounds of "modern" samplers/romplers like Komplete 8/9 etc.

What interests me in particular is the "Dimension Pro Expansion Pack 1". This expansion includes a Hammond B3 emulation, which Cakewalk describes as follows: "Each component of the original organ, including all drawbar levels, percussion level, keyclick, the rotary speaker, drive, and cabinet simulator were precisely crafted to recreate all characteristics of this legendary instrument."

Can anyone confirm the quality of this B3 emulation, or possibly provide us with a few sound examples? I wasn't able to find any.

tranel · Post by **tranel** » Tue May 21, 2013 1:30 am

Skorpius wrote:I've only just discovered that Cakewalk are selling Dimension Pro for only 99 $:

http://www.store.cakewalk.com/b2cus/cat ... egoryID=39

I'd like to know your general opinions on the quality of the integrated sounds and the sounds of the expansion packs which are also sold at relatively low prices at the moment.

Also, since Dimension Pro has been around for several years, I'm wondering whether its sounds are outdated, i.e. can't compete with the sounds of "modern" samplers/romplers like Komplete 8/9 etc.

What interests me in particular is the "Dimension Pro Expansion Pack 1". This expansion includes a Hammond B3 emulation, which Cakewalk describes as follows: "Each component of the original organ, including all drawbar levels, percussion level, keyclick, the rotary speaker, drive, and cabinet simulator were precisely crafted to recreate all characteristics of this legendary instrument."

Can anyone confirm the quality of this B3 emulation, or possibly provide us with a few sound examples? I wasn't able to find any.

I have dimension pro. The synth engine is good, but for some reason it is not one of those synths that inspire tweaking and editing. Something about the GUI maybe.

Patch browsing is clunky, have to use a separate window containing a windows-looking folder tree. Ugh.

Sorry, I can't really help you with the quality of the Hammond. But overall no the sounds are not as good as what you will get from kontakt. Kontakt is waaay more expressive.

But the biggest reason not to buy Cakewalk is that they don't allow you to resell the plugin if you're not happy, and they don't give refunds either.

yessongs · Post by **yessongs** » Tue May 21, 2013 2:05 am

Dimension pro along with Z3ta True Amber and Rapture are included with Sonar x2. I have x1 and when I get x2 my version of rapture is going to upgrade to the full version from the le version.

If your using another DAW or making do with Reaper then you can certainly record but Sonar has the best additional plugins for effects and with the aforementioned synths being included it is a great package one I would advise you to consider if your in need of a DAW as well as a lot of the trimmings. Its really quite a good package.

I would not recommend DIM pro over the more thorough package that Komplete provides which I am preparing to obtain in the coming months.

Synthmaster has some great organ patches in it which are actually very much more capable as my taste goes the art rock and the prog rock preset packs by Nori would be required to obtain these patches and they are worth it plus synthmaster is as inexpensive as Dim pro which I love for some things but it is not as capable as SM which provides so much more in the way of synth methodology and it is always being developed while dim pro is looking like its going to stay the way it is.

For a first synth it may not look pretty and or be marketed as slickly but its sound is very much top notch and for the money nothing else comes close to covering as much territory. From pads to leads and organs even ethnic tones via Nori's sounds of the world. Depending on what kind of sounds you like it may be the only synth you need. Demo it and listen to the sample tunes on their sound cloud page and you will know it is the best option for a first synth,

Moe Shinola · Post by **Moe Shinola** » Tue May 21, 2013 2:55 am

I use Dim Pro for all my real instrument sounds(except my own guitar playing & Session Drummer 3), but mostly I use the E-Mu collection from digitalsoundfactory.com($99.00). The only thing I use from the included sounds are acoustic & electric basses, which are very good. I was dismayed at first when I discovered the basses are out of tune right from the box, but you can easily adjust this, by raising the pitch about 15-19 cents(by adjusting Tune in the top left window). Ditto Tranel about the patch browsing, pretty clunky. Dim Pro is relatively inexpensive for a general rompler, I think, but that may be it's best selling point.

planetearth · Post by **planetearth** » Tue May 21, 2013 3:08 am

I believe I have that expansion pack. If you know the name of the patch, I'll post a sample for you.

Dimension Pro's forté isn't exactly the "bread-and-butter" sounds, and I don't recall a patch called "Hammond B-3", though there are several organ patches.

Other than that, I'd have to echo pretty much everything everyone else has said about it. Some interesting--even "cool"--sounds, but not nearly as expressive as Kontakt (which I also have). Then again, it's not meant to compete with Kontakt, and it's a fraction of Kontakt's cost.

Steve

scook · Post by **scook** » Tue May 21, 2013 3:25 am

The Virtual B3 patches are in the patch browser under "Expansion Pack 1" > Organs

vata44 · Post by **vata44** » Tue May 21, 2013 3:34 am

I love it, but the preset browser is a pain the ass. I find the sounds amazing and with a great depth. It is difficult to tweak and make my own presets, but there is something about the sound I really enjoy.

I would LOVE them to make a V2 with a new GUI, but same concept and sound engine.

manandmusic · Post by **manandmusic** » Tue May 21, 2013 3:37 am

Skorpius wrote:What interests me in particular is the "Dimension Pro Expansion Pack 1". This expansion includes a Hammond B3 emulation, which Cakewalk describes as follows: "Each component of the original organ, including all drawbar levels, percussion level, keyclick, the rotary speaker, drive, and cabinet simulator were precisely crafted to recreate all characteristics of this legendary instrument."

Can anyone confirm the quality of this B3 emulation, or possibly provide us with a few sound examples? I wasn't able to find any.

The sound quality of this emulation is very fine. Virtual B3 in the Expansion Pack 1 contains 53 programs with different and "B3-typical" settings, called "Jimmy, Keith, Clicky ...". In addition there are 27 "Hammond"-programs in the main folder 09 - Organs. But you can't change the sounds as comprehensive as in Kontakt's Vintage Organs or in GSi's VB3.

softska · Post by **softska** » Tue May 21, 2013 3:42 am

Sounds are fine like many others have said, just hate the preset browser and most presets are drowned in reverb

scook · Post by **scook** » Tue May 21, 2013 3:55 am

DimPro patches can be loaded directly from a Windows directory by drag and drop completely avoiding the patch browser.

mumpcake · Post by **mumpcake** » Tue May 21, 2013 4:08 am

In the Virtual B3 directory, a lot of the knobs are re-mapped, emulating the drawbars. Unfortunately they don't relabel the knobs, so you don't quite know which one controls the "drawbar". Furthermore, there is no rotary speaker effect available.

digitalboytn · Post by **digitalboytn** » Tue May 21, 2013 4:34 am

I like Dimension Pro and I use it as a virtual "rompler"...

It has a great sound engine and it really opens up when you start plugging your own sfz files into it...

Having 4 layers give you a huge number of sonic possibilities...

I prefer using Rapture because of the multi mode oscillators,but Dimension Pro still gets used as a daily workhorse...

I only use Kontakt for the big libraries these days because Rapture and Dimension
Pro have more attitude and they are more flexible for me

Mister Natural · Post by **Mister Natural** » Tue May 21, 2013 5:10 am

love DimPro here - it's on every one of my tracks in some form or another. I find that the instrument "sit in the mix" very nicely.

heck; it's worth purchasing just for the multiple & excellent ePiano emulations alone. I've also been delighted with the Garritan string sections and the upright bass. I haven't played with the B3 setings at all but would trust them to be of the same quality as the above-mentioned instruments.

rifftrax · Post by **rifftrax** » Tue May 21, 2013 5:45 am

Sound engine/synthesis definitely sounds good. The resampling is very high quality. But tons of the patches are rather lame sounding. It may be what you're looking for but honestly I'd recommend plugsound pro waaaay before I would recommend dimension pro.

yessongs · Post by **yessongs** » Tue May 21, 2013 6:07 am

its playback engine is very clean and free of problem aliasing. It also can load the sonatina symphonic orchestra and I just downloaded that for my new computer which it is a free sfz collection you can find here
http://sso.mattiaswestlund.net/download.html

not sure how good this is but as a SFZ playback unit it should do it nice enough now I just need to figure out how to use it.

Your opinions on Cakewalk Dimension Pro