u-he

Notron User · Post by **Notron User** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 12:32 am

Hey, hope this isn't a duplicate topic, but congrats on the Key Buy award from Jim Aikin in the February 07 edition of Keyboard Magazine. I just saw it on the rack in Barnes and Noble today.

For non-USA types, Keyboard magazine is one of the oldest and most respected magazines devoted to synths and keyboards.

Aiken summed up his review:

I have an embarrassing number of great synthesizers on my hard drive. But I'm sure Zebra 2 is going to turn into a mainstay. The sounds are amazing, and programming new ones is just plain fun. Short of Native Instruments Reaktor, which costs a lot more money (and has a steeper learning curve if you want to design your own signal flow), Zebra is the best modular soft synth I've seen yet. Even without the free reverb plug-in, it would be an easy choice for a Key Buy.

spritex · Post by **spritex** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 12:48 pm

Nice!

pdxindy · Post by **pdxindy** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 8:16 pm

It is good to see a downloadable, non-boxed synth from a single developer getting some good press in various magazines

replicator · Post by **replicator** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 10:21 pm

Congratulations!

tribalogical · Post by **tribalogical** » Wed Feb 07, 2007 3:43 am

And on top of that, a complete review in the latest Future Music, with the lead-in basically asking the question "Zebra 2, the best synth plugin ever made?"

The reviewer essentially answers "yes" to that question........ In the "rating" graph at the end of the article, it got the highest marks across the board that I've seen in a long time, maybe ever?

So even more congratulations out to you and the team Urs! All well-deserved praise....

peace,
tribalogical

mayan · Post by **mayan** » Wed Feb 07, 2007 4:23 am

nice to see true quality and craft get recognized

marzzz · Post by **marzzz** » Wed Feb 07, 2007 4:35 am

First thing I read when I got my issue- congrats Urs!

pdxindy · Post by **pdxindy** » Sun Feb 11, 2007 11:16 pm

CM said in their annual awards "Zebra 2, possibly the best soft synth ever"

high praise indeed !

bmrzycki · Post by **bmrzycki** » Sun Apr 29, 2007 3:18 am

Notron User wrote:Hey, hope this isn't a duplicate topic, but congrats on the Key Buy award from Jim Aikin in the February 07 edition of Keyboard Magazine. I just saw it on the rack in Barnes and Noble today.

The full article is now online and can be read here: http://www.keyboardmag.com/story.asp?se ... code=17161

beej · Post by **beej** » Sun Apr 29, 2007 10:21 am

Keyboard Review wrote:A cool extra is that when you install Zebra 2, you also get version 0.3 of the ZRev reverb plug-in. There's no documentation on this, U-he provides no support, and you can't save your own presets, but it's the best reverb plug-in I've heard short of the high-end convolution-based sort.

Hmm... Come on Jim - Zebra's reverbs have some interesting textures, but it's hardly the best reverb algorythm around short of high end convolution reverbs... But points for enthusiasm...

Keyboard Review wrote:Like the Yamaha DX synths of yore, Zebra's FM oscillators provide only a sine wave carrier

Well, there are 8 different waveforms for each FM oscillator in the "More FMO" tab...

Keyboard Review wrote:One "gotcha" is worth note: The LFOs always sync to your host program's transport, with plenty of choices for rhythm values — but there's also a smoothly variable rate knob.

True for the global LFOs, not true for the regular LFOs.

Keyboard Review wrote:he sounds are amazing, and programming new ones is just plain fun. Short of Native Instruments Reaktor, which costs a lot more (and has a steeper learning curve if you want to design your own signal flow), Zebra is the best modular soft synth I've seen yet.

Can't really argue with that one...

u-he

KVR Audio

Keyboard Magazine (US) Keybuy Award for Zebra 2