Z3TA+

This has morphed into my main instrument of choice these days. The sound for me is superb...for the longest time, my keyboard/synth of choice was a Roland XP-80. Now that's become more the controller than sound generator.

The palatte of sounds to choose from is large, and it's fairly intuitive when it comes to tweaking the sounds. I tend to be one of the lazy ones that hunts for presets that I like and stick with them, with minimal tweaking. However, the ability to experiment with favorite presets has meant spending more time in the "deep end of the pool".

That it has a standalone mode is great too, I just use it to noodle around quite a bit. It's got some nice electric piano sounds that I'll use just for keyboard practice as well.

A nice instrument, low CPU usage, and RGC does a great job with support. Love it!

User Interface: Straightforward slider and dropdown design. Mostly intuitive for me. Fairly easy to save/rearrange patches, but does require move/cut/paste to do so. Something a little easier would be nice.

Sound: The words "sharp", "clean", and "present" come to mind. It's got a nice "in your face" sort of sound by default. Bass sounds are excellent, lots of character. Leads are great, they can cut through a mix if need be. Pads are very nice as well. While I don't think of this as a pad synth first, I find that a few of my overall favorite pads end up coming from z3ta.

Features: Beyond the excellence in synth sounds, the effects set is nice by my ears (distortion/reverb, compressor, modulation, EQ, delay). Also, has a usable spectral analyzer as well. I was also excited that it supports Scala microtuning. Really though, get the demo and read through the manual, this synth goes pretty deep.

Documentation: Well written pdf.

Presets: I was auditioning them for days. :-) I believe it ships with 1024 presets. I've got about 40 or so that I use faithfully, and that's a good number for me. I believe that there's something for everyone in the stock preset lib, and there are also some 3'rd party banks (free) that you can download.

Customer Support: Haven't had to use it directly, I've always found my answers on the tech support forum at K-V-R. However, judging by the timeliness and professionalism of the responses there, I'll happily make this a 10.

Value for Money: This is one of the few soft synths or effects that I've auditioned the demo and thought I "had" to have. Mind you, I first heard this through headphones on my laptop when I downloaded it on a business trip. Once I put it on my studio system, it was all over. Consider this a real value for the $.

Stability: Rock solid, never had a problem with either the DXi or VST version (or the standalone). Used mostly with Sonar 3.1 and Live 4. Check out the tech forum on K-V-R, you don't see many problems pop up.Read Review