Windows stalwart Cakewalk has in fact gone cross-platform (Windows VSTi/DirectX and Mac AU/VSTi). So, why’d they do it? Apparently, they wanted to unleash this serious synth monster on two platforms: think two DVDs, 1500+ sound programs, major layering and easy editing and morphing. More details from Cakewalk after the jump, and I’ll have more after I get to meet with Cakewalk themselves.
The skinny:
Dimension Pro is the synth from Cakewalk’s Project5 synth, only now made “Pro” by the addition of two DVDs of content. It’s a multi-engine sampling instrument, with virtual analog and physical modeling synthesis built in.
The specs:
1500 sounds on two DVDs with multi-samples and grooves (grooves can be manipulated with MIDI)
Multiple sound capabilities: sample playback, virtual analog, physically-modeled components
Graphical editing of envelope generators and LFOs
Mix/layer 4 stereo parts per program (serious layering, folks)
Multi-stage effects and filters
MIDI mapping via the Control Matrix for live performance
Morph sounds with the Vector Mixer
And, really, quite a lot more. I’ll check it out at AES, but you can check it out at Cakewalk. I want to get to play with this thing before I make any final judgment — but this is definitely high on my list of synths to play with!
CDM 5 Words: Serious synth cross-platform surprise.
It's obviously a new version of the good old z3ta+ by rgc:audio wich was a very nice wavtable synth.
Cool that they go cross-platform !
Dimension is nothing to do with z3ta, other than that it's lead developer was Rene who also developed z3ta.
Dimension is a sample based synth, z3ta is a more classic (but powerful) substractive synth.
I'm hoping if sales of DimPro are good that Cakewalk will devote resources to a Mac version of z3ta.
z3ta+ was a wavetable synth. That's what you call "sample based", i guess.
And the layout of the DimPro is so close to the z3ta one's i hardly think it's that different…
Any similarity is entirely coincidental as far as I know. (Well, not entirely — same developer, as another guest points out.)
But it's not z3ta, and you might well see a new Mac version of z3ta.