I use Sonar Home Studio 6, and I have a few questions that I'd like to toss out to the resident experts on this board....
1. I just noticed that Z3TA+ is now only $20. I played around with the demo, and I have to say that I really like the sound of it (in some ways, I think it surpasses the synth sounds included with Dimension Pro, especially in terms of brightness/liveliness of the sounds.) But, I'm wondering how it compares to Rapture. Any thoughts from those of you who have worked with both z3TA+ and Rapture? I should point out that I'm a preset junkie. I rarely design my own sounds, so I need something that has a bunch of good/useful presets.
2. Is there a demo version of Rapture that actually works? I can't find a link to one on the Cakewalk website, so I tried googling it, and there is a link to a Rapture 1.0 Demo that actually IS on the Cakewalk site, but I keep getting install errors.
3. I'm looking for some good electronic drum sounds. I thought about getting EZX Electronic, but I'm wondering if Rapture includes good electronic drums.
4. Finally, this is a little bit off-topic, but I currently use a desktop computer, and I'm thinking of eventually switching to a laptop. Any suggestions on which laptops out there can handle music software well? (I'm not a professional or anything-- this is purely a hobby-- so I don't need something that's top-of-the-line, but I do want something that won't crash on a regular basis, and that will allow me to get good sounding recordings.)
Thanks a lot!