Zebra 3 feature suggestions

[Urs]

I'm not fond of OSC or any such protocols (wasn't there something called Copperlan once?).

OSC is seeing a lot more usage compared to cLAN. It's not a bad idea to support it, although there are very few plugins that do (Reaktor, Falcon, as far as I know).

Well. With NKS it took less than half an hour to estimate the effort and the benefit. Same with MPE. With OSC there never was a quick start guide or an overview which gave me any impression of how it's done, what it's for and how much it'll cost. It's simply such an utterly badly marketed nerd stuff, apparently I'm not geek enough to comprehend its existance

[EvilDragon]

Hehe. All good, Urs, I can understand the effort/benefit ratio might not be particularly exciting with OSC.

One usage of OSC could be to create custom interfaces to interact with a plugin, say via a tablet running TouchOSC application. I mean, a possible list of what it could be used for is listed here.

Specification seems pretty simple, too.

[Hanz Meyzer]

Urs, this sounds really awesome! Will there be a full VST3 version, too? (I am happy with MPE already).

I think OSC should be supported from DAW, not from plugin.

[EvilDragon]

I think OSC should be supported from DAW, not from plugin.

Not really. Why do you think those plugins I listed have their own OSC implementations, then (answer - so that you can talk via OSC directly to the plugin even if DAW doesn't support OSC!)? You can't depend on the DAW for everything.

[Hanz Meyzer]

But.... AFAIK Bitwig and Renoise already support OSC?

[EvilDragon]

And if one doesn't use Bitwig and/or Renoise? Don't be selective.

[wilx]

Some sort of visualisation for modulation (I really like the way Alchemy in Logic does it)

- I know this is a contentious issue, so maybe a toned-down version or the option to toggle it on/off could be useful.

And generally speaking, good visual feedback in design. Like highlighting a module in the matrix and having 'focus' jump to that module with a subtle outline - I really like the way that's done.

Maybe, if I'm playing a patch which uses the Arpeggiator, I see a (subtle) highlight on the arpeggiator tab when I press a note. Same with MSEG. Just small touches that won't overcomplicate things visually, but add incredibly useful feedback for a quick 'what's going on here' overview.

I like the look of 2.8 and the new ZebraHZ though, so just subtle tweaks for better at-a-glance visual feedback would make me very happy.

More granular stuff might be trickier. Like the lowpass cutoff knob being open all the way, but (via modulation) the filter itself is closed. It would be nice to see the position of controls reflect what's actually going on, otherwise the GUI can be misleading and counterintuitive.
But how do you do that without it getting too 'busy'? Is Alchemy's implementation of this too distracting for some?

MPE support already mentioned

[Hanz Meyzer]

And if one doesn't use Bitwig and/or Renoise? Don't be selective.

Stalk your vendor?

[EvilDragon]

Yeah. That won't work in case of Cubase or PT.

[Urs]

I am actually thinking about a way to bring in visual modulation feedback. Nothing too fancy, no dozens of attention seekers.

It is not a top priority, since I believe in the cognitive power of the human cortex.

The question always reminds me of one of my design teachers. We would score extra points if any of the clay/wood/paper models we crafted had a moving part. Wheels that turn, hinges that work, things that open. I think it there's some kind of aesthetic satisfaction in visual feedback, but it is not really a necessity for the task at hand. To the contrary, if you do too much of it, you get mesmerized and forget all about what you were gonna do.

[EvilDragon]

since I believe in the cognitive power of the human cortex.

Aw, Urs, that is so cute.

[wilx]

I am actually thinking about a way to bring in visual modulation feedback. Nothing too fancy, no dozens of attention seekers.

It is not a top priority, since I believe in the cognitive power of the human cortex.

The question always reminds me of one of my design teachers. We would score extra points if any of the clay/wood/paper models we crafted had a moving part. Wheels that turn, hinges that work, things that open. I think it there's some kind of aesthetic satisfaction in visual feedback, but it is not really a necessity for the task at hand. To the contrary, if you do too much of it, you get mesmerized and forget all about what you were gonna do.

Some more feedback would be good - like the arp example I mentioned, or stuff like knobs representing the state of that parameter in realtime, so they aren't giving you incorrect information.
I stress this isn't to make things look more fun or pretty, it's purely utilitarian. If I'm working on a trailer gig with a 24hour turnaround and 100-odd tracks, I need everything to be as intuitive and accessible as possible. I'm happy to RTFM and page in/out of all the matrices and modules when I'm doing things at my own pace, but when the pressure is on I'm grateful for anything that's designed in an intuitive and clear way.

But some people want a synth that looks like a spreadsheet, while others want one that looks like a nightclub. I appreciate different people take in information in different ways, which is why I think there's probably a middle ground of providing *useful* visual feedback, but in a subtle, understated u-he way.

[egbert101]

Last but not least, I do not like Sampling in synthesizers. It's the one thing I don't think I'll ever add to Zebra. There'll be .wav import for sure, but merely for stuff like wavetable/room/body extraction. Maybe not. We'll see.

Interesting. I guess I'll be using both Zebra3 and Absynth then.

[Hanz Meyzer]

Urs, I think improving one design aspect would maybe useful: Making the GUI behaving more precisely, it "feels" sometimes a bit imprecise or blind regarding very tiny changes on knobs, envs etc. I guess due stepping or size of the knobs (I know the shortcuts of course). I mean it mainly a visual way. The knobs spacing is pretty large, the knobs could be larger, the outlines and spacing smaller. Tabs could be vertical on the right side.

Or a macro control module, which you can connect to up to 4 other knobs, providing some translation functionality, too. The current XY pads could be used for that, then being able to be targeted in the modmatrix.

What if the knob pointer was a outer ring instead, just like in the dsp section, and then the value was printed in the middle of the knob, staying always, in subtle way?

A popup ADSR drawing on knob movements. Such stuff, so you more quickly (some second) can perceive what you are changing.

[EvilDragon]

Macro controls are already there, they're just called XY pads.