u-he

Urs · Post by **Urs** » Sat Jul 02, 2005 5:18 pm

(but yeah, those dope theme devices... it has something of that...)

Urs

kuniklo · Post by **kuniklo** » Sat Jul 02, 2005 6:01 pm

I'm really looking forward to hearing more of these new oscillators. Among all the dozens of synths I have there still doesn't seem to be a whole lot of variety in the basic oscillator types. Vaz's Cosmo oscillators are probably the most interesting of the bunch, but even those are fairly simple. I like the FilterscapeVA approach a lot and it sounds like you're going further with this idea in Z2.

Urs · Post by **Urs** » Sat Jul 02, 2005 6:46 pm

kuniklo wrote:I like the FilterscapeVA approach a lot and it sounds like you're going further with this idea in Z2.

Yes. Much further

Note that the Warp Parameter in FilterscapeVA delivers mostly aliasing free waveforms based on Phase Distortion / Symmetry, Wavetable Interpolation, FM, spectral distortions (no word for that). It was basically the testing case for the principle when I developed the synthesis (or better: the ArbitrarySynthesisMultiHybridMixSynthesisSynthesis) last year. In Zebra 2 you will have full control over spectra, wavetables, interpolations, distortions, spectral filtering, fm feedback, pwm, random factors etc. with an intuitive user interface and multiple degrees of freedom (i.e. many modulatable parameters) etc.

Of course, you can still get a plain sawtooth out of them, no prob...

Cheers,

Urs

kuniklo · Post by **kuniklo** » Sat Jul 02, 2005 7:08 pm

Urs wrote:In Zebra 2 you will have full control over spectra, wavetables, interpolations, distortions, spectral filtering, fm feedback, pwm, random factors etc.

Sounds extremely juicy! I really like this approach of focusing on the fundamentals - raw osc and filter sounds instead of flashy ephemera. Seems like the only other people doing this right now are kind of single-mindedly focused on vintage emulation so it's a real breath of fresh air to see the same care taken on something more novel.

rockin1 · Post by **rockin1** » Sat Jul 02, 2005 8:56 pm

kuniklo wrote:
Urs wrote:In Zebra 2 you will have full control over spectra, wavetables, interpolations, distortions, spectral filtering, fm feedback, pwm, random factors etc.
Sounds extremely juicy! I really like this approach of focusing on the fundamentals - raw osc and filter sounds instead of flashy ephemera. Seems like the only other people doing this right now are kind of single-mindedly focused on vintage emulation so it's a real breath of fresh air to see the same care taken on something more novel.

I totally agree with this statement! I love the focus on sonic character and potential. This is really the fundamental and the place where the biggest difference can be made. That is what I love about the emulations, not the fact that they are emulations, but that they have so much character in the basic sound. U-he stuff, Albino, and the Viryn stuff are the only places I really hear this character outside of the emulations and Urs seems to really be taking it farther than anyone with Z2...

matthew

danielmm · Post by **danielmm** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 12:43 am

yes...sounds very cool....looking forward to it.....

dano

bluedad · Post by **bluedad** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 12:51 am

and..

suthnear · Post by **suthnear** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 1:29 pm

Urs wrote:In Zebra 2 you will have full control over spectra, wavetables, interpolations, distortions, spectral filtering, fm feedback, pwm, random factors etc.

The only reason I seem to come to kvr these days is to get progress reports on z2pc...

Just hurry up Urs

:D:):D

Urs · Post by **Urs** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 4:17 pm

Oh yeah... it's Friday...

Well, as the pun goes, my brain is fried today. I drank at least 2 beers too much after finally implementing 2 major goodies yesterday: A new scheme for adsr envelopes (which are not strictly adsr anymore, hehe) and a new screen estate saver that lets you partially collapse some modules that have advanced parameters you don't necessarily need all the time...

Here you see that Envelopes 1 & 3 are collapsed to the essential parameters while Envelope2 has its velocity & key scaling for each parameter visible.

As you can see, somebody is obviously adjusting the modulation depth of Envelope 3 on a parameter, maybe a filter cutoff, somewhere... Wherever you adjust the modulation depth of a modulator that's in the Racks (Envelopes, LFOs, whatsoever), that Rack becomes highlighted with another background colour...

Cheers,

Urs

P.S.: The screenshot is still from a kind of generic gui. But I got so used to the colour scheme that it's likely to make it into the final...

kuniklo · Post by **kuniklo** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 4:21 pm

Urs wrote: Well, as the pun goes, my brain is fried today. I drank at least 2 beers too much after finally implementing 2 major goodies yesterday: A new scheme for adsr envelopes (which are not strictly adsr anymore, hehe) and a new screen estate saver that lets you partially collapse some modules that have advanced parameters you don't necessarily need all the time...

I like it. Gets around the problem of finding the optimally sized UI for the variety of screens out there. I also really like having these kinds of modulation options right next to the control they modulate. Much nicer than rooting around through a mod matrix.

You're now getting tantalizingly close to the Nord Lead 3 system of assigning performance modulations via "morph groups". Are you familiar with it? Easily my favorite system of assigning controller (velocity, wheel, note, atouch) modulations.

Urs · Post by **Urs** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 4:40 pm

kuniklo wrote:You're now getting tantalizingly close to the Nord Lead 3 system of assigning performance modulations via "morph groups". Are you familiar with it? Easily my favorite system of assigning controller (velocity, wheel, note, atouch) modulations.

Hmm, no, I don't know much about the Nord stuff.

The whole modulation scheme here is just how it used to be in Zebra 1.5, and how it is in all my apps. Common modulation targets have their modulations paths right next to their knobs and with a few exceptions you can chose the modulation source from all available. Like in Z1.5, there'll be a set of extra modulation matrices which let you target pretty much *any* parameter that has a knob or a slider.

Some imortant improvements are currently being discussed regarding the XY controls. The experience with Z1 shows that the assignment and Depth adjustment of XY controls must become much, much easier. So, first of all the list of assignment templates will be extended dramatically (each module will offer its own list of meaningful assignments). Next, there might be a special editing mode: When an XY is in an extreme position, all knobs for the target parameters are suddenly highlighted. Adjusting the knobs then doesn't have an effect on the parameter directly, but it will have an effect on the extreme XY position. So, the goal is to provide a mode where you can set up the XY morphing just like editing the patch instead of using some sort of abstract meta controls. But well, I'm not sure which effort is needed and how good this will work at all...

We'll see...

Cheers,

Urs

rockin1 · Post by **rockin1** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 5:01 pm

kuniklo wrote:You're now getting tantalizingly close to the Nord Lead 3 system of assigning performance modulations via "morph groups". Are you familiar with it? Easily my favorite system of assigning controller (velocity, wheel, note, atouch) modulations.

I'm not familiar with the Nord stuff but it sounds interesting. Can you tell us more about it?

matthew

wrench45us · Post by **wrench45us** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 5:05 pm

Urs, I greatly admire your UI solutions
This is looking very nice.

I don't know what Nord 'morph groups' are , but when I look at all those extra knobs and hear the words 'morph group' I immediately thought of the idea of being able to save/load sets of data that would apply to a number of controls.
Basically reusable settings groups. esp. since not every mapping needs to be individualized for a given peset, but even if it did, being able to load one from a set of settings would provide a fast start to tweak.
so common instrument types would have a common set of controls asie from their osc and other modulations
mallet ADSR and mappings
strings
horns
bass
etc.
can't be more than another week or two to code somthing like that.

Derek up North · Post by **Derek up North** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 5:06 pm

I like the colour scheme - the subtle light blue/dark blue wavy stripes go well with the "Zebra" name

Regards,

Derek.

kuniklo · Post by **kuniklo** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 5:07 pm

Urs wrote:Next, there might be a special editing mode: When an XY is in an extreme position, all knobs for the target parameters are suddenly highlighted.

This is actually extremely close to the way the Nord Lead 3 works. Briefly:

1. *all* controls are surrounded with lcds indicating the current control's value (http://www.clavia.se/bilder/NL3knobturnLarge.jpg)

2. there's a set of "morph group" buttons on the left of the synth, one for each of velocity, note, atouch, wheel

3. when you hit one of these buttons, all the controls show *two* values, the current value and the "morph" value.

4. turning one of the controls while in morph mode sets the extent of modulation by that morph parameter.

DiscoDSP discovery mimics this to a degree since it's modeled after the NL2.

This system makes it trivially easy to see what each parameter is modulating and to what degree, and to assign any new arbitraty modulation you want. This might not work as well in something more complex like Zebra, but it's worth a thought at least.

u-he

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