Z3TA+

Incredible.

This is not your average synthesizer. It's capable of just about anything. Amazing sounds can be made with z3ta+'s flexibility. It's obviously designed for professionals, with the vast amount of flexibility and features it's capable of. It can be a bit intimidating at first as Rabid said, but it becomes comfortable to work with after just a little time with it.

BitPlants GUI design is wonderfull. It's very easy to read and use. I also find it visually stimulating, which for me is super important. I really wish all of Rene's synths could look more like this one.

The sound could not be better - It's the most advanced synth I've used, and while sometimes it takes me a little bit to get a sound I like from it, for the most part programming it is fairly easy.

z3ta+ is more than you ever expected in terms of features. There are lots of little things that help make it user friendly for everyone, that most of us don't even notice.

The included manual is great, and I would have probably knocked one off because it could use just a little bit more on some of the sections, but with the addition of the Online z3ta+ Clinic Volume 1, the doc's get full marks.

I'm not sure who made the presets for this but there's a ton of them and they're fantastic. I think they really show off the character of z3ta+, and they're great for tweaking too - a lot of these presets are really creative, and that's great but sometimes you might want to tame one down a hair to fit it in your mix better, and they're very easy to work with.

Rene's level of customer support is great. If you mail him you can expect a mail back within a day or so, and if you post on his Official Forum here on K-v-R, expect an answer within hours. He offers great synths for a great price, and he does update them frequently enough to keep everyone happy.

Value for money? Well, while he charges $150 for z3ta+, there are other guys charging the same or even more for stuff that in my opinion isn't worth half of what z3ta+ is. Your money is going towards something that really is useful - this is not a novelty synth. It's a very powerful synth that you will come back to over and over again.

While I've heard a few people say that this synth is a little CPU hungry, I haven't found it to be at all on my Athlon 2400+, and with the update to version 1.1 it has gotten even better. It's very light especially for what it does and you won't have any problems running a couple of them at the same time either. Maybe once you hit 6 or 7 instances it'll add up but honetly it's very good on your system resources.

All in all I give z3ta+ full marks, and would reccomend it to anyone looking for a good synth. It's really perfect, and I've realized that there isn't much need for any others once you have it. Since getting more familiar with z3ta+, I don't think that I will have much need for any more VSTi synthesizers for at least a while - or until Rene creates a new one ;)Read Review