Zebra3 Info

[fourthmanfire]

mutantdog, I appreciate your point of view. Now that Hive is alive, (which I've purchased), I see the design capabilities that u-he has. I realize that Hive and Zebra are different instruments for different applications and that Hive is a "stripped down, back to basics, one-page, unison synth". But it's just so darn PRETTY compared to Zebra2! I also own Zebra2, and am waiting for Zebra3 to see what they have in store.

I trust the guys at u-he, and I appreciate someone one this forum like mutant dog that challenges and then substantiates his claims. These kinds of discussions will make for a better end product!

[Stollmeister]

I really hope that U-he will start to work on Zebra 3 now that Presswerk and Hive are finished (or almost finished).

The biggest reason for me to not buy Bazille, Ace and Hive is that I own Zebra2 and a hardware modular. Between the two of them I find it hard to motivate owning another synth. Well, I also own Komplete and Aalto and Kaivo so that helps as well. Anyways, highly looking forward to Zebra 3!

[Coorec]

Mutantdog makes some valid points.

1- To sell new copies of Zebra, it has to appeal to the market.

2- To find the fine line between accessability and indepth is the challenge for U-he in the upcoming overhaul.

3- Though this thread was not designed for being more then info, it has become a valuable collection of hints and ideas what users expect.

To make it short. Your contribution is welcome in this discussion and especially first impressions are hard to come by these days.

[tedlogan]

I do hope (and believe it will) Zebra 3 stays very similar in layout than Zebra 2 or Redux (with more horizontal space). I started synthesis about a year and a half ago with my first synth - Zebra2. I only bought it after a month of research.

At first it was overwhelming and I just tweaked random knobs and inserted modules like a clueless experimenter. But from the get-go - one thing made complete sense - the layout (*with exceptions noted below). It is very well thought out. You place sound generators and filters in the matrix, with 4 channels flowing from top to bottom, down into the FX matrix and out to the master channel. Generators and filters appear on the left as you add them, envelopes and the other modulators appear on the right. How beautiful and simple is that?

When I started to get serious about wanting to learn I took it one step at a time. Load One oscillator. Explore it fully. Listen to what everything does. Watch the YouTube videos from u-he. Read the manual. Watch basic synthesis videos on YouTube or read online documents. TEACH yourself. Once you've learnt these things they apply to any synth. Rack up two instances in Ableton so that you can have both appear on your screen at once and learn from other people's presets.

Zebra is not a difficult synth at all, and I pray to Orpheus that it is not dumbed down in any way. It can be as complex or simple as you want. We are so lucky in this day and age of immediate knowledge in the form of online videos (thousands of them for free!!) and articles that can teach you anything you want. It's so damn easy.

Visually more appealing? sure, wouldn't bother me, and nor would Bazille's stunning filters and whatever else they're gonna code and upgrade.

Use Hive if you need simplicity without the possibility of being distracted by more complex options.

This is not a dig at anyone!

I know it in me bones that Zebra 3 will be something very special. Something that will make grown-up, stable & calm people cry, and rival developers cease to code, and with a distinct possibility of bringing about world peace.

*Zebra's layout: I would like less tabbing though, especially to edit Oscillators.

[Shiek927]

I do hope (and believe it will) Zebra 3 stays very similar in layout than Zebra 2 or Redux (with more horizontal space). I started synthesis about a year and a half ago with my first synth - Zebra2. I only bought it after a month of research.

At first it was overwhelming and I just tweaked random knobs and inserted modules like a clueless experimenter. But from the get-go - one thing made complete sense - the layout (*with exceptions noted below). It is very well thought out. You place sound generators and filters in the matrix, with 4 channels flowing from top to bottom, down into the FX matrix and out to the master channel. Generators and filters appear on the left as you add them, envelopes and the other modulators appear on the right. How beautiful and simple is that?

When I started to get serious about wanting to learn I took it one step at a time. Load One oscillator. Explore it fully. Listen to what everything does. Watch the YouTube videos from u-he. Read the manual. Watch basic synthesis videos on YouTube or read online documents. TEACH yourself. Once you've learnt these things they apply to any synth. Rack up two instances in Ableton so that you can have both appear on your screen at once and learn from other people's presets.

Zebra is not a difficult synth at all, and I pray to Orpheus that it is not dumbed down in any way. It can be as complex or simple as you want. We are so lucky in this day and age of immediate knowledge in the form of online videos (thousands of them for free!!) and articles that can teach you anything you want. It's so damn easy.

Visually more appealing? sure, wouldn't bother me, and nor would Bazille's stunning filters and whatever else they're gonna code and upgrade.

Use Hive if you need simplicity without the possibility of being distracted by more complex options.

This is not a dig at anyone!

I know it in me bones that Zebra 3 will be something very special. Something that will make grown-up, stable & calm people cry, and rival developers cease to code, and with a distinct possibility of bringing about world peace.

*Zebra's layout: I would like less tabbing though, especially to edit Oscillators.

I pretty much completely agree with you, right down to learning from other people's presets. I do believe however that Redux is much better than the original skin: everything is consolidated on a single screen, and the MSEG's and OSC's are much bigger.

After a year though, I moved away from Zebra2 because I wanted something simpler. I ultimately still found it to be too overwhelming. I may return to it at some point, but now I'd rather try simpler VA synths like Hive. I have to admit, it feels like a breath of fresh air.

[tedlogan]

I pretty much completely agree with you, right down to learning from other people's presets. I do believe however that Redux is much better than the original skin: everything is consolidated on a single screen, and the MSEG's and OSC's are much bigger.

After a year though, I moved away from Zebra2 because I wanted something simpler. I ultimately still found it to be too overwhelming. I may return to it at some point, but now I'd rather try simpler VA synths like Hive. I have to admit, it feels like a breath of fresh air.

I also agree on Redux - great layout, but it is a bit too small for me even on a 24" monitor. I do hope u-he take note of that design, which is likely. I will also admit that I am affected by how a synth looks (albeit it does not hamper my use of it), as we cannot help being stimulated by such things, being human and all, relying mainly on sight and sound. Hive to me looks great, I love opening it and sometimes wanna take a bite out of its juiciness. Skeumorphism is fine by me, I know many dislike it. It would be a nice bonus if Zebra gets a visual overhaul which will probably happen as well. At the moment I only use HZ when using Zebra, and it so happens that The Dark Knight visual theme is my favourite.

At the moment I am jumping form ZebraHZ to Bazille to Hive on weekly rotations, purely by accident. I get completely swept away by one, then suddenly the other, doing this endless merry-go-round. If Zebra is too overwhelming you should stick to Hive for now if that's working for you - whicever tool does the job

I patiently await Zebra 3 in the meantime.

[News From The Sky]

The two main things I'm hoping for from Zebra 3:

1. ability to automate the X-Y pads (ie, so-called "Vector Envelopes")
2. better wavetables and wavetable editing tools

I'm sure the new GUI will be up to U-He's usual high standards; I agree that it could use an update to keep it in line with ACE/Diva/Bazille/etc.

[Coorec]

Things i noticed with Hive. Its UI was a little to narrow on the sliders to be edited easily by touchscreen.
The routing on the filters is done nicely. Like buttons to push.
The filter selection is not as good, but ok enough.

Since my 23'' touchscreen is my kind of controller for softsynths thats a decisive condition to me.

Make sure Zebra 3 will be easy to edit with touchscreen.

[konXfront]

how about the option to manually type the values? and a snapshot function to be able to make quick a/b.

[DJBenniBoy]

Good Functions As Ive said to Urs Before to include are as Follows, and some GREAT Ideas are here, to say the least:

- Better Gui (Which should be the norm with Urs)...Maybee It will look more like a Zebra, With Stripes this time...who knows?
- Better Implementation of the FM Synth, (Be Great to keep the different types of FM+SS options, But Maybe Add a matrix, Similar to that of FM8)
- An A/B comparison Guide (I.E what the preset sounded like before and after)
- A better Delay Algorithm
- Highly Unlikely that touch would be the next solution (But one user Notified that)
- Vector Incorporation to the X-Y pads, And be able to drag/drop the modulation onto the X-Y pads themselves.
- Add A Routing Page for the FX I.E EQ Feeds Into Reverb then Into Compression
- The Ability to use route the Reverb to the ModWheel!, for difference between dry/wet, Extremly great for a buildup tail for a sound!
- Fix CC Compatibility Issues, (Where some areas cannot be Midi CC'd)
- Fix a few various other little bugs
- Ability to import NI Massive Wavetables! In the NI format/ Or To allow you to import SoundFonts or Akai Sampler Formats for Greater Sound Manipulation as A Uni Oscilator
- More Incorporation of the PD (Phase Distortion) Synthesis method, Even though it's kind of there in Zebra 2, It would be good if it was fully implemented, as to allow users to create Casio CZ101-1000 type of sounds, this would give another plugin something to compete with!

....I can't think of anymore, but if anyone else can, Post up and tell Urs!
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[tedlogan]

- The Ability to use route the Reverb to the ModWheel!, for difference between dry/wet, Extremly great for a buildup tail for a sound!

You can already do this via the ModMatrix. Many parameters can be found to be modulated here that don't have the blank knob next to them, like resonance of filters etc.

[mutantdog]

So, hopefully this will be less controversial. A specific "New User" accessibility request would be tooltips, it would certainly help in the early stages of use, especially if playing around with it before reading the manual (as I'm sure I'm not the only person to do this).

[stimresp]

I have no doubts that u-he will deliver the goods.

The main reason I don't use ZebrHZ as much as I should is the interface. This is subjective of course. On my screen, the Normal size is a tad too small, whereas using the Large size renders it off the screen. I would like it to have more width if possible.

[mutantdog]

I'm gonna expand a little on some "New User" accessibility suggestions, given that i have now at least delved a little into Z2 (made a nice big modern sounding pluck with relative ease).

I feel compelled to draw comparisons with AIR Loom, although I appreciate they are very different instruments they both share a modular architecture that sets them apart from most other soft-synths. Loom is not without its design faults too, i might add. However...

In Loom, every module has a clickable info item, explaining what it does and the various parameters. This is definitely useful for a new user as it helps to quickly understand what everything is. I could see Zebra's modules benefiting from a similar thing, perhaps with additional tooltips. For example, the comb filters are more complex than those on other synths. Personally i haven't worked out yet what the three shapes directly under the voice count in the oscillator do either.

Another thing in Loom is that the available modules are organised into categories, making it a bit easier to pick one for the job. Zebra has less modules available so its not such a long list, but nevertheless lists can be daunting. While modules like OSC, noise and VCF should be obvious, XMF and SB are less so, a selector with categories would make these more clear to a first-time user.

I'm not averse to tabs, especially on a complex instrument such as this but i do think the redux system of tabs works better than the default skin. In this case, every tab has a clear across the board function.

Now, I'm a great believer in reading the manual and from my experience with u-he the manuals are very good. However, when I've just spent good money on a new toy I want to play around with it first before learning in depth, reading comes later. I'm sure I'm not alone in this mentality. No doubt also, there are many people who can't or won't read the manual at all, this could be for language or literacy reasons amongst others. Anything that can help make it easier to understand what's going on will surely make it appealing to those first-time users.

Just to re-iterate, my stance here is about how to make Z3 appeal to a new generation of users, unfamiliar with the modular concept. Its not about dumbing it down, rather making it more accessible to a wider audience.

[tedlogan]

That sounds like a good idea for newcomers - little "?" info buttons tucked away in each module's corner or something. Ableton Live has a similar function in the bottom-right corner of the UI, proves useful even to veterans on occasion. Doesn't dumb anything down and could be very useful to people who are newer to these things.

The Redux system definitely works better than the default one, it's just a bit too small for me.