Universal Audio Emulation of the Roland Dimension D

The UAD emulation of the Roland Dimension D continues to be one of the most popular goto plugs for almost every session we do.

Having owned the original for years before its untimely death, I was thrilled when Universal Audio decided to emulate this wonderful device and was amazed at the detail and nuance of the plugin. It was everything that I had grown to know and love about this box.

There really isn’t anything else quite like it, although UA’s emulation of the CE-1 is spot on, the Dimension D has a character all it’s own where width and space in the stereo field is concerned. From subtle widening of acoustic guitar tracks to adding width to a background vocal buss, the Dimension D is always my first choice. These are just a few of the very many uses of this wonderful effect.

The stereo / mono switch allows you to place an instrument specifically in the stereo field or spread it across the field with incredible precision and fullness. One our original unit, this switch was located on the back which was always kind of a pain if the unit was rack mounted. UA has thoughtfully relocate this to the front. The four selector switches allow you to choose incrementally greater amounts of the chorus/spread and the off switch allows you to bypass the effect but, unlike the power switch, still retains the subtle ’color’ of this wonderful effect.

The four switches might seem overly simplistic at first until you realize that by holding the shift key while clicking the switches allows combinations of the four settings.

The Dimension D is no doubt a subtle effect and is more in the category of sweetening a track rather than hitting it over the head. But it can be the reason that a track just works more often than many other kinds of effects.
The D has far more creative uses than could ever be described here but place across a steel guitar track for example, is sheer audio bliss.

S. Hartwell
Featherlight Studio