I recommend the Xenos library over the stock library. (They're priced right too.)

Hi Rain I can understand where you are coming from. Many VST's have varying output levels and the range can be quite striking. The same can be said for hardware synths too and even between presets there can be serious volume level changes.

I was playing with the original Z3ta+ today and noticed that some presets were clipping the meter on the front of the Z3ta+ itself. But a simple volume level down shift put it back to right. On Zebralette for example the opposite sometimes happens when a preset is very quiet and I have to add 7 or 8 dB to the output level to get back to speed.

I am using a VU meter as my incoming ref level setting device and I have chosen a K system level of -14 to work at for a lot of things. Placing a VU straight after the synth will tell you exactly how loud the signal is leaving the VST. If a preset is too loud the VU will show it and a simple lowering of the output level on the instrument so the VU reads nicely up to 0dB VU with normal playing does the trick. 

It is the nature of the beast to a certain extent output levels varying as much as they do with synthesisers. But it is good to catch this problem early and make sure any levels leaving an instrument are right at the source. You need to level set for every preset before you play or record it. (using the synth output volume control) Then you won't have any issues with them later on in your signal chain.

Even when I have got all my hardware synths nicely setup level wise I still sometimes come across a patch that is very loud and overloading everything and it can happen from any instrument. I find the best control to grab is the volume level on the synth itself. Because even some slight distortion can actually occur within the synth and that distortion leaves the synth that way. No amount of gain reduction later will fix it. But turning down the volume level on the instrument always fixes it. I think you have to keep an eye on VST's the same way.

The issue in not that you cannot turn down the level on Z3ta2, I think the point Rain is simply making is that stock preset patches that are so unusably clipping/ hot simply should not be released to public.. its sloppy work and poor QC. ..

That is a good point and it brings us into preset programming and the quality of that. Levelling out presets is something synth programmers can do. But only up to a certain point.

There is another aspect to it and that is the volume envelope of a sound can have great effect on overall level. If a sound is short and sharp it may never have time to develop much signal level and those patches can tend to be quiet. On the other hand a big fat pad that reaches full volume levels can produce signal levels that are way higher. 

You can do a certain amount such as push levels of the quieter sounds up using what DSP you have available and pull some of the louder sounds down to bring them more in line. I am talking within the synth here but of course once a sound leaves the synth there is a lot we can do in our DAW's too. 

Some VST's that feature limiters don't always do a great job of the limiting and it is better often to switch them off and control the level of the sound in other ways.

For me it has to do with starting points.
And if the supplied library doesn't show a good range,
I'm liable to not use the synth that 'came free with the DAW'.

Most of what was supplied was noise, some made even worse by the clipping.
Seems like there were around five patches that were okay starting points to edit from.
I'm sure there's a market for those other noises, but not for my music styles.

With so many synths competing, I'm going to go with the one with a usable library.
I used to do the full on programming from scratch,
but that seems counter productive to me now as it's just faster to find
something close and edit it from there, so I can get back to recording it.

I found the Xenos library gives more and better 'starting' points for Z3ta
(and they're quite cheap too.)

But buy them direct from Xenos and not from the Cakewalk Store
as Xenos sells them for half the price ($5.25 vs. Cakewalk's $9.95)

There are about 2000 patches in Z3TA+2.  While the clipping is a problem, it takes about 2 seconds to turn it down.  Certainly sloppy, but not a deal breaker.  And I've found plenty of useful patches and starting points - if you ain't looking for acoustics instruments.  My biggest problem w/ the library is the sameness.  Lots of basses that aren't all that different, at least for me.  But still, for $99 (or free), it is a useful synth. 

And there are some free sounds out there (tho $5 is hardly expensive).

@

I wouldn't consider it a deal breaker - Zeta is one of the very very few practically essential 3rd party plug-ins that I use.

Furthermore, as I do w/ all the synths that I use, the first thing that I do is usually to re-save every patch as a Audio Unit preset, so that I can access them directly in Logic's browser, select them w/ key commands and such. Doing that, it isn't too hard to bring down the fader on Zeta and fix the issue before I hit save.

However, I do consider that it's the kind of little thing that plagues many Cakewalk products.

I know it is silly, but when I see typos in a preset name, when the factory patches don't follow a certain naming convention and other such inconsistencies, when a large number of presets are clipping the output of a synth by as much as 5 or 6 db, when samples are out of tune, to me, there is sort of a pattern that tells a story about QC.