By Jim Aikin
The original Z3TA+ (pronounced “zaytah”) was a powerful and great-sounding analog-style soft synth. Z3ta+ 2 retains the strengths of the original and piles on some significant new features. The most important advances are real-time waveshaping modulation, which opens up some seriously beefy sound design possibilities, and a category-based preset browser. The presets in the original were tumbled together in six disorganized banks, which made finding what you wanted quite a chore. Hundreds of new presets are included in Z3ta+ 2, along with the entire sound set from the original version. The user interface has been enlarged and improved, and the signal routing through the effects section is now user-configurable. However, Z3ta+ 2 is still Windows-only.
Synthesis
The module lineup in Z3ta+ 2 is as before: six waveshaping oscillators, two multimode filters, eight envelope generators, six LFOs, matrix modulation with 16 routings, and an arpeggiator. If you’re into sound design, you’ll never run out of new things to try. Not only are there lots of modules, they’re packed with features. The oscillators can modulate one another for FM or ring mod, and can also do those classic hard-sync sweeps. Each oscillator’s output can feed the two filters, with a crossfade control for blending the output. Single-cycle user waves can be loaded, though the waveshaping possibilities are so deep the user wave loading may not get much of a workout.
The envelope generator segments can each be set to linear, convex, or concave curvature. Eleven (global) velocity response curves are available. The LFOs have a unique design: Each has two waveforms, and they can splice or crossfade the two. The modulation matrix, while not entirely simple to program, has an assortment of curves and depth controls. Among the modulation sources is an X/Y pad that now includes “ballistics:” Release the puck after mousing it in a given direction, and it glides smoothly to a stop.
In the original Z3ta+, both the waveshape programming for the oscillators and the X/Y pad popped up in separate windows, an unlovely design choice. Z3ta+ 2 integrates these features into the main window, and adds four more waveshaping controls. Also new: graphic programming of the envelopes. They’re not true multi-segment envelopes, and they don’t loop, but they’re better than simple ADSRs: Essentially, there are two decay segments plus an initial delay time.
The new pitch-bend features are absolutely brilliant. You can switch the bender to affect only the top or bottom note of a chord for pedal-steelstyle bends, or to affect only notes held with keys, not those held with the sustain pedal. Bend depth can be based on scale steps rather than on chromatic half-steps. The ability to load alternate tunings, dropped from the 2.0 release, has been restored in version 2.1, and hundreds of Scala tuning files are included.
12-2011 REVIEW: Cakewalk Z3ta+ 2 by KeyboardMag
Sound Banks
Z3ta+ has always had a brash, aggressive sound, and the new sound banks continue the trend. That said, there are plenty of laid-back, subtle sounds in the Pads and Leads Soft categories. The category list includes Arps, Bass 1, Bass 2, Keyboards, Leads Hard, Leads Soft, Pads, Percussion, Sequences 1, Sequences 2, Short & Plucked Synth, Simulations, Sound FX, Synthesizer, and Textures. A search tool can find presets: Just type a few letters of the name, such as “clav,” and a list of matching sounds pops up.
The Basses and Sequences are divided into two banks simply because there are too many patches to display in a single 128-item pop-up menu. This is terrific—you can’t have too many basses! At the other extreme, the Simulations category has only eight patches, including a good flute, a reasonable picked bass, and a “muted trumpet” that’s not even faintly convincing. It’s safe to say that acoustic instrument emulations are not what Z3ta+ is about.
Some of the Sound FX are truly scary, while others evoke classic video games. The Keyboards include the expected Clavinet, drawbar organ, and electric piano items. The Stage Piano preset sounds a bit muffled if you play lightly, but when you spank the keys you get a nice Rhodes bark. The Suitcase EP preset puts timbre adjustment under the mod wheel instead of under velocity.
Effects
The effects complement in Z3ta+ 2 is very respectable: distortion, compression, modulation (chorus/flange/phaser), reverb, three delay lines, seven-band EQ, a few choices for amp/speaker simulation, and a master output limiter. In version 1, the effects order was fixed, but in version 2 you can order the effects however you like. This is very handy if you want to put the distortion after the delay, for instance. The distortion has a couple of new options, and the EQ is more flexible than you might expect, as the seven bands can be spaced across the frequency spectrum in a dozen different configurations. I’d like to see pre-delay added as a reverb parameter.
Arpeggiator
The arpeggiator in Z3ta+ 2 sports a few minor improvements. It operates in two modes: classic up/down and MIDI file playback. The up/down mode will also do random note order and multiple octaves. The main menu lacks an “as played” option, but that turns out to be a separate parameter called Sort, which can be switched on or off. The clock syncs to the host sequencer, of course, and the arpeggiator has both Swing and Humanize knobs.
Z3ta+ 2 ships with 250 arpeggiator patterns. They’re derived from MIDI files, and you can load your own MIDI files into the arpeggiator. Some of the patterns are quite cool and may inspire new synth-pop tunes. The patterns are always in 4/4 time, and can’t be edited within Z3ta+ 2, but the 2.1 update allows patterns to be dragged and dropped from the arpeggiator directly into a MIDI track in your DAW. This feature is a huge plus for editing patterns that are close but not quite what you need.
If you hold a chord while a pattern plays, all of the voices will play the whole pattern in parallel: The arpeggiator doesn’t distribute chord notes across the pattern, which is a fairly standard feature in many soft synths. But here again, it’s easy to drag the pattern into a sequencer track and edit it to produce whatever convoluted phrase you need.
Conclusions
I like the sound of Z3ta+ 2 a lot, and I’m sure I’ll be using it in future projects—especially now that I can browse presets by category and export the factory arpeggiator patterns into my DAW. The user interface improvements are very welcome, the new waveshaping features are terrific, and the unusual pitch-bend modes may come in very handy. This is an absolutely powerhouse synth, and at a very modest price.
Bottom Line
Huge bang-for-buck in a “synthy” soft synth, and one of the best reasons for Mac users to envy Windows.
$139 list | $99 street | $49 upgrade
cakewalk.com
Key Info
FORMATS Standalone, VST.
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Windows XP, Vista, or 7 (32- or 64-bit). Intel Core 2 Duo 2GHz or faster CPU, 2GB RAM, 200MB hard disk space.
Snap Judgment
PROS Four new waveshaping modes. Four new filter modes. Waveshaping can be modulated in real time. X/Y pad has ballistics. Flexible effects routing. Unique scale-based pitch-bend depth. Arpeggiator pattern export. Tons of new presets plus original sound banks, organized in a category browser.
CONS No Mac version.
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