Zebra PC blog

[Urs]

Urs, hey that envelope looks great. I'm curious, at what rate do the envelopes run? We were jamming with a virus TI with jmh and one of the nice things about it's sound is the extremely musically snappy envelope (without being that clumsy "tock!" that so many VSTi's have). Is your's running at samplerate? Also, can we make the curve beziere, S-shape I mean.. or whatever it was called?

The curves can be L-shaped (concave, convex or slow/fast) and S-shaped (slow-fast or fast-slow). It's much like Logic 7's automation, just easier to handle.

They currently run at 16-sample intervals. I can make it 4 samples though if that's too much "tock!"

What do you mean by "tock!" anyway? - I havn't lowpass filtered the result anyway on 4-sample resolution as all modulation targets interpolate quite good I think. But I havn't tried on resonant filters as this has got me bored too much recently

Cheers,

Urs

[Derek up North]

I thought 6 so I'm going to guess four

Four is correct!

The drumkit is made out of 4 FM oscillators with different key zones

The pad consists of 1 oscillator, 2 FM oscillators, 2 filters, and a noise generator that feeds a comb filter - all with heavy use of the MultiStage envelopes

The drone is one osc, one comb and a multistage (for the pitch sweep after 8 quarters)

Cheers,

Urs

Blimey! The words "lucky" and "guess" somehow come to mind

The more I hear of this though the more the ravenous beast of gear lust starts to awaken in his lair - looks like the limit of credit will be once more stretched upon the rack of aquisition

Sorry - came over all Middle Earth for a moment there!

Regards,

Derek.

[bmanic]

The curves can be L-shaped (concave, convex or slow/fast) and S-shaped (slow-fast or fast-slow). It's much like Logic 7's automation, just easier to handle.

They currently run at 16-sample intervals. I can make it 4 samples though if that's too much "tock!"

What do you mean by "tock!" anyway? - I havn't lowpass filtered the result anyway on 4-sample resolution as all modulation targets interpolate quite good I think. But I havn't tried on resonant filters as this has got me bored too much recently

Cheers,

Urs

Wow! Sounds great!

It's hard to describe that "tock!", "clack!", "tack!" sound but I usually prefere a "schtock!", "zlack!" and "ztack!". Got it?

Seriously, I'll just wait for the demo and see how it sounds. I have no idea if one needs envelopes running at samplerate but the ear is usually quite sensitive to even small glitches (think of it as a smooth compressor vs very clumsy one that lets trough too much of the transient in small pieces instead of a smooth line). Somehow the envelopes are a bit forgotten by coders even though I'd say they are the most important part after filter and osc to get right.

Cheers!
bManic

[lalo]

i think that samplerate envelopes are needed in very fast transients...i.e. very fast attack can get kind of klingy ( ? difficult to find a word for those little hi pitched noises of sub-samplerate envelopes) if the envelopes are even at SR/4

lalo

[Urs]

i think that samplerate envelopes are needed in very fast transients...i.e. very fast attack can get kind of klingy ( ? difficult to find a word for those little hi pitched noises of sub-samplerate envelopes) if the envelopes are even at SR/4

Well...

I've read though the specs of quite some analog gear. My resolution (4 samples for normal ADSR, 16 samples for MultiStages) beats the speed of highly regarded analog gear by, uhm, factor 12-50 or something? At 44.1kHz sampling rate.

No need to worry. Within the modules, the resolution *is* samplerate. It's just the curve shape that's updated ever 4 or 16 samples, no more no less. Anything modulated interpolates accordingly on per-sample basis.

Try Filterscape fer instance. Attack zero, decay zero, sustain zero. You won't hear much, because the note will be just like 12 or so samples long. Not enough time to actually develop anything tonal. What you hear (a click, if you're lucky) just depends on the current phase of the oscillators. The shortest you get out of standard Curtis envelopes is somewhere in the range of 8-20 milliseconds. If you want to simulate fast analog speeds with my stuff, you gotta dial in envelope rates around values of 10.00...

Of course, analog is not digital. I won't doubt that there are differences. I will never claim that Zebra is an emulation of analog gear (not yet...). It plainly is a digital synth. But for digital I can happily say that a control rate of 4 samples is better than most of the stuff that's more expensive (both in terms of cpu and price). I'm pretty sure that you can count the top notch synths that have control rates below 32 samples by less than two hands...

Cheers,

Urs

[Urs]

[Seriously, I'll just wait for the demo and see how it sounds. I have no idea if one needs envelopes running at samplerate but the ear is usually quite sensitive to even small glitches (think of it as a smooth compressor vs very clumsy one that lets trough too much of the transient in small pieces instead of a smooth line). Somehow the envelopes are a bit forgotten by coders even though I'd say they are the most important part after filter and osc to get right.

So and so.

First off, the sound of the synth does not depend on envelopes alone. Even not for transients. There are means to create very hard or cutting-through transients that have nothing to do with envelopes (i.e. the plucks of the string models or modulating the "Expander" oscillator effect). You will lengthen the attack time in order to tame these beasts.

I know that some coders do not care much about control rate. I think I've found a way to offer the IMHO best compromise of control rate vs. cpu hunger, which in my case is 1/4 samplerate for really fast stuff, 1/16 samplerate for fast stuff and 1/64 samplerate for everything else. Internally this is transformed to per-sample base, mostly linear interpolated, sometimes not interpolated and other times somewhere in beween, depends on the parameter. What control rate does digital hardware synth XYZ run at? 32 maybe? That would already be pretty good

Now, seriously, what I think is more important is the sonic experience. What sounds can you get from the machine? Either you like it or not. If you're into aliasing and digital grit, this is not exactly a strength of Z2... All versions of Zebra sound digital, but they do so in an organic way. Even Z2's new FM capabilities don't really sound clean. Everything may sound a little harsher than analog, but everything also got its unique character.

Cheers,

Urs

[bluedad]

Now, seriously, what I think is more important is the sonic experience.. ... but everything also got its unique character.
Urs

most definately!

[bmanic]

Now, seriously, what I think is more important is the sonic experience. What sounds can you get from the machine? Either you like it or not. If you're into aliasing and digital grit, this is not exactly a strength of Z2... All versions of Zebra sound digital, but they do so in an organic way. Even Z2's new FM capabilities don't really sound clean. Everything may sound a little harsher than analog, but everything also got its unique character.

Amen to this! I totally agree.

Actually, I'm not after fast envelopes, on the contrary, I'm after MUSICAL envelopes without 'hickups'. That's all.

Looking very much forward to Z2.
Cheers!
bManic

[jmh]

Unsurprisingly... every time me and bManic went "that sounds really nice" on any Virus TI preset, it turned out that there was the tiniest amount of attack in the volume envelope

So, punchy and snappy don't directly translate into fast envelopes (remember that Virus ad about the envelopes going from zero to full in 22 microseconds or something - which translated into one sample at 44.1kHz ), it's the envelope shapes indeed that play an important part here.

Which is one more reason Z2 is so anxiously expected over here

Urs, sorry about that hitman, he apparently got the address wrong or something. No worries though, another will be sent soon if we don't get this puppy in the near future :]

Regards and palms sweating of excitement,

JMH

[vurt]

Now, seriously, what I think is more important is the sonic experience.. ... but everything also got its unique character.
Urs

most definately!

and this stripey horse has the balls to back urs up
its the lions i feel sorry for ...

[Urs]

(remember that Virus ad about the envelopes going from zero to full in 22 microseconds or something - which translated into one sample at 44.1kHz ), it's the envelope shapes indeed that play an important part here.

I can top that: The normal ADSR envelopes are pretty souped up here with 3 more parameters: The obligatory Fall/Rise, a variable nothing/init/delay parameter and a variable nothing/sustain2/loops/slapbacks parameter (each modulatable by velocity and key follow). Using "init" for the first parameter lets you start the envelopes at 100%, which is, uhm, zero milliseconds

In this case, the biggest problem is Oscillator phase. They gotta reset on trigger have to be set to some interesting, clicky phase.

However, in a stereo patch with oscs detuned in dual- or quad-mode, resetting the phase lets them audibly start in the center (or wherever the osc pan is set). Non-resetted oscillators preserve the stereo feel.

For snappy patches I found that less is more. Fat, punchy basses oftenly just need one oscillator/filter pair and done. (The chorus comes in handy, as it can preserve lows and heights while only chorusing the mids)

When talking curvature, I must admit that I've underestimated this for a long time. I see it now in the MultiStages. I might add some more modes to the normal ADSR (currently available: linear and exp) based on selected MultiStage settings...

Cheers,

Urs

[Urs]

Unsurprisingly... every time me and bManic went "that sounds really nice" on any Virus TI preset, it turned out that there was the tiniest amount of attack in the volume envelope

Oh, hehe, why don't you post an mp3 with some dry notes of one or two selected TI presets? Maybe Z can answer accordingly...?

Cheers,

Urs

[jmh]

The only purpose that would serve is proving further that you need to ship Z2 asap

As exciting as that TI was, somehow it just wasn't ~1900e exciting (tabletop model) - I'm more anxious to get my hands on Z2 really

Regards,

JMH

[bmanic]

Unsurprisingly... every time me and bManic went "that sounds really nice" on any Virus TI preset, it turned out that there was the tiniest amount of attack in the volume envelope

Oh, hehe, why don't you post an mp3 with some dry notes of one or two selected TI presets? Maybe Z can answer accordingly...?

Cheers,

Urs

Well, a good example of the envelope in action can be heard at the access site. Here's the direct link:

http://www.access-mirror.de/files/demos ... e_demo.mp3

The very first sound shows off the envelope real well. It makes these kinds of 'pluck' sounds very nice and musical.

Cheers!
bManic

[Urs]

Ah, I see what you mean!

Gave me a hard time trying to reproduce this in Z2, and I could come close, just not 100%. Which isn't exactly because of the envelopes (you get the pluck quite easy), but because of the filters. One can't beat a Virus in that respect

Let's see, the next demo might have some snappy stuff inside

(Hmmm, I'm depressed. Maybe I should put some cables in my Virus, if only to remind myself why I don't use it anymore...)

Cheers,

Urs