Rapture Pro - First Impressions

 
Download and install went just fine, no complaints.
Browser
Looks nicer than the old directory tree view, all of the content from Dim Pro and Rapture showed up just fine. However without a search function or attribute tags there is little functional difference from the legacy synths. The scroll bar handles don't resize to give you a hint as to how many entries are in the list. You still have to double click to load a preset but loading does seem to be quicker. I'm scratching my head trying to figure out how a synth organ patch qualifies as an electric guitar.
Sounds
Some of the Dom Kane presets sound pretty good, almost usable out of the box. Other than that, most of the content seems to be recycled from Dimension Pro and Rapture. Out of the box there isn't much that I'd want to put on a track without a lot of tweaking, and there is a lot of it there. This is true with most synths with large preset libraries I guess, but it would be nice to get some clean patches to start with instead of overdesigned monsters. There is also an issue with some of the patch levels, even with the input turned down to -9 db on the channel, some of the patches hit +6 or more while others are barely audible.
Instrument View
Nifty. Macro controls are a good thing. 10 entry MIDI config list, looks like it will work.
Mixer
Pretty nice. 2 send effects, 1 insert effect, lots of options. The master eq is a nice touch. The mod matrix has 24 entries, but if you want to use the macros you have to use a slot so technically 16, it depends on what you want to do. It looks like the effects can be in series with the element output or used as sends.
Element Editor
It looks like you can have 5 waveforms and one multisample element? Multimode with detune looks like it will be very useful. Nice modulation section: pitch, cutoff(1,2), res(1,2), pan, amp (step, env, lfo). Fx routing has a bunch of options. Each element has an eq. The load element functionality dumps you into a windows file box in the Multisamples directory with the filter set to *.elem, however there doesn't appear to be any *.elem files there or in the directories underneath it. Browsing waveforms is easier since it seems to know where they are. I saved the best for last, you can set the wheel for 2 octaves... w00t.
 
Overall it looks nice but there are a few things that could be sorted to make it a lot better. I haven't used Dimension Pro or Rapture much lately because it's a lot easier to get what I want from other dedicated synths (Kontakt, Omnisphere, Z3TA, Sylenth, Massive, etc). The UI looks like it's a bit more intuitive than Dimension Pro or Rapture, and the new stuff looks pretty good. I normally end up needing sounds that are weird combinations of real instruments, waveforms, and not so real processing, if I can find the .elem files I might be in business.
 
Next step: RTFM and make something useful from an init preset, I'll get back to you later.
 
 
 
 

Thanks for the review. For me it reads like, old sound in new gui with some improved possibilities.
 
I have synths and samplers like Kontakt, z3ta+2, Rapture, DimPro, MachFive and Zebra2.
Do I will have fun with Rapture-Pro when it comes to "sound" and not only to nice look and feel?
 
_Markus

mdages
Thanks for the review. For me it reads like, old sound in new gui with some improved possibilities.

This is what I've been wondering about.  Has anything changed in the sound engine itself from Dimension Pro and Rapture to Rapture Pro?  I know there are some effects routing differences, but are the filters the same?  Is there new functionality to link filters and dsp between elements (Rapture had independent dsp sections for each element)?  Is the way the engine handles wavetables and multisamples the same?  So far from the little time I've spent playing with Rapture Pro, it sounds pretty much like Rapture to me although I haven't done an A to B comparison.  That's not really a problem to me as I always thought Rapture and Dimension Pro sounded good, I'm just curious to know if there's new functionality I should be playing around with.
Dan

After playing with it a bit more, I think one of the nicest features is that it can load both Dim Pro and Rapture patches. I always thought Dimension Pro and Rapture were basically the same synth with a few non-intersecting features, it was puzzling to me why they didn't have just one. There are some pretty good sounds in the old versions and extensions and the new browser does make things a bit easier to find. I ended up finding the search functionality after RTFM, it IS kind of hard to see unless you know where to look.
 

Is this image actual size, or is it a larger GUI
http://www.sweetwater.com...0/RapturePro-large.jpg