Hans Zimmer Loves Zebra

[Elhardt]

What happened to your pieces? I was trying to find something and found nothing...I'd love to hear what you came up with myself..

When ATT Worldnet shut down, all my user storage space disappeared and thus all links to my sounds from every website over the years all went dead. I've uploaded some of my stuff on Skydrive and below are two links with a bunch of my stuff. The synth used is listed at the front of the filename if only one synth was used. There's all kinds of stuff from emulating acoustic instruments, to natural sounds, to mechanical sounds, to Wendy Carlos type stuff, and some misc stuff.

https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=2e0c0e75 ... 0D66%21104

https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=642528f1 ... 58CC%21105

-Elhardt

[pdxindy]

Indeed, you are right about his skill... I just went and listened to some of his stuff. Some exceptional work there. He's earned the right to boast some. Doesn't mean I agree with him cause I've heard some very realistic percussion from various softsynths like Tassman and I stand by my comment about Zebra.

I'm wondering where people are going to listen to my stuff since most has disappeared off the web and now only a portion of my stuff exists spread across two different links on two different Skydrive accounts.

Just because nobody has done realistic percussion in Reaktor (or you haven't heard it), doesn't mean it's not more capable than Zebra for example. Reaktor has a lot more resources and it capable of more. It's easy to create realistic percussion sounds on all kinds of synths. But that doesn't mean that that particular percussion sound actually emulates a real-world known sound because that's harder to do. To this day I've never heard anybody synthesize a realistic drum kit or timpani on Tassman or Zebra. Also, some synths have certain features built in, like Tassman's physical modeling and modal synthesis, that makes it easy for people with little programming skill to create realistic percussion sounds because some of the modules do all the work for them. Same is true when somebody wants a realistic plucked string sound they use some form of Karplus Strong setup or string oscillator, but that's because they can't do it using subtractive synthesis. And it's kind of odd to say you've heard realistic percussion sounds on Tassman therefore you stand by your comment that Zebra is best at percussion sounds.

-Elhardt

What happened to your pieces? I was trying to find something and found nothing...I'd love to hear what you came up with myself..

He has some impressive skill... Searching his name will bring up some stuff if you look a bit... I did not bookmark what I found...

[Elhardt]

@elhardt:It uses less cpu than most soft synths.
Trying the no hassle demo out will let you see that.
(edit) Okay, I see you've already tried the demo.
I thought the same way at first about the GUI, but it only takes the initial hurdle over the learning post to get it, then it becomes the best gui ever...well to me anyway.
It's the Osc Fx within the oscillator modules that can really get things going.

I haven't tried the demo yet. I was going by the screenshots and videos I've seen of it. There are also other things about the GUI that I don't like, for instance the knobs. I downloaded the free Berlin synth a few days ago and found those semi-circular knob position indicators to be very annoying and hard on the eyes when trying to gauge knob positions fast and easily. But I'll give the demo a try and see how it goes.

-Elhardt

[pdxindy]

When I go to various company's websites and look for demos, there's almost nothing when it comes to people doing realistic sounds. People don't use synths for that.

I wish there was more myself.

As for Reaktor vs Zebra: I keep hearing that your u-he stuff is pretty heavy on the CPU. That's another thing that limits complexity and realism for certain kinds of sounds. I can set up a 100 band filter bank in Reaktor, but something tells me that would be impractical in Zebra, and without a Reaktor user GUI to apply to it, it would be impractical to use and dial in values. So Reaktor is good for really complex stuff that other synths can't handle.

-Elhardt

Zebra is not heavy on the cpu... ACE and especially Diva are. But yeah, you cannot make a 100 band filter in Zebra. For that kind of thing, you are in the right place with Reaktor. Sounds like a good fit for you.

[Urs]

I can set up a 100 band filter bank in Reaktor

That's what I mean. Most people will need an hour or so to set up a 3-band resonator for a certain type of frequency response. Hardly anyone will ever even want to touch a 100 band filter bank, unless maybe using a drawing approach or static impulse reponses. One would certainly not do anything dynamic with it. That sort of complexity IMHO promotes lifeless, dead sounds whereas something with an efficient few parameters can be modulated or quickly set up and thus becomes organic and alive.

Zebra is designed to be limited. We think it's an advantage, because it propagates efficiency and it allows for a great workflow. People get more useful and great sounds in less time than with "limitless" synths that are tedious to program.

Regarding CPU usage, Zebra uses way less CPU than ACE/Bazille/DIVA for similar patches, but it's also a different approch (Zebra's Grid system vs. extensive audio rate modulations vs. realistic analogue modeling)

Urs

[Esgalachoir]

What happened to your pieces? I was trying to find something and found nothing...I'd love to hear what you came up with myself..

When ATT Worldnet shut down, all my user storage space disappeared and thus all links to my sounds from every website over the years all went dead. I've uploaded some of my stuff on Skydrive and below are two links with a bunch of my stuff. The synth used is listed at the front of the filename if only one synth was used. There's all kinds of stuff from emulating acoustic instruments, to natural sounds, to mechanical sounds, to Wendy Carlos type stuff, and some misc stuff.

https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=2e0c0e75 ... 0D66%21104

https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=642528f1 ... 58CC%21105

-Elhardt

Wow, incredible!

I Really liked the Arturia MMV stuff. And that Humming thing(it's call "Hum with Artificial Formants"), was that REALLY artificial?

[Elhardt]

Yup, I stand by my comment... cause it is my comment and my opinion... For percussion, I like Zebra better than Tassman because it is easier to work with and has more flexibility in various ways like finer control of envelop shape, additive osc's etc... and I do not really consider Reaktor a synth but more a development platform so I do not include it in my assessment. Sure Reaktor is more powerful overall than Zebra, but so is Max or C++... no thanks. I'm not a coder and not interested in being one.

And I could care less about your snobbish attitude. I would much rather have a softsynth that was easy to make realistic sounds than hard. That is why I like Zebra so much. It is relatively easy to use, yet has a sizable set of innovative tools to work with. I don't care about ultimate capability but rather useable capability. I'd say Zebra is exceptional for useable capability.

Reaktor is a platform to create synthesizers with, or just about anything else. Once you do that you can have a synthesizer that is tailored to exactly what you want. It's not something you code with (although they later kind of added that capability). You place modules down and connect them together just like a modular synth, it's just that you need to go one step further and give it a user panel.

And I don't get you comment about snobbish attitude. The subject of synth capabilities vs the capabilities of the synth user came up in regards to creating realistic percussion sounds. i'm pointing out that the two shouldn't be confused. If a synth gives everybody a drum module to create a drum sound with, then that is no indication of how good a synth programmer somebody is nor how well a synth that doesn't have a drum module will be at creating a drum sound. The latter is determined by the user, the former by the synth. And I'm not saying that Zebra isn't great at realistic sounds, I'm just wondering why everybody is under the impression it's a must have for that kind of thing. Besides Reaktor, I have a Nord Modular, which is the most powerful hardware VA synth. So I haven't really had the urge to keep buying more synths and spreading my time out even thinner.

-Elhardt

[Elhardt]

That's what I mean. Most people will need an hour or so to set up a 3-band resonator for a certain type of frequency response. Hardly anyone will ever even want to touch a 100 band filter bank, unless maybe using a drawing approach or static impulse reponses. One would certainly not do anything dynamic with it. That sort of complexity IMHO promotes lifeless, dead sounds whereas something with an efficient few parameters can be modulated or quickly set up and thus becomes organic and alive.

Zebra is designed to be limited. We think it's an advantage, because it propagates efficiency and it allows for a great workflow. People get more useful and great sounds in less time than with "limitless" synths that are tedious to program.

Regarding CPU usage, Zebra uses way less CPU than ACE/Bazille/DIVA for similar patches, but it's also a different approch (Zebra's Grid system vs. extensive audio rate modulations vs. realistic analogue modeling)

Urs

Well my Nord Modular Violin and Cello sounds use 42 band bandpass filter banks and those sounds are not lifeless and dead. They are realistic and complex enough that they've generated lots of talk by people not believing they were synthesized or thought I was cheating somehow by using samples. Virtually all acoustic instruments have complex fixed formants and frequency responses and thus the need for massive filter banks for some sounds.

As for CPU usage, I guess I had assumed Zebra was using the same sound generation as ACE/Bazille/DIVA. My mistake.

-Elhardt

[Elhardt]

Wow, incredible!

I Really liked the Arturia MMV stuff. And that Humming thing(it's call "Hum with Artificial Formants"), was that REALLY artificial?

Thanks for your compliments.... As for the humming one, that's me humming with my voice, then I process that hum through a 48 band or maybe it was a 95 band filter bank I wrote in C on the computer which then makes it sound like I'm saying "AHH". I was doing with filters what the video below is doing with a real 3D model of the vocal tract:



-Elhardt

[Urs]

Since Reaktor is the most powerful softsynth out there, theoretically, it's capable of better sounds than any other synth.

I've been pondering about that sentence a bit, and I think you're wrong, practically. "More" is not "better", and "better" is often defined by exhaustive algorithms that only run in carefully optimised machine code.

Try to make a state variable filter with delayless feedback and 2 simple tanh-distortions in Reaktor, and use 3 of those for a resonator. Let's limit the solver to 4 rounds of Newton-Raphson, then oversample 4 times to limit the aliasing. Takes 3-5% CPU in our case, but I doubt that you can run 3 x 4 x 4 SVF filters which totals 96 tanh()s in Reaktor anywhere in the same CPU region. Thus, "limitless" in theory is often "impossible" in practice.

[Esgalachoir]

Wow, incredible!

I Really liked the Arturia MMV stuff. And that Humming thing(it's call "Hum with Artificial Formants"), was that REALLY artificial?

Thanks for your compliments.... As for the humming one, that's me humming with my voice, then I process that hum through a 48 band or maybe it was a 95 band filter bank I wrote in C on the computer which then makes it sound like I'm saying "AHH". I was doing with filters what the video below is doing with a real 3D model of the vocal tract:



-Elhardt

Oooh! Aaaah!! Voweluable stuff to know!
Thanks for the vid, it was interesting!

[pdxindy]

And I don't get you comment about snobbish attitude. The subject of synth capabilities vs the capabilities of the synth user came up in regards to creating realistic percussion sounds. i'm pointing out that the two shouldn't be confused. If a synth gives everybody a drum module to create a drum sound with, then that is no indication of how good a synth programmer somebody is nor how well a synth that doesn't have a drum module will be at creating a drum sound. The latter is determined by the user, the former by the synth. And I'm not saying that Zebra isn't great at realistic sounds, I'm just wondering why everybody is under the impression it's a must have for that kind of thing. Besides Reaktor, I have a Nord Modular, which is the most powerful hardware VA synth. So I haven't really had the urge to keep buying more synths and spreading my time out even thinner.

-Elhardt

You brought that subject up and I don't think anyone is confused. I don't care in the slightest how good a synth programmer someone is. I value a synth that lets people who are not great synth programmers make all sorts of quality sounds.

I am very happy to have a synth module that functions at a higher level so I can do various things faster. I don't want to do everything at a low level. If that interests you, great... and the results show in your sounds... but that is not then the measure for everyone. Many people would rather have a set of higher level tools that are faster and easier even if they give up some ultimate capability. That is my guideline when I say I think Zebra is great for percussion. It brings a wide palette while being accessible to many people. I have no interest at all in carefully crafting a 100 band filter. Too intellectual for me and for many I guess.

Also, why make such a broad generalization? Not everyone thinks Zebra is a must have for realistic sounds. Plenty of people don't necessarily like Zebra and I don't have the impression that a high percentage of people even think of it as a synth particularly for realistic sounds.

[xh3rv]

I was doing with filters what the video below is doing with a real 3D model of the vocal tract:

I remember reading, historically this was done with actual larynges excised from cadavers ...( confirmed: http://www.haskins.yale.edu/featured/he ... ustic.html ).

[Sascha Franck]

But are some things about its GUI that I don't like which also didn't exactly pull me in, including having modules in two long columns that I'd have to keep scrolling around to adjust parameters. I wish one were free to lay out modules freely like in the Nord Modular editor... Knowing that the demo is fully functional, I might download it and give it a try.

You should really give it a try - even if it only was so you'd see that you don't have to scroll around much (if at all). You can adjust Zebra so it'd always bring the selected module to the top. just click on it in the module grid/mixer and it's right up there for you to tweak.

In addition, Zebras knobs are wonderful to edit as you don't have to click-drag them. Simply bring place your mouse pointer over them and use the scrollwheel - that's just excellent (and defenitely making me wonder why not each and every plugin does it like that).

- Sascha

[Fritze]

So what you are saying is that you are by far the very best synth programmer ever... That is quite a claim to make...

Ken IS the best at making realistic sounds, in my not so humble opinion.

I can second that. He did some of the most stunning realistic sounds with synths I heard to date. Very inspiring.