A Whole Other Dimension (Pro)!

You know, it must be some kind of adventure to be ice fishing, snowboarding and wearing coats down in Hell. I mean, it must have frozen over sometime in the past year or so. First, Apple announced it was going to beging switching to Intel processors, now Cakewalk (Twelve Tone Systems, Boston, MA) has released its first-ever product for Apple platform studios. I'm talking about Dimension Pro, the new soft sampler and synth now available for OS X.

Highlights of the new plug-in virtual instrument include:
*Mac formats: AU, VSTi
*Two DVDs of professionally produced multi-samples and grooves
*Over 1500 sound programs
*Mix and layer up to 4 stereo parts per program
*Easy editing of graphical envelope generators and LFOs
*Multi-stage effects sections and filters deliver production ready sound
*Vector Mixer for real-time sound morphing
*Drag-and-drop MIDI into host for groove manipulation

Installation in my PowerBook G4 1.25 (with 2GB RAM, stock Superdrive) was easy, but quite time consuming, taking well over an hour to get the entire massive library of sounds into my drive. It took considerably less time on my G5 Dual 2GHz (with 5GB RAM and an upgrading dual-layer high-speed Superdrive), taking about 25 minutes from start to finish.

The software needs to be registered, which happens easily enough when you launch a DAW and it scans for new plug-ins. This is not a stand-alone virtual instrument and is only used as a plug-in with VST/AU compatible DAW software. However, I found it worked wonderfully even on my PowerBook running under Ugly VSTi Interface X b03, a nifty free program that lets you run VST instruments or plug-ins in a single instance and use them with Pro Tools. I tested it with Pro Tools M-Powered and it ran fine.

Because more of my work is done with VSTi or AU-supporting DAW applications, the lack of Pro Tools compatibility didn't bother me too much, but it will be nice when it is supported, which Cakewalk says to stay tuned for in the future. Just remember folks, where there is demand, there is usually supply. And frankly, this new release from Cakewalk for OS X is worth demanding for Pro Tools users. First of all, the sounds that come with it are top-quality samples. I am amazed at some of the patches, and the assortment provided with the release is equally impressive. Cakewalk's Dimension Pro does not skimp of the included library. It's not only plentiful, it sounds great and even includes some surpises, such as some female vocals samples that frankly had me considering a cold shower!

Dimension Pro is rich in editing and sound generation capabilities in addition to be a great sample player for MIDI instruments. Editing customize sounds or creating new ones using the well-thought-out interface is a breeze. Dimension Pro has a pretty intelligent file browsing and loading system for sounds and banks, which I appreciate in any sampler instrument. There is nothing worse on one of these kind of products than spending ten minutes trying to figure out where the heck to load up sounds because of some overly-designed interface. That's not an issue with Dimension Pro. It's at the top of the screen and required nothing but common sense to beging using it right away. Thanks, Cakewalk!

Here's something else that impressed me. The CPU load was extremely low for this kind of product. I had six instances of Dimemsion Pro running in Nuendo with six different hi-rez samples going at once in a five minute song (well, maybe I should call it a song, that's being generous), I put together just to test the waters. There was nary a bump in CPU usage, which virtual instruments are often known to hog a bit, especially with large samples running. I don't know how you do that, but keep doing it, please.

Here's the bottom line on this program. Dimension Pro, retail $359US but a "street price of $249," is a bargain for the library of sounds included on the two DVDs alone. When you throw in that it has a low-impact, easy-to-use engine and interface, it's a steal. It sounds great, won't break the bank or your Mac. Dimension Pro is worthy of our highest rating at five stars. I have no hesitation in suggesting this product to friends or readers or anyone else. It will become a go-to-product when you are looking to create lush soundscapes, realistic effects, authentic-sounding orchestras and other instruments, and you'll really enjoy using it. Congratulations to Cakewalk on its first OS X release. Now, if you can get that Sonar application ported over, well..... anyway, we're waiting!