Rapid vs Dune3?

[VELLTONE MUSIC]

Hey kvr people, wanna ask you which synth you prefer if have to choose one of them as workhorse,Rapid or Dune3 - advantages and disadvantages.I just download the demos of lates versions and will play next few days,but curious about user's opinion.Thanks

[VELLTONE MUSIC]

Older versions both was cool, but this topic is about latest updates.Thanks.

[recursive one]

Both are very good.

I'd say Rapid is more focused on the wavetable side, Dune is better at more traditional subtractive workflow, the wavetables are more a kind of bonus. Though it has a WT editor now which Rapid doesn't have, but Rapid has many tools to change the wave shape, like sync, formant shift and many others. Also I like the factory WTs in Rapid much more. Dune 3 has better filters, especially the new AM ones. Rapid has more flexible LFOs (e.g., you can blend two different shapes and automate the amount of the belnding with another LFO or a step sequencer and get very complex movement)

Rapid has more "modern" cutting and agressive sound, Dune is more mellow and soft. If you like sounds with extreme filter/pitch modulation, Dune handles it much better because of audio rate modulation. If you like wavetable movements, various growls and wub-wubs, Rapid does this better imo. The latest update also has that "glitch" thing which must be very useful in this context.

[chk071]

We need moar vs. threads.

Nothing to add to what recursive wrote. I'm plasantly surprised about Dune 3. I really like it. At least for pads, ambiences, and stuff like that. I also think there's synths with better wavetables included than in Dune. But, as there's wave import, i guess it's easy enough to get external wavetables in there (although i still ahve to figure out how exactly... tried with the Largo ones, but, that's gone terribly wrong. Gotta read more on the subject).

[anoise]

Both are very good.

Everything he wrote plus Rapid has a better GUI layout (not skin) and workflow IMO. Also, a WT editor is not a must have and depends on your needs of course. Majority of users don't actually use them nor create their own wavetables.

[Cinebient]

Rapid GUI and workflow is much better. Rapids layers can be midi splitted and it has some other good things Dune 3 can‘t do.
But i like the sound of Dune 3 a bit more and especially it‘s a lot more powerful if you want audio rate modulations (which Rapid can‘t do at all i think).
Dune 3 can just create more unique sounds for me.

[recursive one]

But i like the sound of Dune 3 a bit more and especially it‘s a lot more powerful if you want audio rate modulations (which Rapid can‘t do at all i think).

Rapid can now do phase modulation between oscillators (something similar to FM but not quite FM). It was added few days ago and I've only briefly tried this. Not sure if it actually runs at audio rate but it sounds good and clean, these Nordlead-style ripping leads sound just fine But it's definitely nowhere near as flexible as ARM in Dune, you can't do filter FM for example.

We need moar vs. threads.

We can never have enough of these

[VELLTONE MUSIC]

Dune3 has better filters,Rapid has better workflow - High end modern vst synths,if need the best for modern stuff,no doubt,but i am thinking also about making original distinguish stuff and here is where hesitation start - probably the only fresh synth i've try(and consider)this year is Thorn :)Cheerz

[nusound mind]

I own Rapid & Dune 2, have listened to some Dune 3 clips (haven't demo-ed it though). For me it's Rapid and it's not close. Sound is beyond good, plenty of hair straight back moments plus it's very accessible. It jumped into my starting rotation immediately whereas Dune wasn't ever really in it and I rarely if ever use it these days.

Fair play to those that disagree, maybe Dune 3 is a significant improvement from 2, could be.

[egbert101]

Tough choice, but workflow is hugely important to me, so it would have to be Rapid. I do really love some of those gorgeous pad sounds in Dune though.

[BONES]

I own Rapid & Dune 2, have listened to some Dune 3 clips (haven't demo-ed it though). For me it's Rapid and it's not close. Sound is beyond good, plenty of hair straight back moments plus it's very accessible. It jumped into my starting rotation immediately whereas Dune wasn't ever really in it and I rarely if ever use it these days.
Fair play to those that disagree, maybe Dune 3 is a significant improvement from 2, could be.

Hard to know because you haven't really said why you prefer Rapid. I honestly can't imagine, for example, a synth that sounds better than DUNE and while a few people have said Rapid's workflow is better than DUNE's, I don't see that just looking at the GUI. e.g. DUNE has two ADSR envelopes you can access instantly whenever you need to adjust them. For fast workflow that's hard to beat. And while there is no denying the power of D'n'D modulation, scrolling through that mod matrix across the bottom of Rapid looks like a punish. I do like the tabbed layers, though, that's definitely an improvement over DUNE. Interestingly, neither seems to care about velocity modulation, which is by far the most important aspect of expressive playing for most people.

[nusound mind]

Bones - I'm likely not being fair to Dune, it's prob. more to do w/ how much I like Rapid. Could be honeymoon phase partly as I picked it up start of that recent sale. I'm not a preset guy other than using some choice factory ones as jumping points, and while I don't mind some tropical house or whatever it's marketed towards, that's not my thing production wise at this point so those aren't the selling points of Rapid to me, it's the sound of it and how fast you can flip it into other, completely different yet equally compelling tones and timbres with such ease.

Dune is pretty accessible as well I find, least for me, I just historically had trouble fitting it into a mix where it gelled, and tbh while I did make some alright patches, the sound never blew me away, not often in any case. Could be it doesn't fit my typical style and tbf from what I've heard vers. 3 does sound better I think. The new gui is great also, I used a 3rd party skin w/ Dune 2. Guess it's more an endorsement of Rapid than criticism of dune as, like I say I haven't demo-ed it so any opinion I have re: Dune 3isn't an informed one, really.

[recursive one]

And while there is no denying the power of D'n'D modulation, scrolling through that mod matrix across the bottom of Rapid looks like a punish.

Yes, that's pretty much a letdown of otherwise great workflow. It's so easy to add 100000 modulations by drag and drop but navigating these modulations is a major PITA

[Elektronisch]

At least its not Sylenth1 vs...thread, still VS tho, but i think we have a little bit of progress.

[BONES]

Guess it's more an endorsement of Rapid than criticism of dune as, like I say I haven't demo-ed it so any opinion I have re: Dune 3isn't an informed one, really.

For me D2 and D3 are pretty much interchangeable. They both sound the same, new filter types not withstanding, and the new filter types are only an incremental improvement and only in some situations. I only use DUNE because I didn't have to pay for it but we are relying on it so much in our new songs, simply because nothing else sounds as good, that I'd have to stump up for it if I ever lost my NFR license. I find it sits in our mixes really well but, because I don't actually like using it, I often try to replace it with something else. The problem is that nothing else I have can do what it does to the same standard, so I end up stuck with it. (It's nearly always my bandmate who puts it into a song, the only time I reach for it is for synth strings, for which I have a couple of really basic patches I made - single layer, one or two sawtooth oscillators and not much filter action.)