Using Cakewalk Dimension Pro with REX Files

Dimension Pro isn’t just about sample playback—it’s also a quad REX file player

By Craig Anderton

Although Cakewalk's cross-platform Dimension Pro is known primarily as a sample-playback synthesizer, it can also load up to four REX files—for example drums, percussion, bass, and rhythm guitar to create a rhythm section. You can trigger them from MIDI files for conventional playback, alter the timing and positioning of the MIDI notes to create entirely different loops, or improvise by playing different slices in real time from a keyboard.

This technique works with Dimension Pro in stand-alone mode or when inserted as a virtual instrument within a host. To start from scratch, click on Dimension Pro’s Program Handling button (to the right of the program selection field), and choose “Initialize Program.” Next, click on the Options button to the right of the Program Handling button, and select “Set Program as Multitimbral” (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1: With multitimbral operation, each REX file can be controlled over its own MIDI channel.

Select one of the four Element edit buttons E1 - E4, then drag a REX file into the Element’s “Load Multisample” window. If you're using Dimension Pro with Sonar, you can drag REX files in directly from Sonar’s browser (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2: Drag REX files into Dimension Pro from the desktop or with Sonar, from its browser.

You can also load a file into an Element by right-clicking on the Element edit button and choosing Load Element, or clicking in the Load Multisample window and navigate to the REX file you want to open.

A Note symbol (eighth note tied with 16th note) appears toward the right of the Load Multisample window. This represents the MIDI file whose notes trigger the slices that replay the REX file. Drag the note symbol into a MIDI track driving Dim Pro to trigger the REX file slices (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3: Each note in the MIDI file triggers a different slice in the REX file. The lowest pitch triggers the first slice, the highest pitch triggers the last slice.

On your keyboard, C3 (colored red in Fig. 4) plays back the entire REX file. If you lift your finger off the key, the file stops playing; if you hold your finger on the key, the file plays through to the end but does not loop. To transpose the file pitch (yet retain a constant tempo), play over the range of C2 to B3 (colored blue).

Fig. 4: Different parts of the keyboard play back the REX file in different ways.

Starting upward from C4, the keyboard keys play individual REX slices. This lets you improvise in real time to create all kinds of variations on the original loop. You can also edit in your DAW's MIDI track by altering the note pitches, start times, and durations to change how the REX file plays back. Note that using Dim Pro’s “Transpose” parameter can, if needed, transpose the REX file’s root note.

You can similarly load up the other elements and drag the REX files’ data into other tracks (Fig. 5), but remember to assign these to the correct channels—channel 2 drives Element 2, channel 3 drives Element 3, and channel 4 drives Element 4.

Fig. 5: Four MIDI files loaded into Sonar. Each track triggers the REX file slices in a different Element.

Also note that you can automate volume, panning, and other parameters within Dimension Pro if you want to “remix” the REX files. And here’s one final tip: although the DSP (LoFi, Filter, Drive, EQ, etc.) and FX affect the entire file, envelopes affect each slice. For example, you can set a short, percussive decay for each slice using the Amplitude envelope.

  Craig Anderton is Editor Emeritus of Harmony Central. He has played on, mixed, or produced over 20 major label releases (as well as mastered over a hundred tracks for various musicians), and written over a thousand articles for magazines like Guitar Player, Keyboard, Sound on Sound (UK), and Sound + Recording (Germany). He has also lectured on technology and the arts in 38 states, 10 countries, and three languages.