I'm amazed Cakewalk gave Rapture away with Sonar X2.. Rapture is:

I'm amazed Cakewalk gave Rapture away with Sonar X2..
 
So was I as I had recently took up the offer for the upgrade from the LE version
 
Grum.

I upgraded a couple of years ago and it's one of my most used synths. It annoyed me at the time that I hadn't upgraded sooner I absolutely love it! I was a little surprised that it came bundled now but like you say, perhaps there's a number two coming. That would be interesting!

Comes a time when they figure that just about every one who is going to buy full price it already has it. Then the no brainer deals and special bundles start appearing. (look at IK Multimedia!)

Yeah, I'm not complaining I'm really happy I have it. The sound it makes is really convincing and the bass sounds are really punchy. It's a gem;)

@ Linear Phase.. You are right Rapture is a synth you keep tweaking with. It's addictive - really ;-). For an oldie like me (my first syth was completely self-build, because it was far too expensive to just buy one), this is great...

And what about Z3TA? Is that not a great synth too. I upgraded to the full version of each of these (Rapture and Z3TA) earlier this year.

I do like them both, but when I'm creating an electronic tune I deliberately spread my sounds across all of my VST synths, rather than just relying on one.

Downside of that though is I am currently learning six soft synths, and that doesn't include the likes of Dim Pro, which I do not class as synths as such.

And I'm dropping synths like Pentagon, PSYN and Square.

That's leaving me with my six fave synths which are, and in no particular order, Rapture, Absynth, Z3TA, UltraAnalog, Chromaphone and Tassman (I might drop Tassman due to the rather large learning curve).

my next purchase will be Revalver but after that it's going to be that 61 key micro controller from Korg if they ever ship it out. Why? It comes with all the legacy synths M1, wavestation, MS20, monopoly etc.. you can download Mle for a trial or if you buy a korg nano it comes with it. I'm going to demo the m1 le to make sure its compatible first. After that I am drawn to classice synth sounds and for $40 will get opx pro player it plays presets created by the full program and they have a lot of dead ringers for synth sounds used in famous songs. The IK multimedia deal on total studio3 is good till Oct. 31st I might snag that as well. I already have Z3ta and Dimension pro so its holding me over now and rapture le is cool as well but Z3ta is the main synth I love right now for leads. After these purchases I will upgrade to X2. and then add GSI VB3 for some bad ass B3 sounds it's only $50. Zebra, Omnisphere and or NI komplete will probably be the next batch of things I need to look at maybe GForce Minimonsta gets added to that list. If I had the money I would just get them all and east west CCC as well. Now if I have to use a dongle that will probably keep me from making a purchase or at least put them on the back burner behind the list of those who do not require such things. I still have my needs for new guitars FX and amps as well. GAS is killing me. If the economy continues to be bad I can see a lot of software companies being forced to lower their pricing.