Zebra 2 Brain Overload

[chk071]

Poor Linux users. They alwas get ignored. Like the 0.1% of people who vote some obscure parties in poltical votings.

But, snippy sideswipes aside. Just think about it, if you were a business, would you serve the 1% of customers or the 99% of customers? If the answer is #1, then i can only say that you won't do very good with your business. And that is not injustice, it is the need to care for yourself and your employees. AND for your customers.

[digitalboytn]

Or you could be like NI and just railroad your customers into doing things the way that you want them to do it...

Komplete Kontrol

[chk071]

Or you could be like NI and just railroad your customers into doing things the way that you want them to do it...

Komplete Kontrol

Any example for that? I always was under the impression that customers were free to buy or not to buy a product.

[low_low]

Poor Linux users. They alwas get ignored. Like the 0.1% of people who vote some obscure parties in poltical votings.

But, snippy sideswipes aside. Just think about it, if you were a business, would you serve the 1% of customers or the 99% of customers? If the answer is #1, then i can only say that you won't do very good with your business. And that is not injustice, it is the need to care for yourself and your employees. AND for your customers.

Unix/linux variants run the world.

Think of it like automobiles ... automobiles come in a variety of colors, models, lots of manufacturers, you can get a thousand pimped out rims for an automobile, sound systems, leather seats, you can get two seaters, convertibles, different engines, run them on different kinds of gasoline, you can have hybrids, electric, racey looking, family oriented, air conditioning, the list goes on and on and on, all the options and variety there is in automobiles, and almost everyone owns one.

Yet no automobile in the history of automobiles ever pulled a 20 foot shipping container from a dockyard to a distribution facility so that store shelves could be stocked.

Tractor trailers make up a small percentage of the vehicles on the road but without them you don't eat, and linux is very much like that, they are the computers that are actually doing the heavy lifting. They aren't that great as end user workstations, mostly because of software availability, but they are the servers that run the systems that people couldn't live without.

You ask, if you were a business, would you support something that only 1% of people were on ? The answer is ABSOLUTELY if that's where your customer base is, and that's increasingly the case in industries like 3d graphics, movie editing, etc, where people understand the benefits of linux and have embraced it for productivity.

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if this very website was running on a linux server, Wired reported in 2014 that 67% of web servers were running a *nix variant. Microsoft themselves use Linux as the backend of their cloud service.

So ... yeah .. linux.

[InLight-Tone]

... And I'm looking forward for Zebra3 for Linux !

Mac is as close to Linux as anyone would want to get unless they like to spend all there time futzing with the innards of computers and code. If you really want to get music out the door, stay away...

[low_low]

... And I'm looking forward for Zebra3 for Linux !

Mac is as close to Linux as anyone would want to get unless they like to spend all there time futzing with the innards of computers and code. If you really want to get music out the door, stay away...

Only true because the major manufacturers in audio production don't support it. If Protools, Cubase, etc, supported linux then that wouldn't be true anymore.

[low_low]

There's a reason that Steinberg's VST 3 SDK now supports Linux, and it's not because they don't see a future in it.

[chk071]

Yes...the future Linux folks predict for decades now.

It's interesting BTW. In other places the "desperate" distribution, and marketing of VST3 by Steinberg is being criticized. Anyway, as i am not much into religious discussions, i'll move out of this.

[martinjuenke]

Don‘t bring on ZEBRA 3!
It would be brain melting!!!

[low_low]

Yes...the future Linux folks predict for decades now.

It's interesting BTW. In other places the "desperate" distribution, and marketing of VST3 by Steinberg is being criticized. Anyway, as i am not much into religious discussions, i'll move out of this.

Please look back through what I wrote and point to a single "prediction".

I didn't "predict" anything, I said if manufacturers supported Linux then there'd be Linux support. I said that Linux has taken over the server market. Not much prediction in there.

[bbtr]

How about real oscillators?

???????

In another thread, bbtr wrote: viewtopic.php?p=7127579#p7127579

It was answered, and he didn't replied. We weren't even sure if he meant 15 BPM or 15Hz. In both cases, these are parameters not used in music, anyway. As it was explained, anything slower than like 20 BPM would be felt like some kind of drone (no more rhythmic sense) unless we were using very short rhythmic figures like 128th notes or something. Anyway, I tried it at 15 BPM, with a pre-recorded piece which is supposed to be played much faster, and didn't notice anything weird in the oscillators (used the default patch).

So, he was probably referring to 15Hz, which is absurd because, as explained in the other thread, those are subsonic frequencies, that are not heard anymore. So, not sure what he meant exactly with that post.

Sorry, I didn't see the replies in the other thread - just forgot about it. And was away so couldn't reply sooner to this thread. Again - sorry for that.

I meant BPM. Try it not with the basic waveform (a sawtooth), but by browsing/playing through the library patches, disabling filters and fx. Then try the same with e.g. PolyKB, Imposcar, Bazille, Arcsyn or just about any instrument that has oscillators which synthesize waveforms from formulas by computation, not by cycling through several pre-made shapes.

A few days ago Urs also made a comment that he prefers oscillators from formulas, not the wavetable type of thing. Can't find his post, though, my memory is kinda weak today and totally forgot in what thread I read it.

If I do find his post, I'll put a link here. EDIT: Ah yes, found it, and oddly enough, he replied to ME. Yes, I'm THAT important! Link:
viewtopic.php?p=7100505#p7100505

And yes, my post in the other thread is totally what I meant when I said "How about real oscillators". Same rationale. Putting it here for reference:

Try to play Zebra at 10 or 15 BPM - the oscillators fall apart, as they are nothing but a bunch of wave shapes cycled through in some way. "Real" oscillators don't fall apart at such BPMs and stay as thick and detailed as when played at 100 or 150 BPM.

And yes, playing at 10-15 BPM has its uses, as revealed in this case.

[fmr]

... And I'm looking forward for Zebra3 for Linux !

Mac is as close to Linux as anyone would want to get unless they like to spend all there time futzing with the innards of computers and code. If you really want to get music out the door, stay away...

Only true because the major manufacturers in audio production don't support it. If Protools, Cubase, etc, supported linux then that wouldn't be true anymore.

I think the main reason is the lack of a commonly defined variant of Linux that people can rely on to make music (or anything else for that matter). And that includes a subsystem for audio with some low latency standard defined protocols, like it happens with ASIO in Windows and Core Audio in OS X (and no, jack isn't that, at least last time I experienced it).

Let alone all the mess that means maintaining Linux, with all that fuss that exists, There even doesn't exist a standard for installing applications (again, last time I checked). Of course, that is also related to the fact that there isn't a Linux OS, but many variants of Linux. For a developer, maintaining a Linux distribution would be a nightmare, unless they specify that it just works and will be supported on THAT SPECIFIC variant they choose (and this could not change from manufacturer to manufacturer).

[fmr]

How about real oscillators?

???????

In another thread, bbtr wrote: viewtopic.php?p=7127579#p7127579

It was answered, and he didn't replied. We weren't even sure if he meant 15 BPM or 15Hz. In both cases, these are parameters not used in music, anyway. As it was explained, anything slower than like 20 BPM would be felt like some kind of drone (no more rhythmic sense) unless we were using very short rhythmic figures like 128th notes or something. Anyway, I tried it at 15 BPM, with a pre-recorded piece which is supposed to be played much faster, and didn't notice anything weird in the oscillators (used the default patch).

So, he was probably referring to 15Hz, which is absurd because, as explained in the other thread, those are subsonic frequencies, that are not heard anymore. So, not sure what he meant exactly with that post.

Sorry, I didn't see the replies in the other thread - just forgot about it. And was away so couldn't reply sooner to this thread. Again - sorry for that.

I meant BPM. Try it not with the basic waveform (a sawtooth), but by browsing/playing through the library patches, disabling filters and fx. Then try the same with e.g. PolyKB, Imposcar, Bazille, Arcsyn or just about any instrument that has oscillators which synthesize waveforms from formulas by computation, not by cycling through several pre-made shapes.

As I said, I played a piece at 15 BPM using the default patch, and didn't notice anything strange. Zebra oscillators are wavetable based, but to use it as a single oscillator, you have to use a single wave from the wavetable. If you SCAN through the wavetable, I imagine that ANY wavetable scanning synth will "fall apart" at 15 BPM (whatever you mean by that - never tried because at a speed so slow, the scanning movement would be almost unnoticeable).

But maybe Urs add "real oscillators" in Zebra 3. What I hope, personally, is a better wavetable engine, which it seems is in the works, anyway, or some other kind of "morphable" oscillators.

[low_low]

I think the main reason is the lack of a commonly defined variant of Linux that people can rely on to make music (or anything else for that matter). And that includes a subsystem for audio with some low latency standard defined protocols, like it happens with ASIO in Windows and Core Audio in OS X (and no, jack isn't that, at least last time I experienced it).

Let alone all the mess that means maintaining Linux, with all that fuss that exists, There even doesn't exist a standard for installing applications (again, last time I checked). Of course, that is also related to the fact that there isn't a Linux OS, but many variants of Linux. For a developer, maintaining a Linux distribution would be a nightmare, unless they specify that it just works and will be supported on THAT SPECIFIC variant they choose (and this could not change from manufacturer to manufacturer).

I appreciate what you wrote, but disagree. It sounds like you're talking about the Linux of 10+ years ago. Today linux is like any other operating system, it has periodic updates, same as Windows and MAC does, and some variants have publicly traded companies with billions in market cap behind them. I'm not exaggerating when I say Linux has taken over the server market. As far as what you say about supporting specific variants, that's exactly what they do .. but it isn't the difference between support MAC or Windows, it's usually a cross-compile so manufacturers that support one usually support 5 or 10, and at least Ubuntu, CentOS, Redhat, Debian, and some others.

Linux actually has a lot of advantages that would be perfect for audio if manufacturers ever started supporting it. For example, with Linux you can declare that the operating system can only have a few cores, and devote specific cores to specific applications (processor affinity). On Windows, for example, when your DAW's "CPU" graph pegs out, it's really NOT pegging the CPU, it's just pegging the CPU's ability to respond real time in the window you've specified in the driver setup ... if you could dedicate processor cores all that would be in the past, you could tune the system exactly how you want it for whatever you were doing. Want to dedicate 8 of your cores to a specific process ? No problem. That's just one example of the benefits.

But it's really pointless to even talk about it, because it is what it is, and the major DAW manufacturers don't support Linux. At the moment most of the Linux devices are hardware .. most of those fancy pedals, arps, etc, are stripped down linux cores, they just don't have a display output, a mouse, etc, and quietly run inside the box. Hell even most cable television boxes are running linux cores these days. Even Android is a modified Linux kernel. Most studios are filled with Linux cores, it's just that people don't know that's what is doing the work. I think Linux in the more traditional sense (display, keyboard ..) will creep into the larger audio studios as external devices before they get DAW support.

[Urs]

A few days ago Urs also made a comment that he prefers oscillators from formulas, not the wavetable type of thing. Can't find his post, though, my memory is kinda weak today and totally forgot in what thread I read it.

If I do find his post, I'll put a link here. EDIT: Ah yes, found it, and oddly enough, he replied to ME. Yes, I'm THAT important! Link:
viewtopic.php?p=7100505#p7100505

But this quote of mine was a quote *pro* Zebra oscillators. While one possible source may be wavetables (optionally modified in many ways), they are essentially granular.