which project 5 version?

The biggest diff I can come up with off hand is V2 comes with Dimension while V2.5 comes with DimLe - a step down. If you have DimPro or plan to upgrade to it, V2.5 is the better deal. If not, you'll have to decide if a programable Dim is better for your purposes than the preset DimLe.

The only advantage to buying the boxed 2.0 is the instruments bundled with it. Version 2.5 only comes with three (Dim LE, Velocity, nPulse). V2.0 swaps the original (pre "Pro" Dimension) for LE and also gives you PSYN II, Cyclone, and DS864.

what if one bought the downloable 2.5 and then upgraded to the full version of Dim Pro
is that still less than the full price for 2.0 and the free upgrade to 2.5

(that route would imply less interest in nPulse and Velocity)

but a large array of useful sounds

so that would depend on your opinion of nPulse and Velocity

no doubt about how useful Dim Pro can be


how is the weather in Wales this time of year? my Welsh ancestors came over in 1850's - 1870's to central Ohio -- Evans, Thomas and Edwards
as flat as that part of Ohio is must have been quite a change

What part of Wales did your ancestors hail from then? Have you ever visited?

My folks went over with a choir trip two years ago (I'll have to ask them where their travels took them - I forget) and were surprised to see something of a Welsh stronghold. They even met a preacher who could speak a little of the language! My mother's got pictures of gravestones with Welsh poetry and memoriams, which really moved her, that people had traveled that far, but still treasured their roots.
Amazing.

We even had a couple visit the studios only last week from the states, who also managed to speak a little Welsh! It never ceases to amaze me how havily one's roots can affect them.

my great grandfather was circuit riding Welsh speaking minister from Kansas City to the miners in Pennsylvania

in a pretty typical turn of events, his first wife died and he remarried another who spoke the language, but to spite her stepmotherly ways, the offspring quit speaking Welsh around her and eventually altogether. My family settled around Lima and Newark, Ohio -- mostly open farm country.

It was only this year that I learned that my Welsh ancestors were in this country prior to the Civil War. My grandfather came over to attend Yale Divinity school in the 1870's. I should ask my cousin, the source of my new family knowledge, what part of Wales our family is from. I've never been to Wales. Though those that know tell me my dark and brooding ways come from the Welsh parts of the family. see the rain and cold and proclivity for staring into a fire for hours.

Though those that know tell me my dark and brooding ways come from the Welsh parts of the family. see the rain and cold and proclivity for staring into a fire for hours.

Lol, I think Bill Bailey (popular surreal UK comedian) got it most correct when he said the Welsh live in an almost pure sense of apathy towards anything!

"What's this, Jones, we need a national dish, what for?
I dunno, Jones, it's for other people or something, to mark us out as different. What can you make?
Meh, I can't be arsed to be honest, how's about cheese on toast?"
(Cheese on toast, as pathetic as it may be in it's lack of grandeur, is really, actually our national dish, in the same way that Pasta or Spag Bol is italian, Sushi is Japanese etc! - Then again, I suppose Pizza is really just glorified cheese on toast with added bits anyway!)

You need rapture too if you dont already have it.

then you need all of the www.galbanum.com stuff.
then you need to download all of the free XP packs for both rapture and D-pro.

then you need to go to www.patcharena.com for more XP packs, and skins for D-pro

lets not forget a drum sampler synth like RMV or battery4 (5?)

and then you need....

Excuse my ignorance, but what is an XP pack?

As for drum synths, I've already got BFD, which is my fave for acoustic drums, and Reason, and probably around 15 years worth of drum and percussion sample collecting/recording.

I'm definitely not a preset guy, give me an un-patched, fully reset mog modular over something like a Triton, anyday! Part of the fun is just making sounds

Hmm, I was checking out the Galbanum stuff whilst I was typing this, and to be honest, that sounds very lightweight for my tastes. I like it hard and crunchy.
cheers for the suggestions though.

honestly, I wouldn't go for the boxed version.

I think dimension Pro it worth buying. but the other synths included in P5 are in my opinion not as good as what you can get with freewares, or with Reason since you have it.

I bought the boxed version of P5 bundled with DimPro for 280€ here in france (that is 230€ for P5, and half price on DimPro, so 50 bucks instead of 100). but the download version was not out at the time.

if I had to choose now, I'd go for the download version*, and use the saved money for third party synths/samplers/whatever

because ever since I've had P5v2, I haven't used Dimension, Cyclone, DS864 Velocity or Npulse at all. I did a song with PsynII, just for fun, but that's all I used from P5's bundled synths.
that doesn't mean they're not good or that the box version is not worth it, I just haven't found a use for those synths.

XP packs are expansion packs for dimension Pro. Cakewalk released two free expansion packs for dimension pro exclusively (although you can use them in dimLe).

Have you already tried rewiring Reason in P5? if you enjoy the sound you get from reason, if you like its drum sampler and synths better than velocity, psyn and cyclone, there's definetely no point buying the box version of P5, especially if you intend to buy dimension Pro as well.
Upgrading dimension Pro from dimension Le costs 94£ on the cakewalk website, which is roughly the price difference between the box and the download version of P5. With the box version, you'd still have to pay 59£ more to upgrade from dimension to dimension pro.


*actually, this is a lie, I wouldn't buy the download version, nor the box version, I'd buy ableton Live, but that's definetely off topic

synths will just show up at the door

I wish a minimoog could show up at my door...