Zebralette 3 Spline Editor & UX Discussion

[Urs]

Would it be an option to set the cutoff for the filters (OSC FX and Delay) in HZ? Or in case they are currently in semitones, it would be great to add that in the info display, since currently it just displays a number that doesn't give away too much information.

The cutoff in the OscFX depends on the note you play. It's complicated...

The one in the Delay could become a possibility for a Hz display with a long term project that has been revived to finish up Uhbik. Buit that's a long term project, we'll need a lot of time to add this option to any or all of the parameters where the possibility arises.

[Urs]

I haven't got answers for everything, but here are some:

- When dragging Curves on the "Timeline" only the small dot above the Waveform Preview can be dragged. That seems a little unintuitive and I found myself multiple times grabbing the Preview and trying to drag it around especially since the are in which the dragging for the dot is quite small.

We're bringing back little lines between dots and curve previews (back from what maybe some of my older vids show). The reason previews can't be dragged is because the movement would not correspond to how the dot moves. Once you see the lines you'll know why, and then we can further discuss options.

A way to save/recall curves- and guidecurve-sets would be super cool. I know there is a way to export them as waves but reimporting them sometimes doesn't work properly and not at all for Guide Curves.

There will eventually be something for that, but it wasn't a priority right now. Like, we do this beta and the Zebralette 3 release to help perfecting Zebra 3, so some auxiliary functions like module presets and stuff are not yet implemented (but certainly will be).

Regarding the importing of .wav files, this still feels really buggy. (To be expected I guess) However from what I gathered so far, I'd love to have a little more control about how the Sample is imported. Right now it's not really clear to me how the sample is cut up/which parts of it are used. Maybe that might clear up with some additional documentation. On top of that I noticed that some small wavetables with just for example four waves, it doesn't give me the option of how many frames should be used and just puts all waveforms in one curve.

Yes, documentation is needed, and so are some improvements (speed, progress bar).

As already written in the modulation forum, some visual indicators to the modulation that's going on would be amazing and improve the workflow by a lot.

search "balls in orbit" in this forum - I'm happy to improve/extend modulation depth indicators, but I'm very reluctant to add dots that chase their tails.

The transpose selector feels a little weird with the huge dropdown menu. On my screen it actually exendes the boundaries of the screen, even with the plugin scaled to 80%. Maybe limit the dropdown menu to octaves since that will cover 99% of the use cases. For transposing in semitones I feel like it's usually more convenient to just transpose the midi. And since this synth has just one Oscillator, there is no need to detune it from another Oscillator.

I think we are aware of that.

[marcinrau]

Thanks for the quick reply Urs!

-Regarding the cutoff in hz, that's really not too important and I see how this would get really complicated.

- Already expected the thing with the Dots, lines might work better, otherwise maybe just make the are in which the dot can me grabbed a little bigger, that might fix it as well.

- Cool to know, looking forward to that.

- Regarding .wav import, sounds great.

- Just looked it up and I guess see what you mean. A first step would definitively be a little static indicator if something is being modulated from the matrix. Like a little dot in the circle that's already there for the local modulation and maybe even making it pop out a little more with a different color. Also making the Modulation depth indicator bipolar for bipolar knobs as well as moving it with the knobs position would make the modulation a little easier to grasp I guess.

Regarding a visualization of what is actually happening, I will have to think about it a little more. Right now I feel like it's a little hard to figure out what the knobs do, especially when the move relatively slow or controlled by something else than a simple LFO. I see the issue with super fast modulation, screen tearing and CPU impact, however I think in most cases it would still improve the usability. Especially since most Modulations that would be important to visualize are slow enough to visualize. Maybe a global switch to disable the balls? Or a set refresh rate for the balls and everything above gets displayed as a simple arc?
I'll have that in the back of my mind and who knows maybe I'll come up with a cool Idea.

- And also great to hear.

Also generally I really appreciate that you actually reply to the suggestions and ideas made here and it doesn't feel like talking to a wall like in some other beta programs.

[wilx]

search "balls in orbit" in this forum - I'm happy to improve/extend modulation depth indicators, but I'm very reluctant to add dots that chase their tails.

I think there's definitely a middle ground to be found. The more modulation options there are on a synth, the harder it is to see at a glance what is being modulated by what, and by how much. Some people hate *any* animation on a softsynth or effect, so maybe an option to disable it completely would satisfy them.
But for those of us who need to work quickly and don't have time to hunt around endlessly, good, intuitive visualisation is incredibly useful. There's a relatively common way of doing the 'balls in orbit' thing, and I've found Alchemy to be the best.
It also has a mod matrix (middle left) which updates whenever you click on a control. So click on sample start time, or cutoff, or ADSR attack, or resonance.... And the mod section updates every time to show you all the modulation assignments for that control. It's such a simple idea but it saves so much time when working on tweaking or designing sounds.
I'm sure it's possible to marry the effectiveness and intuitive visualisation of something like Alchemy with Urs' desire to keep things relatively subtle. An easy first step would be to massively reduce the opacity or contrast of all the moving bits, so they're harder to see (and therefore less distracting) unless you're looking at the control itself..?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0Hw7yhFMxU

[Urs]

Alchemy, like Serum, also has not much visible at a time, so the interface looks tidy regardless of how many things try to seek attention. This doesn't necessarily work in a synth like Zebra which presents twice or thrice as many parameters to the user in order to avoid tabbing and promote immediacy. Even Hive, which is a relatively simple synth that has mostly a single UI view, presents twice as many parameters to the user simultaneously as these synths.

We have in Zebra 2 already implemented some controls that show for large MSEG editors where their targets are - this is one step forward, and I think we might have more of that. In Hive we have added those little draggable ModSource objects which, when clicked, switch all affected knobs to show the ModDepth (which I think is similar to FXpansion's mod system back in the days). Also, in Hive, knobs know where the Mod is coming from, but we currently only use that in a contextual menu - which might benefit from a more comprehensive solution.

Thing is, in our synths a single parameter can be modulated by any if not all ModMatrix slots. If we display them all, even in less extreme cases there'd be 3 to 5 rings around some knobs easily. In order to get that much space, we'd have to decrease the density of the UI (like Serum or Alchemy do, in favour of tabbing). When we do that, we loose the immediacy of presenting as many parameters to the user as possible, which would slow down workflow again.

We're absolutely not against any form of indication that a knob or slider is targeted by *something*. Just not balls in orbit of knobs or other kinds of hectic stress factors.

Instead, we are thinking about various novel ways to help people understand patches. Like, the ability to quickly probe audio from any module, or even visual overlays that momentarily show all modulation assignments.

[gauderbock]

Momentary visual overlays sound ideal to me!

[Fannon]

Instead, we are thinking about various novel ways to help people understand patches. Like, the ability to quickly probe audio from any module, or even visual overlays that momentarily show all modulation assignments.

That sounds like a good compromise to have such an visual overlay. If you do this, could you add some visual indication that there actually is something happening, which is worth inspecting via the visual overlay?

I guess my ask is not to have everything visually animated and visible on the main view. But it would be helpful if on first glance I can see where I need to look closer. The idea to be able to "listen in" or visualize what's happeining in modular parts of the synth sounds also very interesting!

[wilx]

We're absolutely not against any form of indication that a knob or slider is targeted by *something*. Just not balls in orbit of knobs or other kinds of hectic stress factors.

Instead, we are thinking about various novel ways to help people understand patches. Like, the ability to quickly probe audio from any module, or even visual overlays that momentarily show all modulation assignments.

Sounds good to me - as does an expansion of Hive's right-click context menu. As long as it's done in service of making it more intuitive to understand/debug/tweak patches quickly, it will be a winner. And given how brilliant Zebralette 3 is already I have faith in U-he to figure out something great

[Urs]

We'll see what we can come up with. There's a trove of ideas, but as with everything, we need to see what's possible and what isn't. OTOH there's been considerable work on the UI (well, the UI of the Zebralette editor took like 50 times as much work as the DSP part I reckon), and much of that isn't even visible yet.

[marcinrau]

Thing is, in our synths a single parameter can be modulated by any if not all ModMatrix slots. If we display them all, even in less extreme cases there'd be 3 to 5 rings around some knobs easily. In order to get that much space, we'd have to decrease the density of the UI (like Serum or Alchemy do, in favour of tabbing). When we do that, we loose the immediacy of presenting as many parameters to the user as possible, which would slow down workflow again.

Maybe a solution there would be to just show the current final position of the knob with all modulations added on top of each other. I don't think it's necessary to see how each modulation affects the knob, but rather the end result.

We're absolutely not against any form of indication that a knob or slider is targeted by *something*. Just not balls in orbit of knobs or other kinds of hectic stress factors.

Instead, we are thinking about various novel ways to help people understand patches. Like, the ability to quickly probe audio from any module, or even visual overlays that momentarily show all modulation assignments.

I do get the goal to remove anything hectic from the UI. Balls in Orbit however are probably the fastest and easiest to grasp visualization tool I could think of. Maybe a static indicator and the Balls in Orbit as a switchable Overlay, that maybe even only appears when hovering over a knob might do the split between an easy visual feedback and avoiding unnecessary hectic UI Elements?

Otherwise a little Popup showing the Modulation history for the knob you are currently hovering over might work as well. However that will also fall apart with super fast modulation. On top of that, especially when mapping stuff to a macros for example, it won't be possible to see the popup anymore, when the mouse is occupied somewhere else.

Or maybe a "Display Mode" in which every knob just get's replaced with a little circular Window that shows an Oscilloscope displaying the current positioning.

[Fannon]

Maybe a solution there would be to just show the current final position of the knob with all modulations added on top of each other. I don't think it's necessary to see how each modulation affects the knob, but rather the end result.

I don't see how that could work. Adding modulation isn't simply adding or substracting to a fixed value, it's a range of modulation amounts over time - sometimes unipolar, sometimse bipolar.

But maybe you could calculate the combined modulation range and indicate this range in addition to the actual set value?

[marcinrau]

Well yes, but for a fixed point in time the knob has a fixed value resulting from all modulation sources and the initial value of the knob. And you can then display that value. A combined modulation range or an overlay of all modulation ranges would be more confusing than helpful I guess.

[jooster]

Serum's/Alchemy's "balls in orbit" don't do much for me other than indicating (perhaps) max/min levels if the mod source aren't going too fast. With multiple mod sources this sort of display is not very useful. I like the "modulation history" @marcinrau mentioned above. I imagine this to be a mini scope like popup showing mod sources as individual color coded "channels" and one summed channel (the actual value that goes to the destination). Perhaps could be shown when double clicking the knob's label and dismisses as soon as one clicks outside the popup?

[C.Ray]

Hi. I think the snap to grid moves too easily compared to other editor grids. IMO. thanks!

[Urs]

Serum's/Alchemy's "balls in orbit" don't do much for me other than indicating (perhaps) max/min levels if the mod source aren't going too fast. With multiple mod sources this sort of display is not very useful. I like the "modulation history" @marcinrau mentioned above. I imagine this to be a mini scope like popup showing mod sources as individual color coded "channels" and one summed channel (the actual value that goes to the destination). Perhaps could be shown when double clicking the knob's label and dismisses as soon as one clicks outside the popup?

We have a similar concept to the history, which is the Scope that's in Hive. We might be able to adapt it to be more immediate and dynamic. I also don't recall if it shows combined modulations of a given Parameter, or just the result from a single Matrix Slot. In any case, we won't hold crazy amounts of history in memory, it's have to be "take a peek, so here comes the current data..."