Who likes Rapture Session?

Craigster91
- If you have the original Rapture & DimPro, what does Rapture Session bring to the table that is a benefit?

 
These are all excellent and relevant questions. I have to admit I did not like Rapture Pro at all upon its introduction. However, now that the code has been cleaned up, I gave it a second chance and in the process, discovered the Instrument page. Although its stated purpose is live performance, and I get that, it's also a GREAT way to build presets that are highly customizable, either in real time or as "set and forget" changes. It's kind of like an FX Chain in that you can bring out the strategic parameters and have a "front panel" again. Even if you don't use a controller, being able to tweak these can make a sound much more suitable for a particular application.
 

- Does Session represent the best sounds of the full "Rapture Pro"? Or are the best sounds left out?

 
I think that depends on your viewpoint. If by "best" you mean the sounds that will probably find the most favor with the most people, then the answer is probably yes. But if you favor a particular kind of music that involves more specialized patches, your answer might well be no.
 

- Is there any reason to get both Rapture Pro AND Rapture Session?

 
I'm quite sure the Rapture Session sounds are a subset of Rapture Pro's sounds.
 

Who likes it and why?

 
What I like most about Rapture, and now Rapture Pro, are the extensive tempo-synched modulation capabilities, including step sequencers. Rapture Pro has basically all the building blocks used in contemporary synthesis, and as a side note, it's one of the absolute best synths for MIDI guitar because you can assign each string to its own element, and restrict the element to playing one note at a time (like a real string). This reduces glitching dramatically.
 
Of course there are some improvements I'd like to see (e.g., being able to enable/disable elements easily from any element's page and a tear-away modulation matrix like the old Rapture) but Rapture was an essential part of "my sound." It took until now for me to be convinced that on balance, Rapture Pro was a better replacement.
 
If nothing else, it's definitely a great synth for hardcore synth programmers who want to get original sounds. I assume part of Cakewalk doing Rapture Session is for those who just want a simple experience with lots of sounds "out of the box."

Thanks Craig.
 
I just bought Rapture Pro.
Skipping Session.
 
(another) Craig

It will have some use for me. I have the two synths it was made from so I didn't bother with Rap Pro. Session scanned all my Rapture and Dim Pro sounds so I can access them quickly through the session interface. It's a modern replacement for TTS 1 and Sound center. Nice freebie.

I already had DPro & Rapture and bought Rapture Pro when it was introduced.  I noticed a better than trivial performance improvement using multiple Rap Pro instances compared to using DPro and Rapture.  I like Rap Pro even more with the latest improvements; favorites being my favorite
 
The question I have yet to answer for myself is whether or not multiple instances of Session will be lighter than multiple instances of Pro with identical programs loaded.  It's on my list to try this.  If Session is lighter, it makes sense to me to do the creative stuff with Pro, switching to Session for use.  If they turn out to be equal weight, then I guess Session will have saved a buncha disk sectors from having a useless existence.
 
Has anybody already compared Rap Pro vs Session for playback resource loading?

Being a kind of a 64 bit replacement for the 32 bit only Cakewalk Sound Center is a very good thing for me. I had a inflexible rule against anything 32 bit. That meant there was a 0% chance of buying any of the expansion packs.

How does one go about inserting rapture session into a project ?

1st impression is Not Me! But I may change that after I've used it a bit.
 
I like the browser interface - a definite improvement over the old flyout list. But I see inserting and opening it "bumps" any DimLE/PRO instruments that are also open. This I do not like when you can have as many instances of DimLE/PRO open at the same time as you want.
 
Also, I tried to use the "Replace synth" to switch an instance of DimLE with Rapture Session only to have it CRASH my computer.
 
 
EDIT: Not sure why that happened but I uninstalled and reinstalled Session and tried the Replace synth again and it worked.

Here's the biggy for me: Since it lacks Elements there is no way to load your own samples or .sfz files rendering it almost useless for my needs except when I need stock samples.
 
R/E is like a limited DEMO or LITE version of the new R/PRO which looks nice but costs $149/$79upg. $79 isn't a bad price but I already have Dim LE*, Dim PRO, Rapture 1.22 & DropZone. However, since it's the latest offering and bound to be here awhile I might take the leap. There's also a free trial for PRO here.
 
*Has apparent time disabling feature rendering it eventually dead.

I like session, but don't need it as I have Pro.  I did the a quick test I mentioned above.  My conclusion is that session isn't enough lighter weight to bother with it.
 
I ran Pro standalone and loaded a piano.  It used between 3.5 & 4% CPU and 647M of memory.  I then ran Session standalone with the same instrument loaded.  Same CPU and 10M less memory.  Meh.