Hi-
 
I have DimPro and Rapture and one more day to take advantage of the $79 upgrade (this time around, at least.) I've watched the videos and read, I think, what there is to read about it, but I'm wondering if those who upgraded could comment on the benefits of RapPro over DimPro & Rapture.
 
I'm primarily but not exclusively interested in acoustic instrument simulations rather than pads, soundscapes, etc. I couldn't find a complete listing of the preset names, but that probably wouldn't tell me much anyway. I listened to the demos and they seemed geared more towards "electronic" music, to put it broadly.
 
I guess what I'm asking is for those of you who already owned Dim Pro and Rapture and still purchased Rapture Pro, do you feel like it was worth it, after you've used it a while (and why or why not!).
 
TVMIA-
 
-Susan

Susan G
Hi-
 
I have DimPro and Rapture and one more day to take advantage of the $79 upgrade (this time around, at least.) I've watched the videos and read, I think, what there is to read about it, but I'm wondering if those who upgraded could comment on the benefits of RapPro over DimPro & Rapture.
 
I'm primarily but not exclusively interested in acoustic instrument simulations rather than pads, soundscapes, etc. I couldn't find a complete listing of the preset names, but that probably wouldn't tell me much anyway. I listened to the demos and they seemed geared more towards "electronic" music, to put it broadly.
 
I guess what I'm asking is for those of you who already owned Dim Pro and Rapture and still purchased Rapture Pro, do you feel like it was worth it, after you've used it a while (and why or why not!).
 
TVMIA-
 
-Susan

I would say for that, out of the 3 you listed Dimension Pro, Rapture, Rapture Pro, Dimension Pro has got you covered, while there are some patches which may suit you, the factory Rapture Pro sounds/presets are more Rapturey/Synthy as you already surmised.
 
Benefits of Rapture Pro, well it will be supported into the future, it will play all your Dim Pro and Rapture stuff, some say that the old stuff sounds better in Rapture Pro, I am not convinced, it certainly doesn't jump out and slap you in the face. A week or so ago, and before the latest update I would have given a completely different answer. Plus in the future there may be expansions which will cater for the acoustic style stuff, but that is unknown.
 
As to whether or not you should buy it ? well like I said, a week ago my answer would have been totally different (if I answered) something like, "run away, run fast and run far" but after a fairly disastrous start, they seem to be getting it together, and I must give them the benefit of the doubt and say that that will likely continue, and it will all probably be good in the end, lets hope so. There are still silent/barely audible Factory content, and volume levels can vary quite significantly, but this is apparently being addressed in a future update. All the legacy 'appears' to be fine now. Up to you whether you buy it or not, but better to buy during a sale then at full price. I'm not sure I would miss it if I didn't have it, I only just recently reinstalled it after having it uninstalled for quite a while. Still don't really use it, where as I do Dim Pro and Rapture.

Jury still out imho. Bakers still improving it. At least it is usable now.

I'm finding significant (not measured) performance improvement using Rap Pro vs Dim Pro for the same programs.  I haven't done anything with it yet, but I really want to explore the marriage of synth/sampler.
 
Lastly, and this is a fact of life thing, I don't expect Dim Pro and Rapture non-Pro to continue to get any resources expended on them.  Being newer, it's not unreasonable to expect Rap Pro to get more developer love moving forward.

if you feel comfortable with the interfaces of the older programs, the upgrade may not be so worthwhile....hard to say.  But the Rapture Pro interface is much easier to use.  I personally didn't get REALLY deep into the older interfaces, and so I'm sure just scratched the surface.  Rapture Pro has allowed me to do more, without having to read the instruction manual.

As others have pointed out, Rap Pro should continue to develop, esp. w/ new libraries.  Rap Pro does Dimension Pro fine, sounds great.  And you could do deeper programming w/ Rap Pro if that is what you are into (more layers, or step sequence your French Horn).  But for playing back the Dim Pro patches, it is probably not worth the money, although comparing all the Rap/Dim libraries available in one synth is nice rather than switching between two apps. 

If you're interested, I just put up a review you can find here (yes, I know the URL got garbled, but it is what it is  ):
 
http://soundbytesmag.net/ratprueprobycakewalk/
 
Edit: the URL has been corrected.  It is now:
 
http://soundbytesmag.net/raptureprobycakewalk/

Why not Review the Release version ? Some may think you waited for a bunch of fixes to do your Review Advertisement, because that is what it comes across like to anyone who has been there from the start. A huge discourse on the functionality, with a, 'oh . . .  by the way . . .  there were a few problems early on, but don't worry about that, all fixed now' tucked away in some corner at the end.
 
There were major issues for some/a lot people, they couldn't even authorize the thing, stuck in demo mode, it took that long to load for some that they thought it not worth the aggravation, Legacy expansion packs would work, even Factory content to this day has serious issues with volume variations and silent/barely audible patches, that's 3 months on ? No sign of this in the Review Advertisement?
 
[Edit] To me, it would be far more transparent, dare I say honest (not questioning anyone's honesty, just making an observation) to review the product 'as released' then add updates as fixes/patches become available, ie
 
[Update] Patch 1 of Rapture pro has been released which addresses such and such
[Update] Patch 2 of Rapture pro has been released which addresses such and such
[Update] Patch 3 of Rapture pro has been released which addresses such and such, it has been a long road, but at last Rapture Pro is finally in a position to be called a worthy upgrade to both Dimension Pro and the original Rapture.
 
Which in the end it most likely will be, but up until now . . . well . . .

Jeff, I don't know the policies at Soundbytes but most magazines (and not just music tech) have deadlines, length and other aspects that have to be met.  That can play all kinds of havoc w/ going in depth into versions, qualities etc.  I could easily write a long pp about the trials of getting a stable version and burn up 20% of my review length. So what?  What is most important is how does the latest version of whatever you are reviewing work when you come to the deadline.  And the latest Rap Pro works great.  I wouldn't review a Volkswagen bug and be upset that it no longer floats like the 1960s version (there is a great Ted Kennedy joke in there if you remember National Lampoon).
 
I didn't put in any requests to review Rapture Pro because of the problems w/ the early versions.  It was a mess and just exactly could I write that anyone would want to read or publish?  It doesn't work right so don't buy it until it does.  Then do I get another review to say they fixed these problems? 
 
I like Cakewalk and their products and I trusted them to get it right, but up until a few weeks ago I wouldn't want to go to press saying trust me, this will be a good synth once they get basic stuff like finding libraries worked out.  Knowing Cake and their people I could see each version getting better, but that ain't reviewing, that is hope based on experience.  And I could tell it would be a great synth for programming and I would like to add my two cents worth about what would make it better for performance, like relational pads, like the joysticks on the old Synthi (on it you could make the X axis of filter Cutoff more and less pitch depth for Y axis).  But I didn't really want to spend a couple of weeks trying to make RapPro work consistently while exploring all the working aspects of it while having to bump back the deadline (pissing off editors and Cake and taking up more of my valuable time).  maybe if I wasn't moving the studio, but I simply didn't have the time or inclination. 
 
There is no real money in writing reviews - people do it because they want to and are interested in the products. Do you like to spend a month working over a POS you don't want to actually use later?  And nobody writes reviews to trick you consumers into buying the product, but (hopefully) to use as a useful comparison tool. 
 
But as it stands, Rap Pro is a nice synth, combining the best features and sounds of both Dim Pro and Rapt.  New libraries too (look at Kontakt and tell me how important content is).  Some nice performance enhancements too.  Hardly groundbreaking, but a good synth for the price if you don't have one (and the SFZ sound does have a nice bite in comparison to many VAs and sample synths) and a cheap addition/replacement if you do have the other Cake synths if you buy it on sale (for > $100 it is worth it just for the convenience).
 
There are bad reviewers out there, dmbaer ain't one of them.
 
@

I think this review is spot on as of July 2015. It does in fact mentioned the pros and did not hide the cons.
Combining two synths into one is a cool concept.
I often what could have been if Cakewalk had the ability to combine Sonar and Project 5 into ONE.