u-he

Urs · Post by **Urs** » Sat Nov 12, 2005 7:09 pm

Urs wrote:ModMatrix concept and implementation get in shape.

Modulation Matrix is up and running

Dudes... what a relief! Now it's only the XYs left... I mean, among the *big* issues...

These things require careful surgeries in the depths of the engine. When these two points are eradicated (well, one *is*) I can go back to the realm of dsp and work on the last little gems: Compressor, Reverb, LFO improvements, MultiStage meta controls, Sync for normal envelopes, EQ, Grid Mixers (oh, another thing that requires a surgery, but it's not that bad) and... well... maybe another type of filter... dunno... hmmm... ah, yes, Modulation Mixers, .tun file support. Maybe for this version, maybe in an early 2006 update: MidiLearn presets, Waveform presets, MultiStage presets, microtuning editor, Velocity curves, Preset meta information (editable text about the preset).

Well, that would be it. Code wise.

And then... user interface. Oh... code for skin exchange... shouldn't be too hard, as this is also implemented in my gui editor... I just need to make the gui resizable...

And... presets, presets, presets...

Well... and, the long rumoured Kitten and Bazille. Finally! I guess most of you have already forgotten the announcement, almost two years ago. Well, what shall I say about these? - You'll see

Cheers,

Urs

P.S.: Does this post mean that I can take off next Friday?

Derek up North · Post by **Derek up North** » Sat Nov 12, 2005 8:02 pm

Urs wrote: P.S.: Does this post mean that I can take off next Friday?

Oh go on then - if anyone asks tell them I said it was OK

Regards,

Derek

kodama · Post by **kodama** » Tue Nov 15, 2005 2:48 pm

Urs wrote:P.S.: Does this post mean that I can take off next Friday?

If you release on Thurs

drez · Post by **drez** » Wed Nov 16, 2005 3:48 am

kodama wrote:
Urs wrote:P.S.: Does this post mean that I can take off next Friday?
If you release on Thurs

Urs · Post by **Urs** » Fri Nov 18, 2005 6:38 pm

Heh, ok... a tiny update:

Today I'm fighting bugs. PC version currently crashes on various situations. First time stuff crashes on PC in 10 months.

No worries, the cause is detected.

But I also thought about envelope snappyness. Envelopes can now optionally have a "Slope" parameter. This can bend the envelope curve to any degree of snappyness you like. This can be pretty snappy!

Cheers,

Urs

suthnear · Post by **suthnear** » Sat Nov 19, 2005 7:08 am

This probably says too much about me, but your Friday news update is one of the highlights of my week

Grimes · Post by **Grimes** » Sat Nov 19, 2005 7:51 am

I must say that, as a fellow software developer and music lover, I find the updates pretty exciting as well.

Urs · Post by **Urs** » Sat Nov 19, 2005 9:39 am

Heh, hihi

Just checked the test responses... all crashes are gone now.

Grimes, hahaha, as long as you're not just waiting for ideas and hoping that Z2 will never see the day of light

Well. 10 days to go until everything has to be in shape for a public preview release (and two days for website + announcement). That's damn short...

So... next few days are gonna be devoted to XY-controls, gui, LFOs and mixers in the Grid. No reverb, no compressor, no waveshapers, no microtuning, no arpeggiator for now. And maybe less than 100 presets. And neither Kitten nor Bazille included. Let alone anything like a manual.

So we can safely say, official announcement + preview version early December, final release late December - early January. Final release with everything included, of course...

Damn, I somehow regret my vacation in August. Even though it was necessary.

Cheers,

Urs

Grimes · Post by **Grimes** » Sat Nov 19, 2005 5:04 pm

Urs wrote: Grimes, hahaha, as long as you're not just waiting for ideas and hoping that Z2 will never see the day of light

The field I work in is quite far away from audio or DSP, so no worries.

gbles · Post by **gbles** » Sat Nov 19, 2005 5:35 pm

Urs, what will the limitations of the preview version be?

Urs · Post by **Urs** » Sat Nov 19, 2005 5:46 pm

gbles wrote:Urs, what will the limitations of the preview version be?

Some stuff will be missing (docs, some small modules, some minor features & the bundled miniZebra plugins) and it will expire after a month or so...

other than that... no limitations...

Cheers,

Urs

gbles · Post by **gbles** » Sun Nov 20, 2005 1:10 am

Excellent. I much prefer something like this, which expires after a short-ish period. Just my opinion, but I dislike demos that have sound bursts every 20-30 seconds. Nothing like snapping you out of the mood you're in than a blast of white noise.
Looking forward to checking it out!

vurt · Post by **vurt** » Sun Nov 20, 2005 3:21 am

this aint no cute furry zebra

this thing is a monster!!
those sounds

my ears

suthnear · Post by **suthnear** » Sun Nov 20, 2005 6:46 am

Urs,

Since I am definitely going to get Z2, I'd be very happy to be part of a public beta program (after I've purchased my licence, of course) if you need additional testers. Or is that the intention behind the preview version?

Urs · Post by **Urs** » Sun Nov 20, 2005 10:46 am

suthnear wrote:Since I am definitely going to get Z2, I'd be very happy to be part of a public beta program (after I've purchased my licence, of course) if you need additional testers. Or is that the intention behind the preview version?

Don't buy anything you havn't tried! After all these pages and years, I'm a bit scared that some of you might be disappointed... I mean, Zebra typically offers less possibilities than other monsters like Absynth or Rhino. It also doesn't sound anything like a Virus or a Minimoog. It's strength is the ease of use (making complex stuff accessible...) and a couple of wild features that IMHO make sense.

There's not just one intention behind the preview version. Part of it is to get it out for some more feedback. You know, releasing stuff is a drug. It's kinda dope thing.

Another part is, I'll have an excuse not to take part in the typical x-mas stuff, because experience tells me that sales are strong on Dec 24/25. I can't deny that this would be highly welcome

Yet another part is, I'm depressed that it takes so long. I sometimes think I should just have made it a normal update instead of a full rewrite. And call the work over the last period of months Z3. Or something.

Maybe I just want to get it done. If I was into less complex plugins I could've released 5 or so in the same period...

Hmmm... the beta team is in a pretty good state at the moment. High activity on the PC side of things where the most stuff is going on. It's right at the point where I can still keep up with feedback. A bit less activity on the Mac side, I guess mostly because they have less doubts and things are less troublesome because of fewer hosts. On the other hand, we hardly ever argue specific bugs, we merely discuss concepts.

Yesterday I managed to soup up the LFOs in just a few hours, based on the Filterscape ones. It's good to have Sync *and* rate modulation. Well, the ones in Z1.5 went up to 5kHz. The new ones only do up to 800Hz or so. Which ought to be okay because there's already some FM and RingModulation (uhm, RM is still missing but will happen eventually) in the audio modules. Today I'm gonna style their user interface and maybe do something about the next missing spot... (If my slight hang over from the beers after Ned Bouhalassa's concert yesterday nite lets me...)

Cheers,

Urs

u-he

KVR Audio

Zebra PC blog