I am looking for a software replacement for my Roland JV 1080. Without a demo, it's harder for me to evaluate Dimention Pro. The audio samples sound OK (but they are now blowing me away). What are your thoughts on Dimpro as a replacement for a hardware synth such as the JV 1080 or even Korg Trinity.
If your JV1080 is unexpanded, it is a tough call to say Dimension will replace it. It depends on your style of music, workflow and the type of sounds you like. It probably would be a good replacement for some people.
If your JV1080 is expanded, Dimension will not neccesarily replace the JV1080.
The JV1080 is a great instrument when expanded. The MB count is not as high but Roland is the company for highly playable sounds. I'm talking about, how easily sounds can fit in a mix, punchiness etc.
Dimension is pretty close though and does have some things it does better than the JV1080 notably more realistic individual orchestra sounds, but not neccesarily great string combination sounds that are pretty common in hardware synths. Dimension biggest downfall is Rhodes and Brass section sounds.
Also Dimension patches are not as instantly accesable as a Roland JV1080, theres usually a small bit of load time (not complaining about the interface though Dimension has one of the most easily accesable interfaces here, soft Romplers in general are just slower than hardware because sound have to be loaded from hard drive).
I do think though with the proper Sfz libraries in addition to Dimension, (maybe even Rapture, additional soft synth/sampler in areas where dimension falls short), Dimension would blow the Jv1080 through the roof.
post edited by jlgrimes - 2006/12/06 14:47:47