Zebra 3 and Zebra Legacy

[Mr D]

4 vital requests for Zebra 3:

#1:
Triggering of envelopes & LFOs should be (optionally) completely independent of the voice its modulating. This can either be done with a ghost note or via a different MIDI channel. If done by ghost note, then you should be able to set a note that triggers it (like C0) and then restrict the range of the oscillator to C1-C6 (or whatever). There should also be control over whether arpeggiator notes trigger the envelope or not. Perhaps that could be done with an extra step parameter in the arp (envelope retrigger yes or no, and which envelope?).

#2:
(related to #1) The new envelopes are so crazy, i could imagine one would want to use them for automation that's normally done in the DAW (i use Cubase and it's curves are a joke by comparison). Only problem is, say you're doing an 8 bar envelope in Zebra, then you need to trigger the envelope from the beginning each time to hear it correctly in the song. So we need some way to have the envelope "follow" the song position. Maybe this could be done by giving each envelope an optional parameter where you could specify the point in the song (either a time value or bars/beats/ticks value) where the envelope would trigger? This would be pretty crazy and open up a whole new can or worms. Because it would be too frustrating to have to trigger an 8 bar envelope from the beginning each time when you're trying to edit the end of the 7th bar!
I believe this is technically possible because some plugins, like Melodyne, are able to follow the song position.

#3:
Every single parameter (that's technically possible) should be exposed to the DAW & mod matrix for automation / modulation. Even stuff that you don't think would ever need to be automated / modulated, like LFO time base switching (straight, dotted, triplet). Or envelope length scaling. Instead of trying to guess which parameters might need to be automated, just expose everything, including all FX parameters!

#4
There should be a special pitch envelope that also displays the pitch by each point (in Hz and note name). This needs to be calculated in conjunction with settings of the tuning of the oscillator. So that the pitch value displayed with each point in the pitch envelope is the actual pitch that'll be heard. I think this would be pretty unique, i never saw this in any other synth. This special envelope also needs the option to snap to pitch value. One obvious usage for this would be drum sound design, but could be useful for a lot of other stuff, like custom portamento style envelopes.

#5 (bonus request, more speculative)
It would be great to have something like Blender's 3D cursor in the new envelope editor. This is a really unique feature whereby you place the 3D cursor at any arbitrary point in the grid, and then you can scale and move other envelope points relative to that point. Actually kinda hard to explain, but once know and use it, you see how powerful it is.

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One other general comment: there should be no distinction between envelopes and LFOs. An LFO should just be an envelope that loops. So that would mean that whether you need an envelope or LFO, you have access to all features, like number of loops, fade in, delay, fade curve etc.

Apart from that, thanks and keep up the great work! Doing Zebralette 3 first & free is a genius move because it'll give us a chance to learn the envelopes and whet the appetite, so when Zebra 3 drops it'll be an insta-buy, and i hope Zebra 2 owners get a lil' discount smiley face!

[perpetual3]

Hi Urs. Reading the first post, I assume there is no longer an upgrade path for those who buy zebra now?

[dayjob]

Hi Urs. Reading the first post, I assume there is no longer an upgrade path for those who buy zebra now?

correct. zebra is now zebra legacy so it's a different product.

but looks like zebralette 3 will be out in a couple months. the NAMM video by sonic state shows previews of it and it looks and sounds amazing.

edit: and obviously i'm not urs but it's been clear that's how things will work in regards to zebra legacy and zebra 3. NAMM is going on so not sure you should expect direct answer from Urs. but there's info in this thread and in the "meet zebralette at namm" thread.. or whatever it's titled

viewtopic.php?t=606111

https://youtu.be/WYRjPW2nNqs?si=tx58SbmhH9fTxxkU

[koalaboy]

The above video is completely mindblowing (and the fact that zebralette may even become a new standard in wavetable designing for other synths, as it's far more powerful than anything else from a UX perspective).

The sounds were astonishing considering how little was needed, and this is just a single oscillator.

Fantastic and innovative, as always, Urs !

[Howard]

^Mr D
#2 workaround is to minimise the attack time and reposition loop start.
#5 I think Zebralette3 has this already. Or similar.

[Mr D]

^Mr D
#2 workaround is to minimise the attack time and reposition loop start.
#5 I think Zebralette3 has this already. Or similar.

On #2, not sure i get your suggestion, I'm talking about the envelope play line jumping to a certain position depending on the DAW song position!

[Mr D]

Something else occurred to me!

It would be so frustrating if, in Zebra 3, these amazing envelopes get restricted in size to only one portion of the interface. We really need the ability to edit them in full screen, kinda like how you can click in the top right of the FabFilter EQ to enter fullscreen mode.

So, i mean, when you click on the "open editor" button in Zebra 2 MSEG, and it opens up bigger......this isn't big enough! There's way too much dead space above and below, and there's no need to see the mod matrix.

When i look at Urs' video "Zebra3 Spline Editor Part 1: Curve Editing", my feeling is that the editor isn't big enough for the power editing features that are available. If a fullscreen mode is implemented, that might be ok, but what about tweaking the interface to make more use of the dead space above and especially below?

[Mr D]

Hopefully we'll be able to automate and modulate points on the envelope?!

See here at around 6:30:

https://youtu.be/Mhs36P1jY18?si=g5yf2EoX5D8Q5D77&t=390

[Urs]

Nope. Modulating points IMHO is nonsense when you can actually *morph* the whole curve, i.e. "modulate every point on the curve with a single parameter".

[Mr D]

Nope. Modulating points IMHO is nonsense when you can actually *morph* the whole curve, i.e. "modulate every point on the curve with a single parameter".

Nice, if you can achieve the same thing by other methods, we're all good.

Although i can imagine that if you can only morph from A to B, that means you can't choose to modulation two different parts of the envelope differently at different times, like is possible with Serum in that video.

How often that might be needed, i'm not sure, but worth pointing out!

[Urs]

So IMHO modulating individual points sounds like a tedious thing to me. Drawing two (or three or eight...) completely different shapes and morphing between them is effortless. In the most simple way, you just duplicate an envelope or a waveform, and then you drag the points you want modulated into their respective position - this can be dozens of points or a hundred, if you want.

Naturally, morphing between two or more states happens for all points simultaneously via a single Morph parameter. Modulating individual points allows for independent modulations, i.e. some that happen at different rates. If you need latter, you're better off with the system Serum offers, and which we won't. We'll offer former, and the whole concept of Zebra 3 oscillators and MSEGs is built around that.

[Urs]

Let me just repost a very early example of morphing waveforms or envelopes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_PFKZD3jTo

While these are oscillator waveforms, the same editor and principles apply to MSEGs in Zebra/Zebralette 3.

I doubt that anything remotely close can be achieved by modulating individual points. You'd be pulling your hair out trying to do that.

Here's the gist though: In order to make this CPU friendly, a lot of things are pre-calculated for each pair of waveform curves or envelope curves to morph seamlessly. Any alterations of the curve would break these pre-calculations. Therefore, for the sake of CPU friendliness, morphing curves and modulating points are mutually exclusive in this system. And that is the main reason I am not even giving any prospect to it - I have already thought about it a lot, and had to dismiss the idea.

[Andreya_Autumn]

Yeah oh my dear lord... even without the CPU concern, I'm 100% behind this design choice.

Like, if I'm not mistaken the first example in that video features 66 points. And each of those points would require both X and Y values as automatable params. So... 132 envelopes, each with a slightly different curve.

No frickin way.

[oysterhead]

CAD-style waveform morphing is a thing of true beauty.

[TENETfanboy]

New Hans interview just came out where he mentioned his 5 resonator version of ZebraHZ (and if I’m going to speculate, I’d imagine there were other feature requests) and I hope we’ll see it released one day. In that past he’d said he wanted to do a Dune version of ZebraHZ with a bunch of the presets included exactly like they did for The Dark Knight trilogy version and it would be released after Dune 2, now they’re going to do Dune 3 of course but I still hope it happens!!