Z3ta+ 2 on sale this weekend for $35

[Michael Canavan]

http://www.pluginboutique.com/sales/423

Playing around with it, it's pretty fun and easy to make noise with. This synth has always gotten high marks and I can see why.
65% off regular price of about $100 until Sunday ends I guess.
Cheaper than a couple mixed drinks these days.

Posting here because it's the one Cakewalk product that's 100% OSX compatible, their other products require Rosseta. No worries though, Cakewalk bought the developer behind Z3ta+ so he will keep up with Apple at least.

[James Steele]

Actually I have some other Cakewalk instruments that are working in Mavericks, DP 8.06 with 32 Lives. I can't go look right now but I'm pretty sure Rapture and Dimension work.

[stubbsonic]

My only experience with Z3ta is the iOS version, which has a lot going for it-- especially for an iOS synth, but, unfortunately has a laughably stupid interface.

I expect that the desktop version doesn't have any of those issues and all of the goodness.

$35 is a good deal for this powerhouse synth.

Even though I'm not much of a synth-head, I really appreciate a well-designed and flexible synth. This has a mod-matrix with secondary control sources, and response ranges & curves. It loads scala tuning maps and does some quite unique things.

Thanks for the link. Have to decide if I really need it. Hmmmmm. I have a problem.

[dewdman42]

if I didn't already own z3ta I would DEFINITELY buy it for that price. Is it dated? Maybe, but it has some sweet tone, wave shaping and some other unique features. Its a phenomenal synth and that is a phenomenal price.

DimensionPro and Rapture might be 32bit only, I can't remember now. I never use them much even though I own them and even own some expansion packs. Its not that they suck or anything its just that I own a lot of other stuff that is so much more, I never end up really messing with them much. If they are down in the same price range, I would say they are a decent deal, but of the three, z3ta is the real must buy IMHO.

[dewdman42]

And agree with james, DimPro and Rapture do not require rosetta. But I just checked and yes they are 32bit only. Z3ta is 64bit though.

[Michael Canavan]

http://www.cakewalk.com/Support/Knowled ... or-greater


Not that a web admin can't be wrong or anything, just going off what the site says.
If they work fine in Maverics then they're even cheaper at Plugsound

[James Steele]

http://www.cakewalk.com/Support/Knowled ... or-greater


Not that a web admin can't be wrong or anything, just going off what the site says.
If they work fine in Maverics then they're even cheaper at Plugsound

Web Admins: 1 Cakewalk Site: 0

I can't vouch for Rapture, but Dimension LE is shown below in DP 8.06 running on Mavericks. 32 Lives is necessary of course, but it works. That "not officially supported" phrase leaves the door open a bit. In English it means, "we don't want you calling us."

[Michael Canavan]

James I meant the web admins for the Cakewalk site.

If it works in 32 Lives, then it's not using Rosetta, which is probably misinformation the web admins didn't catch. What do you think of Dimension anyway? Pro is on sale for 15$ until Monday.

[dewdman42]

Actually some stuff is coming back to me vaguely now. I think possibly the INSTALLER does not work without Rosetta or some strange think like that. If you already have it installed, it will continue to work because the product itself is intel code, does not require rosetta, and I can tell you for sure that both DimPro and Rapture work on Mavericks with 32bit host (or 32 Lives). I just tested them both on Mavericks and working, making sound, etc.

I think I recall even having to figure out how to install this myself without the rosetta installer and I think I did somehow figure out how to do that, but I can't remember what I did now. You can google around if you're so inclined, might figure it out, but but obviously Cakewalk is not officially supporting this, so I'm not sure I would throw down money for it at this point on OSX. But it does seem to work if you can get it all installed. I do remember vaguely fiddling around to get it installed though, sorry can't remember details exactly. there are some threads on KVR about this, I think maybe its a matter of tweaking some plist files with your reg number so that when the installer runs it finds your license number instead of prompting for it, and that is the installer code that doesn't work on Lion, or something...but anyway, google around if you're really motivated, if the price is low enough it might be worth it. I can say that i got it working last year, but sorry I can't remember exactly what I did. I'm sure I found the solution googling around. And I can say that the actual VST's themselves work fine in Mavericks.

[mhschmieder]

Thanks for letting us know it's compatible; I'm so used to Cakewalk/Roland/Bain Capital(?) software not being Mac-compatible that I rarely waste my time looking anymore, when I see one on sale. I can't remember if that was the one that caught my attention years ago or not, but at $35 it doesn't have to offer much unique beyond other products to be a good buy.

I can't remember who bought Roland after they bought Cakewalk. Maybe it wasn't Bain Capital, but my concern is that some of that stuff might get liquidated or abandoned, so it is ESPECIALLY good to know when one of their products isa CURRENTLY compatible as the ones that aren't might become increasingly problematic over time.

[mhschmieder]

I like the new interface for version 2 a lot. And now that I've looked it up, this was the one that interested me, whereas Dimension didn't.

You can download a trial if you don't want to take the $35 risk:

http://www.cakewalk.com/products/z3ta/

I think this is worth checking out. The update and Mac 64-bit compatibility seem recent, so it's likely to maintain support for awhile.

[mhschmieder]

The sale must have ended as it didn't show up at the link, and my manual search found it only for $99 at that same site. I see also that for $1 less, a few months ago, they threw another product in for free. I've already killed that browser tab so don't remember its name; it sounded like a dumbed-down entry-level DAW though (and probably Windows-only).

[mhschmieder]

Just spent about a half hour playing with the demo and am blown away by the quality and diversity of the patches. I NEED this synth -- there are quite a few patches that will help me quickly wrap up some deferred soundscape projects that needed an extra ingredient to really consider them complete.

Maybe I can find it for $35 somewhere else. I gather the sale at that plug-in site ended much earlier today (maybe midnight GMT?).

[stubbsonic]

The site said they were "out of stock" for serial numbers after I had place my order. So supposedly, my order went through, but I'll have to wait until tomorrow for my serial.

If you have an iPad, you can get that version for $20. Not so fun to edit and glitchy, though.

[dewdman42]

Just spent about a half hour playing with the demo and am blown away by the quality and diversity of the patches. I NEED this synth -- there are quite a few patches that will help me quickly wrap up some deferred soundscape projects that needed an extra ingredient to really consider them complete.

Maybe I can find it for $35 somewhere else. I gather the sale at that plug-in site ended much earlier today (maybe midnight GMT?).

Sorry to hear you missed the sale. Maybe by a day. Try sending them an email and plead for it, that you didn't hear about it in time. Its worth a try. z3ta is an awesome synth, $35 is a steal! I paid more than that and would still pay more for it. A lot of synth junkies don't talk about it a lot because there are a lot of newer fancy new synths out that have huge capabilities in terms of synthesis (and cost a lot more), but what I can say about z3ta is that its easy to use, sounds great, has a lot of flexibility, and its truly "unique". Cakewalk is not the right company to market it, it could be doing better somewhere else, but oh well.