Congrats Tls,

I know S7 synths supposedly 'rock and all' with funky Rapture, funky DropZone, and funky Z3ta ... 3 more cheezy synths that I'm sure I'll trash and forget by year-end. The real problem with cheezy midi's is they don't emulate guitar or piano enough to be leads, nor stringed instruments.

How can I expect to compose a lasting song with GM quality instruments and weird synths.

Man is designed to enjoy stringed instruments, horns, and vocals. DimPro gets 2/3 correct

DimPro Strings, Guitar, and Piano patches will remain in my songs as leads as precious few leads.

Now, if only my vocals could be redeemed, thus!

When you try out either GPO, make sure you really work with your reverb plugin before you make judgments. That's what sets the mood for whatever kind of instrument you want it to sound like. You can make a violin sound like a fiddle or a classical virtuoso just with reverb alone.

ORIGINAL: Philip
How can I expect to compose a lasting song with GM quality instruments and weird synths.

On one hand I agree with you. A few weeks ago I was poking around in the instrument samples on the Cakewalk site, since I was planning on buying Dimension at some point. Then I listened to the Rapture stuff and was kind of captivated by some of the sounds there. They reminded me of Pink Floyd and things like that, which made up quite a bit of the music of my youth. I actually ended up buying Rapture first, and have had fun playing with it. It's also nice for deconstructing some of those old sounds and updating them. But I have a lot of playing ahead of me before I can declare any kind of victory. Most of my songs are more along the "realistic" lines, but I think there's some room for the off-the-wall stuff, too.

My problem now is that I've been running Home Studio for a long time, and just upgraded to Sonar 6 in July (just missed the August cutoff - bummer). So I'm still getting used to those new toys. Then I went out and bought Rapture, and now am upgrading to Sonar 7 and Dim Pro at the same time. I'm going to be so busy learning and playing to create any music for a long time. (Oh yeah, and trying to squeeze home and work lives, too.) But it's tremendous fun, even if I'm only creating one- or two-minute snippets at a time and moving on to some other cool toy.

ORIGINAL: Philip
Man is designed to enjoy stringed instruments, horns, and vocals. DimPro gets 2/3 correct

That's good to hear, and I'm really looking forward to playing around with it. I've been limping along for years with mainly the sounds of my Yamaha S03. Some of them are actually half-decent, but most won't ever be mistaken for the real instruments. Sound fonts have been helpful in bridging the gap in a limited way, but the things that I'm seeing in Dimension really have me worked up.

ORIGINAL: Philip
Now, if only my vocals could be redeemed, thus!

You and me both, brother, you and me both. I keep trying to convince my wife to record some stuff, because she has a nice voice. But she hates to hear herself on recordings, so I'm counting on future generations of things like V-Vocal and the virtual singers to redeem me.

To be honest with God, myself, and others: Once I hum a few melodies worth pouring my heart (and/or lyrics) the rest is involves Piano-Chord-Theory

I'm no virtuoso, piano-roll sequencing alone redeems everything for me; and requires 'honest instruments' to balance chord-notes, harmonize, and symphonize. Else I oft-choke the original melody with cheezy-half-baked-artificial-sounding stuff.

I love S-7 and suppose to need it more as Vista becomes viable one day; though HS6XL was perfect; Rapture makes *cool* sounds like 'Pink-Floyd' ... my wife and children seem to love melody and soft-rock better. I use "S-7 funky-synths" strictly as preludes to capture interest before the melody and song 'clears in' ... hopefully with quality-orchestra chords and notes.

OFF TOPIC:
For Vocals probably my own below average voice will oft be the best vocal lead(s) ... where vocal leads are indicated (IMHO), at least in the beginning.

There's a lot of ways to redeem a bad vocal to be an average or better. I just bought Max Baxter's "The Rock and Roll Singer's Survival Manual" which is touted as a 'bible' for many. It helped me slightly.

But, I've learned to achieve 'high-notes' by breaking posture-rules and singing upward (toward Heaven if you will) ... hands out-stretched and/or lifted up (high). Hyper-dramatic 'praise-mode' works wonders for vocals; Max Baxter speaks more of breathing and dieting than inspiring and glorifiying.

Wow! I guess I would have to say, from all of the posts, that maybe, perhaps, the Garritan Pocket Orchestra may not be all that it's cracked up to be. Consequently, I wonder what would be the most inexpensive alternative. Garritan PERSONAL Orchestra or maybe some other software developer. I was just hoping to use it as a TTS-1 substiture, only with higher realism and quality.

Digi:

IMHO, DimPro (you might be able to finangle an upgrade deal for ($1-200) (and your Quad Core)

... is all you need to trash TTS-1 forever if using XP-32. If I recall, TTS-1 doesn't support ACT nor automation! Ouch!

GPO DimPro for XP-32 is a reasonable standard for the norm here.

In your Vista config. it may NOT be; call CW tech-support specifically to be sure!

If you thoroughly tested DimLE in Vista (eg. playing 5 instruments simultaneously without freezing tracks) and your not crashing, DimPro may be ideal.

Or seriously consider dual boot with XP-32 and DimPro ... till Vista really works. (You may need a local geek to help you dual boot to XP)

'Hope this helps.

ORIGINAL: Philip
... is all you need to trash TTS-1 forever

The nice thing about the TTS-1 is that you only need on instance of it to play several instruments (up to 16). Dim LE only let's you play one instrument, so if you want an orchestra you will have to load Dim LE for each and every instrument. I don't like that... Is this the same with Dim Pro...?

ORIGINAL: digimidi

Wow! I guess I would have to say, from all of the posts, that maybe, perhaps, the Garritan Pocket Orchestra may not be all that it's cracked up to be. Consequently, I wonder what would be the most inexpensive alternative. Garritan PERSONAL Orchestra or maybe some other software developer. I was just hoping to use it as a TTS-1 substiture, only with higher realism and quality.

GPO opts for realism by design. If you expect to get a great sound by just pressing a key on your controller, then you'll be disappointed. Proper use of the Mod wheel to mimic the actual friction and tension of the bow moving across the strings is crucial. The pressure of the bow against the strings is never static. It is constantly changing. GPO is an instrument you must learn to "play". Put a violin in the hands of a novice and it sounds like crap. Put it in the hands of an accomplished violinist and it springs to life.

The poor looping issue many find in GPO is actually an emulation of the change of bow direction. If you learn to play the GPO using the Mod wheel to mimic the actual back and forth movement and tension of the bow, in other words as you would play an actual violin, I think many of you naysayers will be pleasantly surprised.

Garritan Pocket Orchestra is an orchestral sample library with 85 different articulations of string, woodwind, brass and percussion instruments and they are programmed to respond expressively to data from a midi keyboard. The sounds can be mixed, panned, and reverb added to simulate different sized ensembles performing in different acoustic environments.

I think Cakewalk TTS has a lot of good capabilities. It has 128 sampled 16 bit preset instruments, plus there are about 30 synthesis parameters that can be used to create new sounds with the underlying samples, and these parameters can also be recorded in real time using midi continuous controller data. Plus 10 different drum kits.

Both these instruments have some really great capabilities that can be uncovered if you're willing to spend some time working with them, but they can't always match some of the sounds from a 24-32 bit sampler like dimension pro that comes with a huge library of ready made multisampled sounds.

ORIGINAL: Philip
... is all you need to trash TTS-1 forever

The nice thing about the TTS-1 is that you only need on instance of it to play several instruments (up to 16). Dim LE only let's you play one instrument, so if you want an orchestra you will have to load Dim LE for each and every instrument. I don't like that... Is this the same with Dim Pro...?

Hellogoodbye,
Maybe I was a bit rash about TTS

A month ago I used TTS-1 for your reason (with 16 MIDI tracks in a track folder); now I'm trying to limit my orchestral palette by using 4+ instances of DimPro and GS, GM, GM2, and other soundfonts from my FantomX (below)

(DimLE didn't have good piano, sax, nor guitar patches (IMHO))

But I'm wrong about TTS being "trashed forever". I may peradventure use it for consolidating funky GM midi patches (gunshot, rain, seashore, etc.)