Have Cakewalk missed the boat with Rapture?

I think more properly the title should be: Have Cakewalk missed the boat with Rapture pricing?

The synth itself is obviously a winner. Positive reviews from both users and the press are continuing to accumulate.

Regarding pricing, you may be right. However as a Cakewalk customer, having purchased 2 previous products, I still purchased Rapture with no loyalty discount (although I did get it cheaper than normal as a result of buying it during a Cakewalk synth-mastery seminar).

That's a hard one to call. I also notice no discount on Project 5 for previous customers. Sure, a couple of special offers have surfaced, but those are only for specific product owners. On the other hand, considering the "street" price of these pieces, it still may be cheaper to just buy it direct from a music retailer. For example, Project 5 retailing for $429, if Cakewalk offered $100 off for owners of Home Studio, that would still be more than you could get it for at a good music retailer, especially after you did a little haggling.

Same with Rapture. If Cakewalk offered $50 off the list, it would be at $199, which is I believe what the MAP is at all the big online retailers.

It would, however, be a gesture of goodwill to take the initiative, IMO.

Both Rapture, as well as P5 and DimPro have been good selling items. It's probably a matter of supply and demand. Just like pharmecuticals, the prices of the drugs (supposedly) pay for more research and development. Rene` and the Cakewalk team have to eat, as well as meet other financial obligations. The prices we pay for this software helps fund their efforts at creating, producing, and supporting future versions, such as P5 v3, and what I hope will be a third sibling to Rapture and DimPro - a dedicated drum unit complete with sequencing. I'll pass on company discounts to see those happen!

Well, I paid the freight. Got Rapture because I already had an idea what it had and what that would mean to me. I did a sweetwater buy because GC didn't have it yet. Because I tweak a lot of the features I wanted came with Rapture almost as a gift. But many would not even think of using these features for one reason or another. You could come close with NI's sampler for twice the price/bugs/support issues. But I know Rene's feature set and like what I got. And I thank Cakewalk for being so generous to me. Call me a FAN and sign me up for their next release.

You can boo me now if ya want to.

Perhaps we are just getting spoiled by the occasional good deals, and now expect them, or think we're entitled to them?

I was waiting for a Rapture deal as well, and while I was waiting I got Project5V2 for $99, Dimension Pro for $99, z3ta+ for $99, and Sonar 5PE for $79 (accident, that one)... all from Cakewalk.

Considering that in the 3-4 years prior to using Cakewalk, instead using Logic and Cubase, neither eMagic, Apple, or Steinberg EVER gave me so much as a thanks for buying email (QUITE the contrary with Steinberg), Cakewalk is excellent in their specials and treatment to loyal customers.

So... I bought Rapture (admitedly, since I used a 20% off GC coupon, I got it for $160). I already feel quite happy with my treatment... not slighted at all.
Besides, Rapture @ $199 is a good deal, and it's still pretty new... and being cross-platform, I found several others at GC who DON'T use Sonar as their host, but swore by Rapture as "excellent" - this gives Cake considerably more time to leave the price unchanged and still make sales.

I'm sure there's a Rapture special coming soon enough, but for me it's not worth the $50-$100 to put off learning how to use it. My Korg Z1 was almost $2k, so... the world has definitely changed in our favor.

- zevo

I might be a little bit biased, but I personally think that Rapture at current full price is a steal.

In my opinion, the survivors of the r3z1zt4nc3-2-mPu153 buys can't do anything but good, both for themselves and for Cakewalk. Still, Rapture will become bigger, better, fuller and more powerful in the next twelve months, to say something. There will be many baits for impulse buyers



-René

While this is not quite a granular function Rapture does allow some very creative possibilities toward that end within the sfz.

As for speculation on what will come next I know better now. I leave that to the masters at this synth making stuff.

I too think granular is interesting as a synthesis technique.