Review of DSF/Cakewalk's Xtreme Lead 1 Software
hope you enjoy.
The Xtreme Lead 1 (as many might recognize) was one of the many famous offererings by EMU in the past 2 decades epitomizing the idea of an all-rounder hardware rack workstation. It was made in 2000 and has been used by such artists as the Crystal Method (well known for their work in deep synth programming and being probably just plain crazy about synthesizers in general). This would make sense seeing as (at the time) it contained a pretty generous 32mb of stabs, vox samples, pads, drum kits, and (of course) leads. Like most EMU products (ranging from the EMU Proteus 1 [which I have] to their absolutely extraordinary-value audio interfaces [have one of those too], software samplers [had one of those], and even monitors [not quite yet]), the quality of the in-built sounds in the Xtreme Lead 1 is probably something that other companies only tried to emulate (no pun intended - sorry).
The only problem is that (for the most part) the old EMU hardware units are getting harder to find and they usually still cost upwards of $200. It's fortunate in this case that there is actually a company (the owner of which worked for EMU for 20 years) who decided to build a website where he could offer the original sounds of almost every single one of these types of units in the sf2 format for way less then they could be had otherwise. The site is
www.digitalsoundfactory.com - you'll find that they not only offer the entire sound contents of 12 different Proteus units, 872 instruments from the Emax series, many instruments from the ESI-32 (or 'Emax III') and E4 but even over 200mb in free sounds you can download to test out a variety of the instruments themselves. It should be noted that Digital Sound Factory has
exclusive lisence to every single one of these libraries and even the sessions that were never released commerically in any form. That means the only way you can legitimately obtain these sounds apart from buying the actual units themselves is to get them directly from him at his site or through Cakewalk who is also featuring a package of the units in both mailable and downloadable forms. The set featured on the front of their "Instruments and Effects" is an slightly expanded version featuring not only the basic sfz files but also programs native to the dimension pro and le format (appropriately named ".prog"s).
The Xtreme Lead 1 for dimension pro in particular I'll be taking a look at. Everything is organized in the sound banks that are opened for dimension pro much the same as it might have been for the original unit (I really don't know for sure, seeing as that I don't have the original unit) - making it very accessible.
There's ample selection in each of the categories (the organ one is the exception here). My favorite area tends to be the effects - it's a good starting point for a creative idea. The hits are also recommended as a starting point (IMO) but I've always had a soft spot for those one shot epiano chords and such (there a really good patch in there for that style in particular).
What is in the smaller organ section is very very good though. I had already started with something else in mind when doing the demonstration songs that I list at the end so I left those out this time through.
As tempting as vox samples are, I decided to start with the air cateogy and though it's not as replete as the synths (being that this is the Xtreme Lead) many of the patches sound extraordinarily well-balanced. I know that finding a pad that's not too thin or too thick is like trying to find my wallet in three weeks worth of laundry so this was nice. In fact - most every sound tends to sit well with each of the other instruments so a complicated mix is not such a bother. Most of the equalization that I did within dimension pro while putting instruments together was purely for effect.
Another thing that usually kills me about software samplers or synthesizers are the amplitude envelopes. Having a preset that cuts to a dead 0 at the release of the key when it would obviously benefit from at least a tiny half second release just kills me. Having a squarewave shaped ASR works when you are going for completely quirky or with some buzzy bass or lead that you want to sound totally abrupt but when I hear some soothing ambient sample cut off like that it just makes me wonder what I would ever use such a thing for. I mean, it's not like it's the biggest pain in the world to manually adjust envelopes but I don't want to have to feel like I'm "correcting" the presets all the time.
Xtreme Lead 1 spares me this hassle, thankfully and while there are still patches that I knew would sound better with longer releases (or attacks) it wasn't killing my creativity.
Many of the insturments make use of dimension sound sculpting options, which provide functionality over the already very capable sfz format. The patches are already programmed more than suffeciently well so these act as 'icing'. Being that dimension leaves such a small footprint (CPU-wise) and the banks tend to be so compact and versatile - it makes these a perfect choice for someone with limited computing power and ram. I think I crammed 20 or so of these units with every single fx enabled that I could before my 3 ghz (single core) pentium started to take a hit. That was me playing a whole bunch of chords in each instance as well. I wasn't doing little one-note background doubling.
The drumkits especially were fun. I like how EMU always throws in the extra bass or sub at the ends of the keyboard range so you can jam without having to open two instruments. I made a tiny little example of how effective this can prove.
Drum Sample (
http://www.box.net/shared/rx5r32obkm )
That loop (8 measures looped once) was made with only one drumkit patch in Xtreme Lead.
Of course the synths were the main part of the show. I suppose this wasn't exactly very "professional" for doing a review on my part but I didn't spend nearly as much time with the 'synths' (per say) as I did the rest. I think I just got caught up with the other instruments and I ran out of time. I wanted to make sure that this review could somewhat follow Cakewalk's production of the sample set (which was recently). The synths that I messed around with were really good though and seemed (in many cases) excellent emulations of classic analogue models. I've never been very good with the really synthy leads and that's probably the thing that I'll start working at now that I have this set of sounds. I've always sucked with a mod wheel, pitch shifter and filter tweaks so I've been afraid to try to go to jam sessions with anything but a piano or soft pad arrangement in front of me. I should stop being lazy and work on this.
Finally (I don't know if it's really the moment you've all been waiting for - that would be pretentious of me), here are the two demonstration songs I put together to really show what could (not should,
could) be done with the software based on the EMU banks. The first song uses no external processing aside from that within dimension pro and a limiter. The second song I used external processing. Both use only patches (some modified, some not) from the Xtreme Lead 1 module for dimension pro.
1st Xtreme Lead 1 Demo (native effects only)
http://www.box.net/shared/d71dlsfd0k 2nd Xtreme Lead 1 Demo (w/external fx processing)
http://www.box.net/shared/cx8lv1brei You may notice the second file is a little abstract. That's just me trying to be creative - I may not have succeeded in this aspect but I still think the sounds are cool.
In all - I would definitely recommend this bank to anyone jealous of their friend with the actual hardware unit, any gear head who likes really sweet leads and really anyone who knows how valuable a deal it is to get the incredible programming of numerous talented EMU engineers who designed this set when it originally came out. Oh, I forgot about the people with crappy computers. Them too. Join the club.
- Josh Hunsaker