Informal Focus Group: Rapture II Features

Some of us received an email from Cakewalk inviting us to take a survey on what we’d like to see in an upgrade to Rapture.  This is very encouraging news indeed.  Most of the survey was multiple choice responses, with only one tiny opportunity to supply some individual thoughts.
 
So, what say we have an informal focus group in this thread?  What do you want in a Rapture II?  I’ll get the ball rolling.
 
As a general overall wish, I want new features that facilitate the making of actual musical sounds, as opposed to flashy high-tech bells and whistles that only advance the state of the art of soundscapes.  Most of us don’t create soundtracks for SF movies, after all.
 
My specific wish list is topped by two items of about equal weight.
 
1A. Give us some filters modeled on vintage analog gear.  Alchemy offers three vintage filters: Moog, Oberhiem and one other (which one escapes me at the moment).  The set of Rapture filters currently supplied are entirely too polite.  I’ve been trying to duplicate some patches from the NI Pro53 soft synth.  I get really close until the filter kicks in.  The Pro53 sound is much less refined and more compelling in many cases.
 
1B. Give us pulse width modulation on single cycle waveforms.  Better still, give us the kind of wave shaping capabilities for single cycle wave forms that we have in z3ta.  But at a minimum, give us PWM where the width itself can be modulated.
 
2. This one may be pie in the sky ... don’t know if it’s possible.  But I’d love to see a DSP effect (that you could use pre-filter) to take a single cycle waveform and “analog-ize it”, introducing some minor variations in successive cycles, ala vintage oscillators. 
 
3. Effects.  If I could have just one new effect, I’d like an early reflection effect (not general reverb, just a credible stereo early reflection with no reverb tail).  I can readily control the left-right placement of a sound with pan.  I’d love to also be able to control its placement front to rear with an early reflection effect that can be modulated (just like you can modulate pan position).   I'm talking about a per-note effect here, by the way, not a global effect which would be of far less value.
 
4. Key tracking.  The grid is too small and not sufficiently flexible.  How about a supplying right-click option that would present an expanded grid with more shaping options?  Most especially, how about supplying a button to select a linear key follow?  Principal use (in my case): you could use it to specify that a filter cutoff would move with the key value with 100% precision?
 
5. Documentation: please document what subset of the SFZ format is supported.  Better documentation of some of the mod. matrix options would be useful as well. At least one mod. matrix option did not work at all like what would seem logical (this is random pan position, if I recall).  This doesn’t have to be in the printed manual.  An aux. document on PDF would be fine ... or even just put up the information on the CW web site.

I'm taking the survey now ;-)

Genghis


I took the survey, but the only real feature I could think of that I really, really want is for the darn plug-in to work in 64-bit without crashing.  I do like your 1a and 1b suggestions, but if they can't fix the current version I'm not so sure I'd be very willing to pay for an upgrade.  Kind of leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Me too!  I took the survey also.  My suggestion  was that I wanted it to be Stable, to not crash Sonar 64bit.   I also said I had given up on using it because of the problems with it. 

I  do not think we should have to pay more for it to work properly.  Cakewalk has known there is a problem for many, many months. 

There should be a free fix patch for the stability problem--we have already paid.  IF they want to charge for a new RAPTURE II version with extra features fine, but first they need to get Rapture stable first, and get it to us without charging to get it working.

Cecelius2

Genghis


I took the survey, but the only real feature I could think of that I really, really want is for the darn plug-in to work in 64-bit without crashing.  I do like your 1a and 1b suggestions, but if they can't fix the current version I'm not so sure I'd be very willing to pay for an upgrade.  Kind of leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Word.

I definitely would like to see a modified patch browser similar to those in NI instruments. 

I also would not mind being able to have FM and sync of single cycle wave forms.

For effects, a rotary speaker would be nice.  Maybe some kind of formant filtering, and maybe some granular effects.

username5000


In the step/envelope generator, I would like to see a time signature feature with a snap to grid option.  The graph itself could be broken up into beats and measures with adjustable resolution from whole note to 124'th note with dotted and triplet for each one.  Like an on-board piano roll without the keyboard.  I think this would allow for greater control over things like attack, hold, and release in the evelope generator.  It would also allow for greater control in the step generator. 
 

That's a really interesting idea, especially about the ability to sync envelope points with tempo.  But what do you do about release?  Does the release part of the curve start at the first tempo point after a key is released?  That makes the most sense to me.  Also intriguing is the notion that multi-point sustain loops could all be tied to tempo points.  I like it ... a lot!

dmbaer

username5000


In the step/envelope generator, I would like to see a time signature feature with a snap to grid option.  The graph itself could be broken up into beats and measures with adjustable resolution from whole note to 124'th note with dotted and triplet for each one.  Like an on-board piano roll without the keyboard.  I think this would allow for greater control over things like attack, hold, and release in the evelope generator.  It would also allow for greater control in the step generator. 
 

That's a really interesting idea, especially about the ability to sync envelope points with tempo.  But what do you do about release?  Does the release part of the curve start at the first tempo point after a key is released?  That makes the most sense to me.  Also intriguing is the notion that multi-point sustain loops could all be tied to tempo points.  I like it ... a lot!

 
 
Thank you for your response dmbaer
The release would start right when you released the key.  Once you figured out what beat or fraction of the beat in the measure your note ended upon, you could adjust the (I don't know the technical term for it so I'll call it) "the last node" in the release curve so that it would "die off" exactly where you wanted it to in the measure.  If you wanted it to "die off" 3, sixteenth notes of duration after the end of the hold curve, hit the resolution button, set it for 16'th notes, hit the snap to grid button, and as you drag it will snap to every 16'th  beat worth of duration.  You could even have multiple release "nodes" and have the release do like a stairstep effect which would be timed just right at specific points in the measure.  I think that would be awsome.  It would work the same way for the amp, cutoff, resonance, and pitch tabs as well.  I don't know about the rest of you folks but when I'm working with envelope curves I take a kind of "Yep....That sounds about right" approach and I think a feature like this would get rid of a lot of the guess work.  At least for us hobbyists.

Thanks for starting this thread dmbaer!

I'm going to go out on a limb here and ask for the synthesis-type-feature that will leapfrog all existing virtual instruments out there.  Something we haven't even dreamed of.  I know René and the Bakers have it in them. 

Would also love to see René's take on FM synthesis, and a badass arpeggiator. 

Hizzah for Rapture 2!

- C

chad

I'm going to go out on a limb here and ask for the synthesis-type-feature that will leapfrog all existing virtual instruments out there.
 
 

Yeah, and while we're at it, give it to us for nor more than $49 for the upgrade.  I don't think all this is asking too much! 

Thanks for the heads up.  I didn't know they released a new patch.  Just stepping out to enjoy some sunshine at the beach, but I'll check it out later and report back.

Hmmm... I'm not getting the kind of crashes I had, but it does hang when you load some SFZ's.  I don't know what's causing it, but it seems like some of the more complex SFZ's are having problems. 

I'll have to do some testing and see if I can find a pattern, but one that has caused it to freeze up fairly quickly is sequenced_wavetables_delay_beats_stop_beats.sfz.  From the comments in the file I can see that it's a Cakewalk SFZ and uses only stock waveforms.  It will hang the program with a buzzing sound and then you are prompted to close it down.  This has happened twice with this particular SFZ.  I think I'll be rolling back to the 32-bit version and hope that it is stable. 

This is rather frustrating!  I'll submit yet another bug report in a bit, but I'm a little sick of playing with it for now.

I'm using SONAR 8.5.3 in Windows 7 x64.  It happens consistently on my setup.  It didn't seem to happen with the Micro-host, but I really only use it in SONAR.

I can't really do any more testing as I uninstalled it and went back to 1.21 32-bit via bit bridge.  That is still stable for me.

Sorry about that. Semantics.  I thought by Program you meant what program I was using as a host or what other programs (plug-ins) I might be using at the same time, not what program (patch)  from Rapture I was using.  Just the SFZ on it's own in a single element, and it's not just that one, but other complex layered SFZ's.  Here's the recipe for what hangs my system every time:

1. New project in SONAR (8.53) x64 - blank or Normal stock template either one
2. Add Rapture 1.2.2 x64
3. Add the SFZ sequenced_wavetables_delay_beats_stop_beats.sfz to one of the elements. (Any of the more complicated one's seem to do it on my machine, but that is one that I think everyone should have.)
4. Just play from a keyboard for a little while.  On my system it will crash after less than a minute, even if I only play a few notes very slowly.

It seemed to work OK in the standalone, but as a plug-in inside of SONAR no luck.  It does OK with patches that use simple samples... it just seems to be the SFZs that layer in multiple samples.

I'm using an RME FireFace 400 w/ latest drivers in ASIO on an i7 920 x58 system.  CPU usage isn't even budging past 1% when this happens.

Thanks for the reply.  I don't remember downloading that one separately, so I thought it was included as either a stock set or with one of the Expansion packs.  I'm not seeing any real heavy CPU usage when it crashes and it works OK in the 32-bit Rapture, even when I play something dense enough to get it going to well over 800 layers. (Pretty intense SFZ there.)  In x64 it doesn't take much to make it hang and then crash on me.

I submitted the patch with a simple song that uses that SFZ in a bug report yesterday, so they have that one.  It does happen with others as well.  I'll try once again later today and see just how severe it is.  As I reported at first, it fixed my instant crashes I was getting whenever I tried to play back anything with Rapture, and I really don't use a lot of complex SFZ's.  I'm just a bit paranoid about it after finding something that so consistently hangs my computer.

...and...

2) Please add a "Width" FX into Element and Global FX which is a simple Mid-Side processor to change stereo width of the output (element and/or master).  Current Width effect in the DSP section creates minor artifacts...

3)  Please duplicate all modulators (envelopes, LFO, Step Seq Keytracking etc.) for all three DSP inserts so that these processes can be controlled/modualted exactly the same way as Filter X, Res, Pitch, Amp, etc.

4) Some additional DSP options would be cool.  Cleaner DSP would be cool--current DSP gives minor artifacts, even at 0% wet.

This would be enough to keep me busy with some more expansion packs I think...  ;-)