Hans Zimmer Loves Zebra

[Fritze]

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

I reckon you could give him a run for his money.

But then, achieving realism may be an interesting exercise, a challenge, or a desirable component of some other end - but as an end itself? I dunno, it's like the photorealist oil paintings that were recently posted in another thread... surely a display of considerable skill, but that's pretty much all.

_

This is all very subjective. Personal choices.

[Fritze]

Not surprised in the least Zebra's been used soo extensively by him, its such a versatile synth for creating both very electronic and also more natural timbres. I had a lot of fun making more natural sounds with it myself when I created the Zebra Soundtrack Demo mp3 for my commercial soundbank:

http://www.arksun-sound.com/music/Arksu ... k_Demo.mp3

Wow! This is a beautiful soundtrack! Great sounds.

[mcnoone]

Wow! This is a beautiful soundtrack! Great sounds.

question chacka
Is your signature the u-he email support?
Why would you put that there sir?
No one puts email addresses on forums in their signatures unless they like spam.

[Sascha Franck]

No one puts email addresses on forums in their signatures unless they like spam.

Yeah, quite strange. Well, at least it's no clickable link. But still...

- Sascha

[hakey]

deleted

[trimph1]

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

Thanks so much, I thought the pieces were gone for good!!

I heard some of these just now...uuummmmm...Hum with artificial formants....my wife wants to know how you did that. She sings and can't figure out whether that is artificial or not!!

[hakey]

The best reason to go for acoustic emulation is finding a sound that sounds acoustic, and similar to something heard before, but does not quite emulate anything. Something acoustic, but never heard of before.

Sorry mc, skim-reading your post, I missed this bit.

I absolutely agree - more specifically, the uncanny valley between the obviously synthetic and the convincingly real has some interest, at least for me*.

Which is kind of what I was getting at in my first post: realism isn't an end - it's not aesthetically valuable - in itself. To use the analogy with visual art, the paintings of an old master such as Rembrandt are not photo-realistic. They are better than that.


*of course, that could just be my rather convenient excuse for my inability to programme truly convincing emulations

[Urs]

No one puts email addresses on forums in their signatures unless they like spam.

Yeah, quite strange. Well, at least it's no clickable link. But still...

- Sascha

Chacka is our newest team member, and he does much of the support while Howie is at Hans' place and I am on vacation.

I've been using "non-clickable" mail links for a while and haven't seen all that much spam. support@ has gotten one spam mail last week, which is bearable if posting the address makes contacting us easier.

[mcnoone]

No one puts email addresses on forums in their signatures unless they like spam.

Yeah, quite strange. Well, at least it's no clickable link. But still...
- Sascha

Chacka is our newest team member, and he does much of the support while Howie is at Hans' place and I am on vacation.
I've been using "non-clickable" mail links for a while and haven't seen all that much spam. support@ has gotten one spam mail last week, which is bearable if posting the address makes contacting us easier.

Oh okay then.

[trimph1]

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..

Here's some great examples.
http://soundcloud.com/solaris-synth/set ... -demos-set

@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.

Somehow I missed this. Thanks for these demo sets, mcnoone.

[mcnoone]

I absolutely agree - more specifically, the uncanny valley between the obviously synthetic and the convincingly real has some interest, at least for me*.

I just see it as another branch of sounds that a synth is capable of.
Whether they be perfect emulations, sample quality, or pseudo emu. It's all good kinda thing. To search the limits as it were.

If I could get a clav, done on a subtractive synth, that sounds and plays better than my sf2 clav sample I got from digital factory, then that's one less clav sample needed on my hd too.

I think there's also the value of the "haven't heard this synth do that sound before" factor as well. Lot's of people want variety in sounds, so make the palette as wide as possible, I say.

Ken is obviously extremely talented in sound design.
The work needed to achieve those sounds I've been listening to from his file site half the day today are simply amazing.
I could imagine he could do better using Zebra, but it's Zebras learning phase that can be a trial, once past it, the possibilities of sounds just opens up wide.

[eytanmich123]

Funny that no one mentioned it (AFAICT) but the thing that grabbed my attention was that Hans chose Zebra as the only tool he LIMITS himself with.
To me, that is to say : I need no more. it caters all my needs.

[hakey]

deleted

[mcnoone]

Funny that no one mentioned it (AFAICT) but the thing that grabbed my attention was that Hans chose Zebra as the only tool he LIMITS himself with.
To me, that is to say : I need no more. it caters all my needs.

That's an old argument.
Some, in fact many, see as learning to get what you need from one synth is the way to go. Mastering one synth might actually be less limiting than if your hacking about with many. That's a problem that's actually mentioned a lot in those "gas" threads. Having too many synths to choose, can undermine the making music part.
For sound designers, it's different though, if they want to sell sounds of course, making them for many synths.
But musicians mostly want to play music, and not spend a lot of time learning many different synths...at least in the software or digital workstation realm.
I'm sure that having Diva as an addition is useful too.

I could just ask you...have many synths do you have?
How many have you mastered?
If the number is many, and many, then lets hear the mastery.

[mcnoone]

As a matter of taste, I rather prefer Howard's artful, eclectic, often quirky take on sound design to Elhardt's uber-realism (impressive though that is).
-

Yea...as a matter of taste.
I tend to like this sound, but not that one, not depending on the designer, but any sound designer. It's a some sounds I dig, and some I don't kinda thing.
Just like bands, and the tunes they create.