This trick makes the discontinued Cakewalk Z3TA+ waveshaper Synthesizer from 2015 sound again on modern iOS versions.
In 2017, Cakewalk, formerly a Roland and then a Gibson brand, ceased operations. In the end, popular software products, including two great synths, Rapture and Z3TA+2, also went off the market.
The investor Bandlab from Singapore took over part of the portfolio in 2018 and continues running the SONAR DAW as part of a membership. The Z3TA+2, however, has not been revived yet.
This was also available for iOS. However, it was hardly maintained and disappeared when the operations were ceased in 2017. However, it has not vanished from iOS devices.
If you bought the Z3TA+ waveshaper Synthesizer back then, you can still download it from the App Store under the “Purchased Apps” section. I did that a few days ago and noticed it still works on my iPad with iPadOS/iOS 16.6 but without sound.
Cakewalk Z3TA+ iOS Trick
I did a little research on Z3TA+ to see any signs of a comeback under the Bandlabs brand. I didn’t find any news, but I came across a thread from the marvelous Audiobus forum that there is a little trick to make the app functional again with sound.
Take your iPad on a journey through time. Go to the Date & Time settings and set the device date to 31/12/2015 or earlier. I set it to 17.08.2015.
Then restart the Z3TA+ app and select a preset. Voilà, the app makes a sound again. I played it for about an hour, and it ran 90% smoothly. There are a few bugs but no crashes – impressive for an app from 2017.
When you’ve jammed enough, remember to return the device to the current time; otherwise, services won’t work.
I’m very happy that Cakewalk Z3TA+ works again with this trick because, in 2015, it was one of the deepest synthesizers available on iOS. For 2024, the app should be equipped with AUv3 and bugs fixed, but that won’t happen again.
It’s a shame that this ended with the demise of Cakewalk under Gibson’s management. I linked a sound demo published at the time of release (2015) under my “7 Minutes with an iPad synth” video series.
This trick will bring a little Cakewalk Z3TA+ back to us, even if the app is outdated. Maybe Bandlab will read this and consider re-releasing Z3TA+. Since the app works, I don’t think it would be a huge effort to bring it to the 2024 level.
More information here: Cakewalk by Bandlab
Big fan of the Z3TA+, but didn’t realize there was an iPad friendly version at one time. I don’t tend to do much music on my iPad (song writing/production), but I do like doing sound design on it. The majority of my best Reason Thor patches were designed on my iPad and exported to my PC, and I’d love to do the same with Z3TA+. Here’s hoping they bring it back
Z3ta+ has a really cool feature of pitch bend by scale degrees so notes bend varying amounts depending on their position in the scale. Very cool.
I hope they find & tweak that code!
I don’t have hopes, it’s discontinued since 7 years.
That’s cool, but i would love it if someone out there could just fix the app. Total bs that it was programmed to stop working at a given time and they just left it like that. I would still be using it all the time if it were not for that
difficult as Cakewalk by Gibson ceased operation on 2017, Bandlab took over the portfolio. Since then nada. It’s also not known if they have the rights for Z3TA+. or just for SONAR.