Cakewalk Rapture Pro Announced :)

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Dimension Pro Rapture Rapture Pro

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The last I read, Craig Anderton was an Executive VP at Gibson. Not sure what his sphere of influence is, but he'd likely be one who could offer much to them in this regard. Jmtc.
In rotation here: Hammock- Stranded Under Endless Sky

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When is this supposed to be out? One of the online stores, whose owner frequents this site a lot, appear to have it available for purchase right now.

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The 28th.

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From the video, it looks like this thing will load Rapture v. 1 as "Rapture Classic." And I assume the old Dim Pro addon packs will load as well?

If so, very cool. Looking forward to this. Wish the price were a bit better on the upgrade, but hey, for a good piece of kit, what's a few more bucks?

Cheers
-B
Berfab
So many plugins, so little time...

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The prices just went down. It's now $149 for new Cakewalk customers and $79 for:
"I own either Rapture, Dimension Pro, Z3TA+
or any SONAR"

Looks like Cakewalk may have decided last minute that market value wasn't quite as high as they were thinking.
Dan

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I see the new price, but as I paid full price for Dimension pro, Rapture and Sonar.... it is still a bit much...

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Yes, it is still too high. I own all of the products that toll the discount. It seems that should count more than owning just one of them. I think I would pay 30 bucks tops.
Tangled roots perplex her ways.

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Jace-BeOS wrote:See I don't dislike guitars. I'm not obsessed with them and cannot play them. The question is whether a guitar company understands anything but.
I normally don't come into these kinds of threads, but several people said it would be helpful if I could provide some additional data. I am an Executive VP at Gibson and have worked with the company for a long time, first as a consultant and then joining full-time two years ago. My first encounter with Gibson was approaching Henry Juszkiewicz at a trade show and berating him for what happened with Opcode :x

"Gibson" is a guitar company, but Gibson Brands is not. It is involved in recording (TASCAM, KRK, Neat Microphones, Cakewalk), consumer electronics (TEAC, Onkyo, Philips, Fidelio), DJ (Stanton), and live performance (Cerwin-Vega). What is interesting about Gibson Brands compared to other large companies is that all the acquisitions and focus is exclusively on music and sound.
Anyone remember where Tracktion was for a few years that almost killed it? How about Gigasampler? And that was a company that at least did recording devices.
Gigasampler was handled by a pretty much stand-alone company, TASCAM's role was distribution. Gigasampler had serious problems; I was aware of these because I wrote the documentation for the ill-fated GS4 (this was prior to joining Gibson). It was also a product whose time had passed, with the dramatic decrease in RAM costs. Although Garritan bought the technology they could not salvage Gigasampler either, and they were apparently the only company that was interested in GS due to the various issues that had made it non-viable.
Shall we talk of how InMusic has ruined all the brands they've taken over?
I obviously don't speak for InMusic, and it may seem stupid to defend a competitor, but Alesis was essentially dead when InMusic acquired it. Some may feel the company lacks the innovative touch it had in its prime, but Alesis produces products that sell well and the company is healthy. Akai was another company that was pretty much headed for extinction, and InMusic brought it back to life. M-Audio was purchased for literally pennies on the dollar because it had fallen so far; the jury is out on whether it can be revived to its previous position of dominance, but it's no longer in danger of disappearing. Sonivox is another company that got a new lease on life through InMusic, and Numark is one of the "big 3" companies (the others are Pioneer and NI) that dominate the DJ scene. You can disagree with what InMusic has done with their brands, but the reality is that most of the brands InMusic acquired would likely not exist had they not been acquired.

Remember too that 80+% of all acquisitions fail, so InMusic's track record is very good.
Gibson? What do they do outside stringed instruments?
See above.
Why did they kill Opcode?
Before joining Gibson, I asked both Chris Halaby and Henry what went wrong with Opcode. Their answers were virtually identical, which to me verified the credibility of both. First, it wasn't so much Gibson killed Opcode as Gibson couldn't revive it. Second, it was the opposite of a "stars are in alignment" situation. Both Chris and Henry said it was basically a doomed situation from the beginning. It did show Gibson's interest in that space, but they couldn't pull it off for reasons too complex and varied to get into here.
New leaf being turned over? Ok, great. Prove it! :-)]
I guess you haven't been following Cakewalk's progress of late, the proof is already there. X3 was the most successful X-series launch and put the company solidly in the black for the first time in years. Then Cakewalk introduced their membership program in January 2015, which unlike Avid or Adobe subscriptions, let you keep what you paid for - if you don't renew, nothing dies and can still use what you have. And, you can jump back into the program any time you want.

Of course, when this was announced many (most?) people were skeptical..."Oh, they'll never be able to do the monthly updates they promised...they probably will only do a couple new features a year...the content will probably just be throw-away stuff that nobody wants..." Well, the reality is that the first two monthly updates appeared like clockwork with the promised features, fixes, and content; the third one for April is about to drop; and users love the concept and what they receive...it's like a mini-Christmas once a month. Interestingly, SONAR is picking up a lot of new users due to the monthly payment option coupled with the benefits of the membership program, as well as by reaching into new markets like Steam (which has been huge for Cakewalk) and Hal Leonard to reach educational and B-markets.

Cakewalk is profitable, growing, and no longer in danger of becoming extinct. Features like Mix Recall, which provides functionality similar to SSL and Neve consoles, as well as VocalSync are pretty amazing. The morale at the company is night and day compared to a couple years ago. As noted in the thread title there's a new instrument coming out, more attention is being paid to the Mac (the Z3TA+ iOS app was the #1 paid music app for awhile when it was released), the web site/installer/store have been completely redone, and although I obviously can't talk about the future, all I can say is the foot is not being taken off the accelerator. All of this is from a very dedicated company despite their small size (but they're hiring, hint hint :wink: ).

So IMHO Cakewalk and Gibson have proven quite a bit about the benefits of their partnership, especially considering that the acquisition was completed less than a year and a half ago.
Last edited by Anderton on Wed Apr 22, 2015 5:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
My educational website has launched! Read articles, see videos, read reviews, and more at https://craiganderton.org. Check out my music at http://YouTube.com/thecraiganderton, and visit my digital storefront at https://craiganderton.com. Thanks!

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Re Rapture, Dimension Pro, support, upgrades, etc.:

Rapture and Dimension Pro were introduced in 2006, and have been discontinued. They still work on the Windows platform but additional Mac updates will not be forthcoming. Rapture Pro had been in development prior to the Gibson acquisition, but had been languishing.

Rapture Pro will load all Dimension Pro and Rapture patches, which is crucial for all of us who have a substantial investment in sound libraries as well as presets we've created. Obviously, there have also been improvements compared to the originals. One of these is being built from the ground up for current Mac technology.
My educational website has launched! Read articles, see videos, read reviews, and more at https://craiganderton.org. Check out my music at http://YouTube.com/thecraiganderton, and visit my digital storefront at https://craiganderton.com. Thanks!

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Is this Cakwalk's sales strategy, bundling Rapture Pro with old soundpacks, what's goin'on? :?

https://shop.cakewalk.com/1244/catalog/ ... lFFZp1ZGwe

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I was an avid Rapture and Dimension user prior to OS X 10.7. I tried the notorious installer workarounds, but couldn't ever authorise Rapture afterwards. So, my point is, I am astonished at the news of Cakewalk bringing the two back to life in one package. And, at $80, even more so.

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@Anderton: Interesting read.
Thanks for stepping in and providing some background! ;-)

Cheers,

Tom
"Out beyond the ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there." - Rumi
Sculptures ScreenDream Mastodon

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Mr. Anderton:

I think I speak for a lot of people here when I say that your participation here is always appreciated. I have admired your work, literally, for decades. So, for me at least, in addition to the wealth of information you provide in your posts, I am also always a bit star-struck when I read them.

Thanks for contributing.

Cheers
-B
Berfab
So many plugins, so little time...

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Anderton wrote:Cakewalk is profitable, growing, and no longer in danger of becoming extinct.
Although I wish the upgrade price for Rapture Pro could be lower, I'm happy to know that Cakewalk is going good.

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@Anderton: Thanks for the "in person" responses. :-) It's good to hear what you're telling us. Rest assured, I will continue to keep my eye on Cakewalk. I was with Cakewalk for the majority of my computer music life, so I'm kind of emotionally attached in a weird way.

The two synths being merged into one is interesting and if I see some serious commitment and positive user experiences from the Mac crowd, I might eventually buy back into it, depending on the price at the time (I have all the Cakewalk synths). For now... no sir. I'm watching only.

Sonar, however, is dead to me. I'm not spending another dime on it. I bought about six(?) versions, which isn't a small amount of money, and it just kept getting flakier and the existing flakiness never got better. I know, I know, everything is wonderful now in the X series... I wouldn't know. Cakewalk lost me before that point and didn't try to get me back. I reported bugs that never got fixed ("buy the upgrade" is a shitty response) and spent a considerable amount of misery on it. I left the program and the platform. If Sonar ever gets rebuilt for Mac OS, I'll be seriously curious (part of the problem is the Windows underpinnings, especially in the flaky UI). It really doesn't matter how great X3 is. Fooled me six times, shame on ... everyone. Not going back (on Windows, at least).

I do appreciate hearing that things are going better at Cakewalk, though. I feel a bit slighted to have missed out on this new/better product care :-/, but I'm glad to hear report that there has been a course correction at Cakewalk. :-)

Also: software by subscription? Never ever :mad: . I do not "subscribe" to the notion that software is a service, AND I'm poor. I already spent a small fortune on Cakewalk and a fortune on other tools. From now on, I pay once, and never for bug fixes. Check out Image-Line's policy on upgrades... I hear they're even working on porting to Mac OS... ;-)
- dysamoria.com
my music @ SoundCloud

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