KVR Audio

greedy.mf · Post by **greedy.mf** » Tue Jul 05, 2016 6:36 am

Hi

I purchased Z3TA+ 2 for a discount price half a year ago, really cheap. Main goal was to complement the iOS app so I could use same patches I designed on iPad.
And while I like the sound and concept, there are few things that give away its age (it was released back in 2011).

Notably,
- GUI - honestly, it's grim. Lighter skins, please! Also it would be nice to have freely resizable window. Or at least several sizes.
- Mod matrix. I'm not instisting on drag'n'drop like Massive, but right-clicking to select modulation source or destination would make things easier.
- Mono retrigger mode. What's that about? Should that be like standard feature?!
- Envelopes. They are quite iffy. Never to easy to grab a point and dial proper response.

There aren't much of a 3rd party patches, so you have to program it yourself. That's ok, because waveshaping features are cool. But processing and modulating raw sound further through matrix frustrates me and I'm 95% of times end up with another synth like Logic Alchemy (beautiful elegant GUI even for that complicated set of features) or Waves Element 2.0 (very concise).

So basically it's useless for me. I could try to sell it and scrape some coins for Zebra 2 which is supercool in terms of sound and UI (kind of ironic, because it's of 2007, even older than z3ta+ 2).

Does anyone know if z3ta+ 3 is around the corner?
Maybe I should wait and upgrade cheaply.

dune_rave · Post by **dune_rave** » Tue Jul 05, 2016 7:35 am

I don't think there will be z3ta+3.
On the other hand Zebra 3 is planned...

EnGee · Post by **EnGee** » Tue Jul 05, 2016 7:35 am

AFAIK you can't sell it. You might able to sell your whole Cakewalk account, but selling it is not supported by Cakewalk. Anyway, you would be lucky if you can sell it for 20% of the value of Zebra

It is a good synth however, (not excellent though). I don't think selling it worth all that efforts.

Are you new to Cakewalk? Or are you just an optimistic person?
Sorry, I'm not that optimistic about the future of Z3ta +2 (or the whole Cakewalk road

).

incubus · Post by **incubus** » Tue Jul 05, 2016 7:43 am

EnGee wrote:AFAIK you can't sell it. You might able to sell your whole Cakewalk account, but selling it is not supported by Cakewalk. Anyway, you would be lucky if you can sell it for 20% of the value of Zebra It is a good synth however, (not excellent though). I don't think selling it worth all that efforts.

Are you new to Cakewalk? Or are you just an optimistic person?
Sorry, I'm not that optimistic about the future of Z3ta +2 (or the whole Cakewalk road ).

I agree, thought that is NOT SET IN STONE!

It's tough to tell with cake. Sub, new, lifetime, bugs fixed......the future is not clear.

recursive one · Post by **recursive one** » Tue Jul 05, 2016 7:52 am

Afaik, the original developer abandoned Z3ta long ago and Cakewalk are just doing maintenance, so we will unlikely see any big improvements. Z3ta is a very old synth in fact, if I'm not mistaken, the first version may have been released even before Zebra.

I'd love to see better filters and better effects, maybe improved unison. I love the sound of the oscillators, they are really thick and sweet. Some of the factory presets sound as good as if they were coming from my Virus, but because of the crappy filters and effects there is not much you can do with them - just a couple of little tweaks here and there and you are outside of the sweet spot.

EnGee · Post by **EnGee** » Tue Jul 05, 2016 8:06 am

recursive one wrote:Afaik, the original developer abandoned Z3ta long ago and Cakewalk are just doing maintenance, so we will unlikely see any big improvements. Z3ta is a very old synth in fact, if I'm not mistaken, the first version may have been released even before Zebra.

Yes, the developer called René. He is Argentinian I think? (or he's living there?). Anyway, he also did Rapture as I remember. An excellent developer but it is pity he left the DSP programming. I'm not sure if he was responsible for the whole development of Z3ta +2, but of course he did the first one Z3ta+ before joining Cakewalk. Z3ta+ was among the leaders in that time.

acYm · Post by **acYm** » Tue Jul 05, 2016 3:39 pm

I really wouldn't hold my breath for Z3, unfortunately. no one's interested in synthesis at cakewalk. they'll come up with a tool that can fish out a pick from a guitar long before they look at synths again.

damn shame cause z3ta+ is one of the OG softsynths. wish someone else would buy it from them.

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Tue Jul 05, 2016 4:21 pm

recursive one wrote:Afaik, the original developer abandoned Z3ta long ago and Cakewalk are just doing maintenance, so we will unlikely see any big improvements. Z3ta is a very old synth in fact, if I'm not mistaken, the first version may have been released even before Zebra.

I'd love to see better filters and better effects, maybe improved unison. I love the sound of the oscillators, they are really thick and sweet. Some of the factory presets sound as good as if they were coming from my Virus, but because of the crappy filters and effects there is not much you can do with them - just a couple of little tweaks here and there and you are outside of the sweet spot.

Yep, pretty much this. If they did a new version with improved sound sngine, better filters, better, more snappy envelopes, and all that, it might be a really good competitor to what's on the market now. If not, not so.

I think they already should have done a rework of the sound engine with version 2. But as recursive one said, if they're just doing "maintainance work", like upgrading the GUI a bit, more sample/waveform quality (AFAIK), then it's rather unlikely that they'd be able to rework the sound of Z3TA. The architecture is nice, and it's a very powerful synth. BUT, there's a few things they should also upgrade then. More flexible envelopes (should be freely drawable/moveable, instead of fixed forms), longer enevlope stage times, faster LFO's, better fx, better implementation of osc sync, and so on. If they do that, wow, that's one competetive synth then (which probably some people would consider as the killer of *insertrandompopularsynthhere*

).

What do you think, Cakewalk?

P.S.: I always wondered why companies don't strive to hire synth developers for their synths. I've been thinking lately that, if Propellerhead hired some well known synth creator for their stock synths, for example, they could really improve on their devices. Of course, those got to be willed to take the job, but, imagine, for example, Steinberg or Propellerhead would hire, or be able to hire, the dev from Reveal-Sound, and make a real killer synth device for their DAW, like Logic did with Alchemy now. That would be another very good argument to buy their DAW then. Cakewalk, if they don't have the knowledge to develop, or rework a synth at the moment, could hire someone external to do it for them. And have a great synth, either for their DAW, or as a standalone product. Of course, won't be cheap, but, who knows, maybe they have a great product in their portfolio then.

cryophonik · Post by **cryophonik** » Tue Jul 05, 2016 4:32 pm

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Z3TA+3. Cakewalk really seems to be prioritizing Sonar (

) and has always had a history of very long periods between synth versions. So, I just don't see them suddenly shifting gears to release a new version of something like Z3TA+, which I would assume probably accounts for a relatively small share of their revenue. Besides, Z3TA+2 is pretty excellent as it is, IMO.

MillerSam · Post by **MillerSam** » Tue Jul 05, 2016 7:07 pm

I'm a Beta Tester of Cakewalk and I can say today that now no version 3 is released, no in test or so.
I think it will be longer on the the table. Sonar is the important product at the moment.
You see it with Rapture Pro, the products will be developed to new version.
Hope we will see a new version in 2017 maybe

chk071 · Post by **chk071** » Tue Jul 05, 2016 7:34 pm

Yeah, i think you guys are right, Cakewalk is concentrating on Sonar more. Fair enough, it's not as if there's not many soft synths on the market anyway.

Not many waveshaping ones though.

waltercruz · Post by **waltercruz** » Tue Jul 05, 2016 8:22 pm

Ouch, I tought that I had commented... well, let's go again.

Last year, an update on Mac OS (2015-01), released on January 27 broke Z3Ta+ authorization.

The fix was release only in abril. 3 months of broken Z3ta. To me, cakewalk support is not trustable.

Z3ta feels to me like an almost finished product. It's real good, and it's no far for being an amazing product. But I don't think that cakewalk will ever get there.

MarlaPodolski · Post by **MarlaPodolski** » Wed Jul 06, 2016 1:38 am

Z3TA is one of the oldest really classic softsynths. Used to be you couldn't touch it for under a hundred dollars. There are actually quite a few extra preset packs and banks for it. They used to (still do?) cost a few bucks to acquire. A very few are free. Look for them? This synth has a certain nostalgia attached to it for many of us. It was one of the first really good ones we bought.

You want it "fixed"? Do you mean fixed like they recently "fixed" Rapture? I think not. You bought it really cheap on sale. So you don't like it enough? Who cares? Well, how about don't use it then? Plenty of other, newer synths to complain about that cost real money.

Edit - Just noticed, you're over in another thread complaining that Alloy 2 needs updating also. How many other threads that I may have missed where you are doing the same? Considering that there really isn't much/anything lacking in Alloy as is, and not much really wrong with Z3TA, let me give you some advice: life is short, make good use of your time - forget your perceived imperfections in other things and focus on your own. These sorts of threads do nothing productive, really, except give a few lonely boys something to keep them busy and not get any real work done.

Slaapstadseun · Post by **Slaapstadseun** » Wed Jul 06, 2016 6:56 am

For all it's faults, zeta still has the best arpeggiator of any synth I know of. It is true that some features could be improved or updated but that arp keeps it alive for me.

greedy.mf · Post by **greedy.mf** » Wed Jul 06, 2016 7:05 am

MarlaPodolski wrote:
Edit - Just noticed, you're over in another thread complaining that Alloy 2 needs updating also. How many other threads that I may have missed where you are doing the same?

Whoa, that's harsh. What are you, complaining police?
It's all about sharing opinions and gathering feedback. And clearly not about condescending speeches.

While there is a certain valid point in your post about "life is short, make good use of your time", I pretty sure lonely boys can take care of themselves.

When I say something is lacking that means it's lacking. To me. And to bunch of other guys too, apparently.
So if everything I mentioned is perfect to you, well... Good for you, carry on.

Thanks you for your wisdom, let me just toss the edit part of your post into my big can of unsolicited advices.
First part is good though.

Cakewalk Z3ta+ 3 anytime soon?