Need some recommendations from Z2 users...

[kuniklo]

My intention for Zebra in the first place was getting rid of the Virus. Zebra 1.0 pretty much resembled the Virus' architecture, but didn't have that aggressiveness that I really found annoying after some years. You know, I always had problems to line up the Virus in a mix with my sampler and the Wavestation. It always wanted to be the most prominent instrument.

Bringing this thread back from the dead...

I've been experimenting with duplicating Virus sounds with Z2 recently and I've actually found it to be rather difficult. Z2 sounds superb in its own right of course and is far more flexible than any Virus but they have somewhat complementary strengths and weaknesses.

Zebra has much brighter and sharper oscillators and the osc fx make it much easier to get novel timbres quickly in Z2. Z2 has a much broader selection of filters and the comb and fm stuff etc etc really has no equivalent on the Virus.

On the other hand, I still slightly prefer the Virus filters to any in Z2. The Virus filters have a very distinctive, thick rich personality that I like better than any other digital synth I've heard. I also prefer the Virus' onboard effects to Z2. I can get very usable results quickly from the delay, chorus, phaser and reverb on the Virus that I haven't so far found with much more tweaking on Z2. Most of the effect parameters are modulatable too, which can be very powerful.

Anyway, Z2 is easily the first synth I'd recommend to someone starting out and, while I'm keeping the Virus, I'm not sure I need very many softsynths besides Z2.

[pdxindy]

I also prefer the Virus' onboard effects to Z2. I can get very usable results quickly from the delay, chorus, phaser and reverb on the Virus that I haven't so far found with much more tweaking on Z2. Most of the effect parameters are modulatable too, which can be very powerful.

I do like the Zebra delay and reverb. The modfx module doesn't do the classic doubling sort of chorus effect. It is kinda subtle and doesn't stand out as being very useful for the standard stuff.

The dual osc and stereo path has much depth just as it is and does not need a chorus to give it life and I like that Zebra can sound spacious and having dynamic movement without an obvious chorusing effect. But yeah, if you want the classic chorus/flanger/phaser effects then another synth or use extra vst effect after Zebra.

Obviously you can modulate effect parameters in Zebra2

[Urs]

The Virus filters have a very distinctive, thick rich personality that I like better than any other digital synth I've heard.

What do you think of the FabFilter sound then? As much as I dislike the Virus filter (explained it somewhere, I just got tired of it and use my Virus mostly as a faderbox - if I even bother to turn it on), I think the FabFilter sound does that particular job just right...

Urs

[kuniklo]

The Virus filters have a very distinctive, thick rich personality that I like better than any other digital synth I've heard.

What do you think of the FabFilter sound then? As much as I dislike the Virus filter (explained it somewhere, I just got tired of it and use my Virus mostly as a faderbox - if I even bother to turn it on), I think the FabFilter sound does that particular job just right...

Urs

I do really like the FabFilter sound. I was actually trying to match some Virus sounds on the FF Twin last night. I was able to get very close for some slow attack sounds like strings but couldn't quite get the same sharpness and snap on bass and lead sounds. Probably has as much to do with the envelopes as the filter though and some compression and eq helped after the fact.

I think the reason I use the Virus as much as I do these days is that I can get sounds I like out of it quickly without a lot of fine tuning at post processing. If I try to duplicate those sounds with better VSTs like Zebra or FF Twin I can usually get very close but it also usually takes me quite a bit more time and fine tuning. Of course, there are some sounds the Virus just doesn't do that well at all, particularly really cutting leads.

[Urs]

Well, I hope to have time soon to tweak that XMF filter module for Zebra2 (see other threads). I think it's gonna have an impressive snappyness and a lot of room to add any kind of character. The problem with filter character IMHO generally is that it's hard to get good sounding non-llinearities (distortion etc.) out of "normal" filters that are hard to tame in even clean modes. The XMF algorithm is pretty well behaved and clean at any resonance, any frequency and any modulation intensity, so it should be much fun to add quite some grit here and there. Now if only I can speed it up by factor 4

Later,

Urs