mesayre
I hadn't used this synth for a while - no reason, just too many toys in my toybox.
At any rate, today was a dedicated "learn" day, and I was looking at my options for making big "hybrid scoring" type wooshes, booms, and other digital ridiculousness.
I opened Zeta2 up, and within about 5 minutes was making some craaaaazy big stuff. If you haven't tried it yet, try out Pulse Modulation (select PM under Group for an oscillator - make sure you turn on a second one so it has something to modulate!). Then mess around with the transposition settings and the waveshaper. Maybe even try putting your second osc in Multi mode. Whoa!
Very Cool. Props to the bakers.
I agree, it's easy to get swept up in the "new toys" syndrome!
There are some good, often overlooked, synths provided in the full Sonar package. I am reading Simon Cann's book, "Cakewalk Synthesizers, From Presets to Power User, 2nd Ed". Very informative!
The Pentagon I synth can make some good warm analog tones, as well as some monster sounds. Even the classic z3ta+ is a beast! Simon recommends mastering the included synths, before moving on to purchase other synths. There is also some good stuff in Dimension and Rapture as well. But it seems that z3ta+ is the one that has made the all time classics list!
I could see dropping $500 for a virtual orchestra, or Komplete for it's Kontakt library, if you need real instruments. But for synth sounds, you already have plenty to work with if you just look under the hood of the included ones.
If you need an actual emulation of a classic analog, the Arturia V collection is very entertaining. I tried the demo, but I think that for now, I can keep myself busy with z3ta+ and Z3TA+ 2 :-)