Question about Modulating Wavetables in Zebra

[jacobaaron]

Greetings,

Happy ACE, Uhbik, Tyrell, and Zebra CM owner here. I have recently been demoing Zebra because the CPU hit is quite heavy with ACE and Tyrell. Zebra (as to be expected) sounds absolutely incredible and I am seriously thinking about selling my Virus TI and replacing it with Zebra.

I have a quick question though. When I assign an LFO to scan through a wavetable in Zebra, the modulation seems to be reset when I switch to a new oscillator. In other words, when I work with the Virus or Massive, I simply assign an LFO to scan through the wavetable and then am free to try different oscillator types without losing the LFO assignment (it's a great way to experiment). Is this possible with Zebra or do I always have to reassign the modulation?

Thanks!

[mcnoone]

No.
Zebra saves the oscillator settings, including the lfo to wave settings, with each osc saved.
You could save the osc again with those lfo to wave settings that you want though, for each one.

btw look into the dinocrossgrade special for Zebra, as it can get you a discount.

[Sendy]

Yes, all of the settings on the Osc module are saved with each Osc preset. This can be as much as a drawback as it is helpful sometimes, because like you say, you often want an oscillator for it's harmonic content and nothing else.

[jacobaaron]

Thanks for the replies.

OK, interesting, modulation assignments can be saved as an oscillator setting.

I am still on the fence about parting with the Virus (I got it in '06 and feel quite attached), but if I do Zebra will serve as the replacement (it definitely meets and perhaps exceeds the Virus in terms of sound quality). I will certainly apply for the dino crossgrade if and when I make my decision.

[Urs]

I have an idea in the back of my mind, which is making modulations, modes and tunings optional when loading oscillators. So you could just load a waveform all by itself... or everything, but leave the tuning stable etc.

The other idea is to have a "locked mode" for parameters that keeps parameters unaltered for the duration of a session, when stepping through presets. This is a bit of a clash with former idea, so I'm kind of in a mental deadlock in that respect.

I might get into it after the next round of updates (over due)...

Urs

[jacobaaron]

Whoa. Either one of those options would be welcome additions. Thanks for chiming in Urs!

[Sendy]

I have an idea in the back of my mind, which is making modulations, modes and tunings optional when loading oscillators. So you could just load a waveform all by itself... or everything, but leave the tuning stable etc.

That would be so welcome it isn't even funny.

It would also increase the usefulness of my wavetable pack immensely... Being able to flick through all of them while working on a patch... bliss!

[opus_diaboli]

Are there any distinctive differences in sound between ACE and Zebra?

[EvilDragon]

Yes, they're very different when audio-rate modulation is concerned, I'd say.

[Urs]

Are there any distinctive differences in sound between ACE and Zebra?

Zebra does more different synthesis techniques.

ACE excells at audio rate modulation, e.g. oscillator sync sounds more convincing.

[jacobaaron]

I'd just like to point out that what I was asking for in the original post is already possible by assigning an LFO in the mod matrix as opposed to an oscillator directly. I just had to reinstall the demo of Zebra to test this out and it works splendidly.

Anyone want to buy a Virus TI desktop?

[mcnoone]

@jacobaaron:
Good workaround there.
I thought I read before, that there is some kinda time difference from using direct modulations, and modulations routed from the matrix.
So there might be some slight, possibly not noticeable, difference in timing when doing it that way, or I might have misunderstood that posted info about it. It was posted by Urs though.

[bmrzycki]

@jacobaaron:
Good workaround there.
I thought I read before, that there is some kinda time difference from using direct modulations, and modulations routed from the matrix.
So there might be some slight, possibly not noticeable, difference in timing when doing it that way, or I might have misunderstood that posted info about it. It was posted by Urs though.

According to my notes Urs mentioned there is approximately a 1-2ms time difference between direct and indirect modulation sources. From what I understand this is due to when in the code he examines the different modulator sources.

It shouldn't really matter for modulating a wavetable though as most people will want a nice and slow modulator source to hear the differences clearly.

[jacobaaron]

Thanks for the heads up guys. I tested the latency by assigning an LFO to OSC 1 directly and then through the matrix to OSC 2 (same wavetables of course). I cycled through whole notes to eighth notes and only noticed a very slight phasing. It is definitely not a problem (in my opinion).

Now, if I can only unload that Virus...

Oh, and as an unrelated question; Is there any way to avoid filter stepping when using realtime controls? I know you can achieve finer resolutions by holding shift, but this is not really practical for realtime. I haven't tried automating filter sweeps in Live yet (as I'm just demoing Zebra right now), but I noticed stepping when opening/closing the filter by hand (although it's not a huge deal).

Thanks!