Zebra

I just picked this up a week or so ago, and i agree with the sentiment here that this at the top of the list of synths I've researched (dozens - but for music tech research more so [unfortunately] than spending time to master them creatively), and I couldn't be happier. It has a certain quality about it that transcends the divide between the more digital and more analog synths, with a pleasing warmth but at the same time potentially having a cutting edge precision.

Kudos to the people who came up with its signal flows and interfacing and filters and algos. (There should be a documentary about its development really. I'm not clear on whether They really knew what they were doing.

Really the only thing I can find about the history of its development comes from this article:

https://www.attackmagazine.com/features/long-read/u-hes-urs-heckmann-on-synths-celebrity-endorsements-hardware/

I personally own over 20 softsynths, and have been toying with some lesser-known ones because innovation always fascinates me.

But nothing in the Zebra package would be particularly obvious to me as a programmer. I'm sure there synths with bits of brilliance that could be mentioned as excelling in one element or area or another, but Zebra is particularly unique in that it never loses the high standard of musicality from the beginning of its signal flow to the end. I know recently musicians have begun to be impressed by more organic and analog processes, while being also spoiled by some very good well-crafted digital softsynths. Exploring the confluence of these two evolutions in taste and creativity seems to be at the heart of our current electronic music scene. At the time I made my purchase of Zebra I was considering purchasing Diva first. This was because I had watched some of the few Zebra tutorials out there, and the synth didn't really look "familiar" or directly compare with the common and basic synth flows I had worked with. I've experimented with ANA 2 (very good), Serum and Massive (and a few of the other Komplete synths) and the Image Line product line, Dune 3, Phase Plant (as a demo for 14 days - really loved it), Omnisphere (somewhat of a hybrid rompler synth but some well-worth-it features IMHO despite its price tag), Spire, Adam Szabo's Viper (a phenomena and over-looked synth really), Cycle (Amaranth - an orphaned synth unfortunately), Quik Quak's Glass Viper, Auddict's Hexeract (a disappointment since it seems to have been abandoned, along with Fxpansion's Geist 2, lol), AIR and KV331's synths, the Madrona Labs stuff (very good for "unexpected and artsy"), IK Multimedia's Syntronik (nice), etc. So much variety, and a lot of interesting specific features in here for most of these, that I can't go into for lack of time.

But frankly I wish I had tried and learned Zebra long ago.

Zebra actually seems worthy to focus on more so than any of these, because I literally can not make it sound bad or uninviting. I can make it sound dangerous, ugly, menacing, and so on, but it creates such a steady illusion that I'm playing with organic electric juice, that it, more than any other synth, reminds me of playing with high end electric guitar gear. Expressive. Musical. Often stunning.

So I was just going to write a short review to go along with what's already here. This is not a new product - but I had to add my two cents and I hope the developer knows how much I appreciate the fine thought process and heroic standards, and I most definitely look forward to Zebra 3. Good work U-he.

As an aside, Plugmon Neumann (as more than a skin really) looks incredible and I'm checking it out - to make understanding and working with Zebra easier. $35 at the moment. Interesting.

https://plugmon.jp/product/neumann/

I love it. Just bought it and spent this whole weekend playing with it.

The manual is great to but would like to know more about the Resolution parameter. It not really clear how it interacts with other parameters. Which parameters does it interact with? What are the downsides of turning the Resolution parameter up or down? In which cases should I turn it up and when to turn it down?

Thanks in advance.

I just simply wanted to say this is the most outstanding VST synth I've ever played and I was totally blown away by the sounds of this virtual instrument. Very versatile and the sound quality is beyond normal for importing even your own wavetables just in case if your using the right separate utility for importing your own waves. The sky's the limit you can only imagine what you can do and what unusual sounds you can come up with. Price wise it's kind of high but you'll soon realize you'll be quite happy that you've made the purchase after all.

Compared to other u-He synths, this thing is unusable.

The competition that it has (Bazille, Repro-5, Diva etc.) is really a strong one tho.

I know that this thing is really versatile but I can't find the use in the sound quality that it doesn't deliver.

I hope that Zebra 3 will actually sound good.

If you're new to Zebra and research a bit you'll notice that it is over 10 years old. The last update (before 1/2018) was in 2015.

That is said not to imply that its sound is in any way dated. As you'll see over and over from reviews the sound engine is powerful and infinitely flexible, along with the modulation capabilities.

A huge advantage of a supremely well-designed synth of this age is the terrific number of sound banks available. In fact there may be TOO many and you'll have to spend some time picking through them to find the best ones.

Some people go overboard and design patches that have infinitely complex evolving sounds that are entire compositions in 120 sec; and it's great to know this can be done, but better are the incredible pads, basses, leads and incidental sounds you can create with Zebra. They asset themselves in a mix without being overbearing. Amazingly light weight in terms of CPU/RAM use; I am using an 8GB Windows 7 system and can load a stack of these up in Ableton without it even noticing.

Really, try the demo. 15 minutes is admitted too short a time to really get into it, but it's a chance to try a bunch of presets and get a handle on the power of this amazing too.

The most recent (2.8) demo even further improves the already excellent manual.

It took me a while to appreciate Zebra 2. While it's sound engine still is awesome - a remarkable feat for a synth that was first released in 2007 -, its user interface appears (in 2016) to be somewhat dated. However, using the Massive Modular skin (sold from an independent developer), the GUI instantly goes into Serum territory, with the serious advantage that Zebra's skins are fully scalable, while Serum's GUI is on the (too) smaller side for my taste. My review below refers essentially to this Zebra 2 with improved skin.

Zebra's sound engine is extremely flexible with its semi-modular design. You have access to 4 wavetable oscillators and 4 FM oscillators, as well as 2 comb filters, 4 standard filters and 4 cross modulation filters. As each filter can self oscillate and the comb filters come with three waveforms, you have access to 18 (!) OSCs - per sound! Oscillators, filters and auxilliary sound design modules (including, for instance, ring modulation, frequency shifters, distortion) can be arranged in three lanes and connected. Oh, and then comes an feature rich effect section with its own main path and two sends/returns. You can control all this with with standard envelopes (that not only have four stages, but can also init, delay and are loopable) or go with drawable envelopes. Did I mention that each wavetable oscillators can load your own single cycle waveforms and comes with an incredible set of wave mangler effects on its own? Add a very cool sequencer/arpeggiator, thousands of really cool presets and... well, I will stop here. I should add that Zebra is by no means a resource hog, if you want you can use 20 instance of it or more on a fast computer. I sometimes apply Zebra as a luxury drum synth in Ableton drum racks, with 8 instances just for the drums.

In conclusion, this thing is a sound designers wet dream, if you can not get the sound you want from this, you probably have not tried enough. I would wish that Zebra 3 (annoinced in 2013!) would come this year, but Zebra 2.7 still holds its ground rather well in 2016, more than 10 years after Zebra 1's introduction.

Simply the best software synth; people lust after the DS prophet 12- this does more and sounds better. If your a present basher it has some of the best banks available (many free) as there is an active and friendly community. If you like to program sound it will make your ears smile.

ZEBRA2 FTW.

Zebra2 is an amazing synth, and it's exactly the way u-he describes it in the manual: A semi-modular synth that is as simple as you want it to be, or as complex as you need it to be. I would add: HUGELY flexible with TONS of features and parameters at your disposal, not the least of which are 4 32 point Multi-Segment Envelope Generators (say goodbye to "ADSR"!), a fantastic OSC creation section with no less than 4 user-CREATABLE wave tables, a full featured arpeggiator, scads of filter types between the VCF filters (like your typical analogue filter with about 10 times as many options) and the XMF filters, and numerous effects. not to mention that the entire synth is a giant cross modulation monster. Almost every parameter in Zebra2 is modulate-able by almost any other section of Zebra. I haven't even scratched the surface of the performance section of Zebra2 and I'm already in love with it.

I am not exaggerating when I say that there may be BILLIONS of possible sounds with Zebra2, at least from a math point of view. From a sound design stand point, Zebra2 is in a category (almost) all it's own (along with Reaktor being another, far more complicated, and less user friendly alternative, imo).

But the genius of Zebra2 is that it makes handling all of those possibilities straight forward, visual, and EASY to do.

Zebra2 can be as simple as creating 1 oscillator, throwing a filter on it and you're done. Heck, you don't even need the filter if you don't want it! On the other end of the spectrum, you have no less than 8 oscillators, (4 custom wavetable OSCs and 4 FM OCS) for sound generation that can be routed many different ways across 4 main buses, and routed into 3 effects buses (1 stereo and 2 auxiliary) in the effects section. That's not even touching all of the other modules you can throw on each of the 4 main busses.

Each section of Zebra2 is like a smorgasbord of possibilities. For example, in most other synths I have tried, if you create or use an oscillator, you often get a boring "tone" that you have to try and wrench into something a lot more interesting. In Zebra2, just playing with 1 oscillator gives you a fully creatable wave table with multiple modes of sound generation, plus you get two on board FX sections, just for the oscillator! You can either pick a wave-table, or DRAW your own! I can't stress the coolness of the multi-segment envelope generators enough! You can draw both the waveform of the sound AND of the filter (and dozens of other things as well).

What does all this mean? Well, for me it means that I can get some really interesting sounds within seconds of firing up Zebra2, and even making small changes in the parameters produce really good, clean, and usable sounds. It takes very little effort to get very good results. And, you are on complete control over the creative process because you aren't just trying to cram a sound through some pre-defined routing structure, you are creating the routing as you go.

You are going to find that your work flow keeps getting interrupted by "Oh my God that sound is awesome! I have to save that for later!" and as you get deeper into it and start playing with various parameters, your sound design goes in whole new directions at every corner. You may start off trying to create a pad, which quickly turns into a crazy bass or some screaming lead. Creatively, Zebra2 is just downright fun, and I can, and have, literally spent hours in it just saving one good sound after another like I did just last night. It might seriously interrupt your music making.

So, as a creative tool, it's second to none in my book. But it's also one of the "cleanest" sounding synths as well. Don't get me wrong, you can get some heavily effected sound coming out of Zebra2, but overall any sound that comes out of it is going to be clean and dry (if those are even the right words) meaning that you have a very NICE signal to work with if you want to throw any other effects on the sound. There aren't any wave-table "samples", the wave tables are made of actual waves generated in real time, which sounds just great.

The arpeggiator in Zebra2 is probably the best I have seen so far in a synth. It is also very flexible, allowing for gating (or note length) as well as other parameters that just don't exist in other synths, but to be honest I spend so much time now using MSEGS that I don't usually bother with the arpeggiator, but it's there in full force if you need it.

In addition to the tons of modulation options directly available on the main screen, there is another complete modulation section which not only allows for more modulation possibilities. You can actually modulate two modulations by another modulator in this section. You get all that? Basically means that you can sweep between two completely different types of modulation by using a 3rd modulation source for the "sweep". (Head explodes at this point).

In addition to all of the "static" features, which aren't really static at all, for live performance, you have 4, yes FOUR complete XY grids that you can assign to almost any parameter in Zebra2 that you would need to. I am not that good at playing keyboards, but if you are someone who IS good at playing a keyboard and using and/or using controllers, the amount of live expression you can get going is really incredible.

Did I mention that there are multiple skins available for Zebra2? And about 8 or 9 different "zoom levels" for viewing the Zebra2 user interface that means you can blow up Zebra2 on a 27" screen and create without straining your eyes to do it? Man is that cool! Most other synths I have to squint to see, but with Zebra2, I can kick back in my chair and just create.

Finally, and this is no small point, there are literally THOUSANDS of free presets you can download for Zebra2 as soon as you get it. You will probably spend a lot of time just listening to the possibilities before getting your hands dirty. I would highly recommend downloading the factory sound banks from versions of Zebra2 prior to version 2.6, but there are some awesome sounds there.

Now, having said all of that, there are hundreds of other features in Zebra2, that I just don't have time to detail in this article, but I'll just give you my bottom line:

If you want a very powerful, easy to learn and use, great sounding synth, that lets your creative sound design juices flow like "the force" flows from a Jedi Master, Zebra2 is an absolute MUST HAVE synth.

Or, if someone told me I could only have 1 synth to work with for the rest of my life, I'd be happy working in Zebra2. (In fact, I kind of want to do an entire song in Zebra2, using it for everything from the percussion, to the pads, leads and basses just to see what it would sound like. Awesome, I am sure.).

If you are even thinking about picking up a copy of Zebra2, it's the right decision. Period.

=).

PS: Thank you SO much, u-He! Wow.

I bought Zebra to replace some old favorites that were becoming expensive to maintain -- an Oberheim Xpander, Korg/MonoPoly and Roland MKS 80. After trying demos of several software synths including SynthMaster and Electrax I chose Zebra for it's combination of great sound (the presets are interesting and show off it's capabilities but are generally over-effected), the impressive modulation potential, and clever interface.

Zebra2 is semi-modular which means that sounds are made by creating relationships between all sorts of modules -- morphing wavetable oscillators, FM Oscillators, self-modulating resonant filters, comb filters and some others. There are modulators including traditional envelopes (with some extra twists), LFO's, and incredible multi-stage envelops. There are also modulation modifiers, an arpegiattor, step sequencer, arp modulation and a robust effects section.

The brilliant aspect of the interface is two-fold. First, the center section of the screen contains a grid showing the entire signal path, provides an easy way to turn modules off and on and allows you to quickly and easily setup the equivalent of layering in other synths. In a quick glance you can see the full structure of extremely complex sounds. Second, only modules in use are displayed. If you are using only one oscillator, an envelope and an LFO, that's all you see. Add a VCF and it appears on the screen -- turn it off and it disappears. As you build a sound from simple to complex and add modules your screen goes from empty to full, which is very, very intuitive.

From day one I have loved this synth. I've been programming patches and designing sound for more than 25 years (pre-midi days) and this software has the potential to go as deep as any sound designer could want.

I would not recommend this for someone new to synthesis and sound design -- it can probably overwhelming, but if you are experienced with different synth techniques, it's a joy to usel It took a little while to get used to how powerful just a delicate touch on some controls (especially the spectral effects) can be, but after only a couple of months of practice and experimentation I'm finding it very, very easy to come up with very useable, fantastically different sounding patches very quickly. Once you get a handle on some favorite wave tables making great, useable sound is FAST and intuitive.

For me, the biggest downside of this synth is that it's easy to get so involved in the fun of experimenting with sound that you lose time getting work done.

I'm finding it to be very easy to mentally envision a sound and then execute, which is pretty much everything that a sound designer can ask for.

The support community is fantastic -- the online tutorials are nicely done and demonstrate useful programming tips.

My wish list for the next version -- an easy facility to copy and past modules in the grid with duplicate parameters. A warmer analog filter mode.

I highly recommend this for experienced synth programmers who are making the switch form hardware to software.

UPDATE: The latest build with revised graphics is fantastic. Also, get HZ - it's worth it for the extra modules.

first, a disclaimer: i've reviewed 3 other synths here in the last few days, almost all "10"s. i mean, i OWN these plugins, and live (or die) by them, so am writing what i feel, but...i REALLY love what i use; that's WHY i own what i own. so "10" is the right number for zebra.

i've been using it for a couple of years now; added it when a friend showed it to me; i was immediately impressed with the sound.

i haven't been using it so much lately, but yesterday spent the day REALLY exploring it, and…was reminded of how good zebra really is.

the architecture is logical, intuitive. the GUI is great. there are also a lot of soundbanks for zebra (i own quite a few).

the sound is the thing, of course, and it's awesome. zebra is more metallic, rounder-sounding than my other plugins (which i value for their buzzier 'analog' sound). so, zebra is great for animated pads, hard or melodic leads; exceptional soundscapes. i made 2 tracks with only this plugin (and drums) and it's great. there is a lot of color and depth in the sound (some plugins sound very flat, very 'grey' to me).

presets can be busy, dense (they can have several things going on at once, i.e. a drone, chimes, an evolving filter). so it takes a…different approach to layer parts; 3 busy parts together can be like 9 parts on a simpler synth.

i find this makes me think differently about what i'm doing; that's a good thing, i don't want to always work the same way.

the bottom line for me is this: nothing else i have sounds like it, and that's what i want from a plugin, for it to justify it's place in my arsenal: to be distinctive.

u-he has some amazing synths (diva is ridiculous), but this one is my fave (probably because my other 3 synths are all 'analog'-inspired). zebra is just different, musical, and very modern.

i've sold several plugins recently on kvraudio; i wanted to 'change my game up', challenge my workflow. this one you'll have to pry from my cold dead hands...

I have never written nor cared to write a review about a synth before. Partly because my relationship with them was simply "find a preset that's close and (perhaps) tweak it". After ten days with Zebra two I am completely obsessed with oscillators, X/Y pads, comb filters, VCFs and so, so much more. The online library of thousands of presets that have built up over a short space of time is a clear indication of how inspiring the instrument is to players of all standards.

Brightness, depth and clarity of sound were the first things that struck me as better than any other synth in my arsenal. Following that, the range of sounds prompted me to retire several synths in that arsenal straight away.

This flexibility is down to a confounding number of ways to generate and manipulate countless wave forms. The multi stage envelope generator and user definable LFOs can set the sound moving both rhythmically and organically long before engaging the arpeggiator/sequencer and oscillators have their own effects long before reaching the very well equiped effects stage.

The UI is stunning, never leaving you confused with aspects you don't need and keeping everything you do need nearby. It's hard not to marvel at the programme's architecture. It even allows you several versions so you can change the size of the image.

So inspiring is the whole experience of discovering Zebra2 that the manual(which has been critised by some) works, quite rightly, more as a great reference point as you venture through this sonic jungle(Zebra - get it?)

I have set up five or six instances of Zebra 2, armed them all with their more CPU demanding presets and played concurrently. Inside Cubase (XP-32bit, i7chip, 3 gig of RAM) the strain was VERY MINIMAL(APPROX 6%)!

The rules for reviewing here say; "Review the product on what it is supposed to be able to do and not on what you would like it to do." That's easy here as Zebra 2's potential completely outstrips my mere-mortal imagination. But with each day my imagination is pushed much further. THOROUGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Ok, my original Zebra review was really crappy. Also I've used this synth for ages now, so I thought I re-iterate.

Zebra is one of the most versatile synths out there. It hits perfect balance between usability of pre-wired synth and capabilities of modular. Experimenting wit all kinds of signal route topologies is so easy and so much fun in Zebra. You can filter your OSC, then mix another OSC to the filtered signal, then filter it again... It's really awesome.

There are also some really cool modules. FM-modulated filter, keytracked tuned Comb filter, some cool distortions were added lately...

It has few flaws though. Recent skin-design fixed a lot of them, but I'd still love to see a little sample playback module, granular one, perhaps and the Unisono engine could use some inspiration from U-he's own Hive synth.

All and all, though, if you give it few days to understand this beauty, you'll find it's one of the quickest way for experimental sound to leave your head and end up in your actual project.

I Love Zebra. ...and absolutely understand why Hans Zimmer loves it too.