In a nutshell, what's the difference between Z3TA+ 2.1, Dimension Pro and Rapture?

I don't know anything about synth other than being a listener.  I would imagine that there are some differences between the three, but not knowing anything about synth, I would not know what they are.  Was hoping someone could help me understand what the differences between the three are, and when you might use one synth over another.

Thanks
Rick

All three use the same basic SFZ engine.

Z3TA was the first of Rene's synths - Cakewalk bought RGC out and Z3Ta w/ him.  As mump sez it is an Virtual Analog synth.  Most of the "samples" are analog waves.  It has a waveshaper to change the actual waveshape and, in Z3TA + 2 you can sync those changes, thus affecting the sound of the sound before any envelopes and filters and such.

Dimension was Rene's next synth, made for P5.  It was more of a sampler, with a large sample pool of acoustic instruments.  It is still a synth, tho, with filters, LFOs etc.  And it can be layered via elements (each of those a single mono-timbrel synth in itself).  The patches/presets were mostly of acoustic instruments, but there were some pads and spacey sounds too.  DimPro mostly added more samples - it went from 3 gigs or so to 7.  And more presets.  And was sold as a stand alone synth before it got included w/ SONAR.

Rapture has a different set of sampes/SFZ, 6 elements and step sequencers.  All the organs that were missing in Dimpro (which had 10-20) were in Rapture, as well as more electric sounds - synths like moogs & arps, more eps, etc.  However, Rapture can't play back samples but plays a "wavetable" approximation of the sample, giving Rene's SFZ the clean playback such are known for, including little aliasing.  DimPro will wavetable samples less than 3000 samples long (I think that is right), but will play longer samples back in all their sample length glory.

Do you need all three?  No, not if you have all the DimPro samples for Rapture (since the wavetable will do a good job on them).  Most patches don't use all 6 elements, but DimPro can't emulate the step sequencers, so Rapture is the most flexible of the two.  But it can't exactly replicate longer samples, either.

I divide them up according to what I'm trying to do.  I use Z3TA for a VA, doing modular-style stuff w/ it. DimPro is for mostly acoustic instruments.  Rapture is for synth stuff, but it cuts better than Z3TA (or Alchemy, which is my go-to VA).  The basses, for example, even if they are synth based, still sound less synthy than Z3TA.  Z3TA is better for buzzy sounds.

Ideally, there should be one synth using SFZ, with all the Z3TA synth oscillator waves, Rapture's various short wavetables and longer, DimPro samples.  But Cake serialized them and made money from each as they added to the sample pool.  That is where the synth money is - in libraries.  Cake just used a different synth to sell them, rather than nickel and diming the customers.

@

I need to go find a good read... A lot of those terms mean squat to me.  I'm really interested in dabbling in them as well.

Yeah, AT.  z3ta+ (1 or 2) isn't an .sfz-based synth.  I believe the first one was the 'sfz player' (*not* sfz+).  Once P5's original Dimension landed, they all have it 'under the hood'.  Not sure about anything in the future, other than the non-Cakewalk entries that picked up on the immense possibilities (Alchemy; Aria; that killer hardware workstation that I can never remember).
 
One quick correction:  Dimension Pro and Rapture can both load long samples and wavetables.  DP is optimized for longer samples; Rapture is optimized for wavetables.
 

the rumor of a Cake super synth.  Rumour also has it Beatscape was the result ... I still wish Cake would finish that ... Pads hooked up to the SONAR engine/mixer w/ plenty of individual control w/in the Pads.

 
Agree 100%.  Beatscape is to the "SuperSynth" as a tricycle is to a Ferrari.
 

I need to go find a good read... A lot of those terms mean squat to me.  I'm really interested in dabbling in them as well.

 
The bible: Cakewalk Synthesizers: from Presets to Power User

b rock

The bible: Cakewalk Synthesizers: from Presets to Power User

Hey Tom, thanks for the link!!!


Rick

redbarchetta

I'm really interested in dabbling in them as well.

I would recommend starting with the easiest, i.e. Dimension Pro.  Load up some sounds and try experimenting with the various different filters.  After that, check out Rapture's step sequencer.  These are very useful tools.

I don't know much about Z3ta+ 1&2.  I tend to just stick to the presets with these.

Paul P


About the Cakewalk synthesizers book...

Does the book go into much depth as far as what goes on 'underneath', especially with respect to how progams and samples are organized and processed ?

Or is like a lot of tutorial videos that only go through the various controls one by one, with comments, but don't provide much in the way of methodology, philosophy, architecture, etc. ?

Seems to me that the number of instruments the book covers must limit the depth that the author can go into for each one.

Well, having bought the book I found it very detailed and informative if a bit over my head!


The first chapter just introduces all the various Cakewalk Synthesizers; Triangle II, Square I, TTS-I etc.
 
Chapter 2 discusses, in detail, the various waves (sine, sawtooth, square, Noise), filters, modulation sources; envelopes (amplitude, filter, pitch), LFO's   (amplitude, filter, pitch, pulse width), combining oscillators etc.

Chapter 3 then concentrates on Intermediate & Advanced Synthesis techniques which covers more waveforms, combining oscillators, wave shaping, ring modulation, FM synthesis, various filters (notch, formant, Peak etc) and goes into other effects, distortion, compression, limiting, eq etc. 


The remaining chapters focus on each synthesizer in turn asking; What is it?  Why Use it? How to use it?  There are plenty of illustrations and examples within the text.


TBH, most of it I didn't understand, but I am hoping over time to understand it better and when I do, there is a great deal of information about programming the various synths and a whole chapter on the SFZ format.