z3ta+ 2.1 as a VST FX plug-in: problem

Any users out there of Z3TA+ 2.1 that use it as an FX plug-in as well as a synth?  If so I'd be grateful for your advice.   
 
I have a sketch project from a year or so ago where I inserted z3ta+ (the previous version) into the FX bin on a gtr track to use as a guitar FX processor and came up with a very usable sound.   I want to do a new tune using those same settings but wanted to use the new version Z3TA+ 2.1 which I recently bought, instead of the old version.  The old version will still do the job but vn 2.1 has a better interface and I should be able to use it for audio FX anyway.
 
However, even though vn 2.1 has loaded into the VST plugins folder it is not being located in the list of audio FX by the VST scan.   (It is working OK in its function as a synth).   I have done the usual re-scans and re-starts.
 
The problem seems to be when I look in the old version z3ta VST plugins folder it has 3 files:  z3ta+.dll, z3ta+_fx.dll and z3ta+.fx2.dll;
but when I look in the new version Z3TA+2 VST plugins folder it only has Z3TA+2_64.dll and Z3TA+2_64  (an .exe file).    There is no file with the _fx suffix in there.    Does this mean I did something wrong during the installation?  Can it be fixed?
 
Thanks in advance for any advice.
 
 
 

It could be stored in different folder. Find it physical location on the drive and check if you need to add that folder to plugin scan.

z3ta+_fx2.dll is an FX version of z3ta+

Bigdogs


I think that z3ta 2 doesn't have an FX version

The odd thing is that if I right-click in the effects bin, and look at the list of audio effects, z3ta+ 2 is there, and it can be dropped into the bin.  But how to get it to actually do anything is beyond my noob comprehension.

The toggle is just bringing up the effects window for the synth.  There's no mention of an FX version in the manual, and I think I remember reading a review of the synth that was disappointed by the lack of the FX version.

Sonar allows you to configure a synth as a tempo based effect, and an effect as a synth. Go to the plug-in manager, click on the plugin and click properties.

Perhaps you have a synth version configured as an effect. However, if someone can confirm that there is an fx version of z3ta+ 2, then great.

I'm getting terminally confused (not unusual for me).  While I believe you guys who say z3ta+ 3 can't be used as an effect, in the sense of sending audio through its effects unit, I guess I don't understand what it means to configure it as a tempo-based effect.

But the really confusing part is what I see in Sonar when I right-click on an effects bin (this is in the console view for an instrument track).  There's a pop-up menu, and two of the choices are "Audio FX" and "Soft Synths".  I get it that if you choose a synth out of the "Soft Synths" selection, you aren't really adding an effect, but it's just a different way of adding a synth to a track.  And, under that"Soft Synths" heading, I see the original z3ta+, along with the other synths like Rapture and DimPro.  But I don't see z3ta+2 listed.  What's with that?

Moving to the "Audio Effects" selection of the pop-up menu, I see a further submenu for z3ta+, and under it are those two fxs that actually work, z3ta+_fx and z3ta+fx2 (what's the difference, by the way?).  But here's the kicker, I also see "Z3TA+2_64" listed in "Audio Effects", but none of the other soft synths like Rapture and DimPro.  But if I insert it, I can't seem to get it to do effects processing. So  I am thinking I should assume, at this point, that it must be some bug that makes it show up in the wrong effects bin listing.

Just to clarify.  I'd been using the classic z3ta+ as a straightforward gtr FX unit in the audio FX bin after reading about its use as an effects unit in Scott Garrigus' Sonar X1 Power! book (and as described in the SoundonSound article linked above).    It appears in the Audio FX bin dropdown list and in the Browser FX list under 'Synths as FX'.   

It also appears of course under the the Insert > Soft Synths dropdown but that is for its totally separate use as a synth.

The natural assumption would seem to be that the new version, Z3TA+2, would have the same functionality, otherwise there is not much point to it having an Effects screen.  Therefore it should appear in the Audio FX bin, just as the classic version did (as described in Garrigus and the above article ('Real Time Effects')).   However, as pointed out above, its VST folder does not contain the _fx and _fx2 dll files that were present in the classic version.  This is presumably what is  preventing its insertion in the Audio FX bin. 
 
This may have been a deliberate change (and not a good one) as suggested above but this isn't clear from any overviews of Z3TA+2 I can find.    I have mailed CW technical support for confirmation. 

wr


Thanks for that helpful link, and the explanation.  There seems to be no documentation of the two "fx" versions in the original z3ta+ user manual/help file, or about the difference between them.  The only reference at all that I could find to using the synth as effects is to the last method described in that article, where you insert the synth itself, not the fx version, and set the "Audio Input Thru" option.  That option disappeared in z3ta+ 2.
 
I was able to move z3ta+ 2 from the effects to the synth list, as you described.  Don't know how it got there, or that it was even possible to move things into a list where they wouldn't function.  Oh, well...
 
Combo - my apologies for hijacking your thread a bit.  
 
T's OK.  Only belatedly bumping this thread to say tech support have now confirmed that there is no error - Z3TA+2 'does not have the capability to be routed as an audio effect anymore' and the original z3ta+ instrument has to be used for this.