Zebralette 3 Additive Engine Discussion

[tasmaniandevil]

Here we can talk about Zebralette 3's additive rendering mode.

How does it sound, how do you like it, what could be better?
How does it compare to other additive synthesizers you are using?
Any ideas for additional options or spectral distortion modes?

If you find actual bugs, please report them in the Bug Report Thread.
If you want to watch the overview video or need to look something up in the user guide, you can find these resources in the Zebralette 3 Announcement Thread.

[nilhartman]

I think it sounds absolutely stunning. Especially when set to Curve Spectrum, magnificent! It's hands down the sharpest yet most organic sounding additive synthesis I've ever heard (and I'm a huge fan of the sound of hundreds of sinewaves doing their stuff hehe).

I'm crossing fingers for Unison for it, it'd sound beyond incredible IMO. A simple sub-harmonic (not plural) octaver for it could make wonders, especially if you could optionally exclude it from the spectral effect path to keep the sound grounded while doing some crazy timbral shifts.

With regards to Spectral effects, I'm still getting to know them and love what I hear so far. Compression, Curve (I LOVE it), Chaos Patterns and Wild Randomness are the ones I'm having the most fun with so far. It has crossed my mind a few times that I want them with the WT engine too, to then detune / spread several voices of these ;D

Just like I bet having 3 Osc FXs could be awesome, what about 2 spectral effects ? Sorry gentlemen, I'm being way too greedy here ;D

In other additive synths, I think Harmor has some extremely interesting, ways to mess with partials (Prism, Pluck, Unison in Hertz mode and the Phasor's Harm mode are my favorites) and that like-minded effects would pair splendidly well with Zebralette 3's MSEG. I'd love to see similar features in Z3.

tl;dr : please do push the enveloppe with that one, it's already phenomenal.
What a masterpiece !

[pdxindy]

Just like I bet having 3 Osc FXs could be awesome, what about 2 spectral effects ? Sorry gentlemen, I'm being way too greedy here ;D

hehehe...

Some of the OscFX are spectral effects. Plus in Curve Spectrum, you can also draw in various effects by morphing between waveforms. The core morphing is very precise so one can have fine control over partials without it being tedious.

[databroth]

it's SPECtacular, so much is covered, Zebralette has managed to cover and improve upon both wavetables and additive synthesis

[Urs]

As for the additive renderer and because it just came up in our internal beta team:

Here's why the free running sine oscillators drift against each other:

The slight movement is due to the oscillators being free running. In order to get hundreds going we have to resort to a few mathematical shortcuts. Those sacrifice numerical precision for speed of computation. And thus, the oscillators drift against each other, and after a few seconds they slightly run out of phase until they're completely "wherever"...

(not sure if that's in the user guide or if it should go there...)

[jooster]

In the OSC editor, besides using the curves for creating the fundamental sounds, curves can be used for filtering and spectral distortion (possibly for other uses as well I have not yet discovered). But which curve or curve-blend is used to do the filtering or spectral distortion is not too clear/precise. For example, with spectral dist. modifier set to “curve”, and the “Spec Morph” button set all the way to 100, I know I have selected the right most curve for the distortion. But what exactly is 90%? I can sort of guess by looking at the x-axis but it would be nice if:
- Limits could be set for any of the morph buttons. This would make it easier to designate x axis sections to specific uses.
- When varying any morph control, the x axis shows where the value is indicated with a thumbnail version of the blended curve.

Alternatively, perhaps that x axis chain of curves is doing too much work - perhaps a separate set of curves designated for their specific application makes more sense? It would make “things” even more complex though.

[sauceversace]

can u guys add this way of designing wavdtables?

[pdxindy]

can u guys add this way of designing wavdtables?

You can already do that... open the full editor, put the grid in harmonic mode and use one of the two shapes tools designed for that.

[Urs]

Just to further clarify: The current toolset is 100% about spline based editing. We have no plans at all to also add sample based editing (like, "one fader per harmonic"). Both have their pros and their cons. We have put a lot of thought and work into tools that make the spline based editing very comfortable even for tasks where sample based editing excels. These tools are not the same of course, but they work just as well.

For a few things, such as quickly & comfortably editing individual harmonics we will need to do some videos, which will not happen before final release (because the video needs to be shot with the final release version).

There is the possibility of interchanging data from sample based editors (e.g. Zebra2 style ModMappers, csv from spreadsheets) with the data from the curve based editor. But we're far from the point where we'd implement this.

[sauceversace]

do the additive engine have unison or am i blind?

[pdxindy]

do the additive engine have unison or am i blind?

No

[inktome]

In order to get hundreds going we have to resort to a few mathematical shortcuts. Those sacrifice numerical precision for speed of computation.

This is said as if there are no plans to remedy this issue. It'd be extremely disappointing if this bug persists into the full release for either Zebralette or Zebra

[aMUSEd]

In order to get hundreds going we have to resort to a few mathematical shortcuts. Those sacrifice numerical precision for speed of computation.

This is said as if there are no plans to remedy this issue. It'd be extremely disappointing if this bug persists into the full release for either Zebralette or Zebra

It's not a bug

[pdxindy]

This is said as if there are no plans to remedy this issue. It'd be extremely disappointing if this bug persists into the full release for either Zebralette or Zebra

There's no bug. It's working as coded.

If you want to play a static saw wave for a minute straight, use the Wavetable Renderer.

With the Additive Renderer, as soon as there is any modulation, you will never hear the slow, subtle drift in the partials. In other words, in any practical sense, there is no issue.

[glorkglunk]

While I really love the fact that zebralette 3 has an extremely low noise floor in this mode and the spectral fx are incredibly flexible, I have to agree with inktome. individual harmonics drifting out of phase is something that I don't think many people will expect out of an additive synth when many others are extremely accurate now.
Considering it's known and purposeful and also a admittedly a compromise for cpu, I think it's comparable to the resolution and harmonics controls in the wt engine.
As for a practical issue, if you resample the sound in any other context, like for example importing the whole sound (not the wavetable alone) phase change can become relevant though it might not by itself.