8/23-24 Weekend sale, Synths etc.

[Mark Bliss]

For anyone interested:
(Synths: I haven't used these, so can't review them, etc......but have seen some good reviews on several of these.)
http://www.pluginboutique.com/sales?utm ... -246621669
If you scroll down theres some other things that may be of interest. I picked up iZotope Nectar Elements a while back, interesting and at that price....... Not much to lose. As usual the presets seem a little "heavy handed" but with a little tweaking I was getting some good sounds in my experiments.

[davefk]

Thanks for the info! I just bought Cakewalk Dimension Pro.......... Garritan Pocket Orchestra included and over 3GB data.

[Mark Bliss]

Interesting, I did not catch the included orchestra sounds.
Let us know what you think of the synth too!

[Mark Bliss]

Did a short review, all three of the Cakewalk synths.

Looks like Dimension Pro would be my choice by a mile. Sampler/hybrid synth I guess? with loads of useable sounds. Great price.

Z3ta looks to be more for the electronic genres (Big Yawn)

And Rapture might be useful for background pads/ambience or just making odd noises. (Another yawn)

[davefk]

Having now downloaded Dimension Pro, I can give a short review. The synth is sample based and uses the .flac format for its included wav samples. It also uses other sample formats such as Soundfont SFZ. I found the synth to be general midi (GM) orientated, and the sound set is very useful if you want traditional sounds such as strings, brass, pianos, flutes etc. But there are also a ton of useful ambient/pad samples. I have to also add that the sound of the synth is far superior to GM.

I was very impressed with the effects included and the reverb sounds soooo nice plus, the delays are synced to the DAW. The included Garritan sounds are OK, but very dry, adding the chamber reverb preset makes them come alive. The synth looks great, even though its a bit dated.

The sounds are very useful and there are tons of presets included. I could not see much in the way of editing tools in the synth beyond filters and EQ, but its something I'm going to get my teeth into after I've had a good listen to it.

For the money? Well, it's a bargain!

More in depth info here: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/may06/a ... ension.htm

Here is a brilliant free alternative SFZ Orchestra. Sonatina Symphonic Orchestra is a free orchestral sample library:

http://sso.mattiaswestlund.net/

Just load the .sfz files into the elements of the Dimension synth. If I can help you with this just let me know.

If you don't want to buy Dimension Pro, but would like to use the Sonatina Symphonic Orchestra, in Mixcraft, then you can load the .sfz files from this orchestra into this free sampler which is also a VST:

http://www.pluginboutique.com/product/5 ... 51-Zampler or this:

http://www.cakewalk.com/Products/SFZ

[davefk]

I have put together a quick demo of the Garritan Pocket Orchestra samples that came with Dimension Pro.

https://soundcloud.com/davlinste/morning

Credit for the original midi file goes to: http://www.mfiles.co.uk/midi-files.htm

[omtayslick]

$14.99 for Dimension Pro is a no brainer. This was priced at $99 just a few months ago.