Does Zebra allow user Wavetables?

[TwoToneshuzz]

I work in Numerology pro. I push the envelope of that program, I made a Wavetable instrument using a sequenced Drum Sampler that would run through a series of waves. This got me going on this theme so I started looking for synths that allowed users to load their own wavetables. It created some very interesting timbre's that seemed to me to be unique to wavetables.

Rapture by Cakewalk can do it. It's not been upgraded to work with Lion, which would be a problem as I'm going Lion in the spring.

ElectraX can load samples and does load wavetables. It seems like a huge synth to buy just to get this one wavetable functionallity

Alchemy works with samples but it's also quite a big synth for just getting this functionallity.

Zebra is much higher on my list than any of these other synths but does it have user loadable users wavetable's or is this in it's future?

Regards

Wade

[pdxindy]

You cannot load samples in Zebra, but you can have up to 16 user drawable waveforms per oscillator and you can modulate through them. There are a couple utilities that will generate such wavesets. There is a factory preset (forgot the name) by Howard that makes clever use of this.

[TwoToneshuzz]

You cannot load samples in Zebra, but you can have up to 16 user drawable waveforms per oscillator and you can modulate through them. There are a couple utilities that will generate such wavesets. There is a factory preset (forgot the name) by Howard that makes clever use of this.

Interesting. Generating wavesets, sounds like a function similiar to what I have gotten from Galbanum. The structure bank of 25600 waves generated in Meta Synth.

Edit: I made an error her.

BTW, this is not entirely true regarding being generated in/with MetaSynth. The vast majority of these were made purely via C code (well C# scripting with sound forge to be specific in this case)...

A small number of the early ones where made/edited/tweaked with MetaSynth and/or other synth engines... for example, import and complex waveform, and transform it via another complex waveform...

but the raw waveforms come from pure code/math...

I can understand that a plug in instrument needs to draw the line as to how wide ranging the feature set is. So to get wavestable synth. I guess I'll wait and see if Rapture gets upgraded to Lion.

Right now it's selling at a very good price point.

ElectraX is the up to the moment instrument for this, but a ElectraX buy would most certainly mean Zebra would have to wait as I think such purchases are a once a year thing for this customer.

So if Wavetable capability was implemented in Zebra or another perhaps smaller u-he synth I'd love it.

Regards

Wade

[deleted]

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[EvilDragon]

Also Urs said that they will do sample import for Zebra at some point. So stay tuned

[TwoToneshuzz]

Also Urs said that they will do sample import for Zebra at some point. So stay tuned

I think that would be very interesting indeed. I'll end up getting Zebra at some point but having sample import would eliminate the need for yet another plug in. I just like the U-he stuff and I think Zebra has a lot going for it. So that's why I bring this up now, way ahead of where I'm atually going to be getting Zebra or ElectraX or a Lion compatible Rapture..to do Wavetables, or is it Wavesequencing sample mangling. I just want to get those wormy little waves in there "Zebras stomach" so they can do strange and wonderful things at my bidding, muh ha ha ha.

Regards

Wade

[pdxindy]

Also Urs said that they will do sample import for Zebra at some point. So stay tuned

I think that would be very interesting indeed. I'll end up getting Zebra at some point but having sample import would eliminate the need for yet another plug in. I just like the U-he stuff and I think Zebra has a lot going for it. So that's why I bring this up now, way ahead of where I'm atually going to be getting Zebra or ElectraX or a Lion compatible Rapture..to do Wavetables, or is it Wavesequencing sample mangling. I just want to get those wormy little waves in there "Zebras stomach" so they can do strange and wonderful things at my bidding, muh ha ha ha.

Regards

Wade

You can do a lot with the 16 waveforms already... did you try the demo? You can do much of what people do with wavetables. Not only do you have the 16 waveforms, but you have the 2 oscFX which can both be modulated.

You also have Zebrify which is Zebra as an effect so you can already mangle audio.

[TwoToneshuzz]

You can do a lot with the 16 waveforms already... did you try the demo? You can do much of what people do with wavetables. Not only do you have the 16 waveforms, but you have the 2 oscFX which can both be modulated.

You also have Zebrify which is Zebra as an effect so you can already mangle audio.

Then I'll have to hook up Zebrify to my sound wagon and see the effects she has on the waves the Zebrify might be the solution, because as I've stated in my first post I've already got a wavetable synth constructed in Numerology. It basically is a gate sequence controlled series of samples that are loaded live in an eight voice "drum sampler" I use a 8 into 1 audio switch to send a choice of 1 sound out. This Voice can be layered in my setup with 3 other voices, so I can use them to frequency modulate each other, or use a xy controller to mix between the 4 voices. It's all very homemade but works suprisingly well. What I was missing was some extra ways to shape the sounds..

Of course if there was a tool that would to the joining of the single cycle waves it would perhaps save me time. The main time eater though ispicking through my 30000 waves to find something interesting!

Thanks for the Tip on Zebrify!

Regards

Wade

[Sendy]

If you're thinking of single cycle waves that are scanned thru in a table, with each one harmonically slightly different than the last (or not for special FX), then between the morphing waveforms and Osc FX that entire sonic territory is covered by Zebra.

The Osc FX and how they interact with the continuously changing waveforms fed to them from the wave editor produces the kinds of results which would fill a wavetable anyway - the difference is you're doing it on the fly in Zebra, you can combine Osc FX (essentially creating the equivalent of a 3D wavetable (1 dimension of waveform morphing, two dimensions of Osc FX interactions)!), and you get to choose how frequently a new waveform is calculated, so you can have retro PPG style sweeps or continuous morphing and mangling... Not to mention the instant gratification of it all.

[Polybius]

TwoTonesHuzz, you seem to have put together a rather complex setup. Sorry for the O/T, but i'm just curious to hear what it all sounds like. What kind of music are you making with all that voodoo?

[pdxindy]

You should also look through and download some of the osc preset located here:

http://www.u-he.com/PatchLib/zebra.html#mseg

There are easily over 2000 waveforms with many of them already in Zebra wavesets. They will work in the demo so you can try them. When using wavesets and oscFX the resolution knob on individual osc page is an important parameter and will have a drastic effect on the sound as it scans through the waves.

Even though you have your Numerology set-up, I suggest you try Zebra. Like Sendy said, between the Waveset and 2 OscFX's you have quite a capacity to morph through waveforms... and that is just in 1 osc.

[TwoToneshuzz]

TwoTonesHuzz, you seem to have put together a rather complex setup. Sorry for the O/T, but i'm just curious to hear what it all sounds like. What kind of music are you making with all that voodoo?

I'm trying to post a links to a couple of examples but it's giving me grief.

I've done this before. Hmmm.

I'll work it out.

It's not all that complicated. I've had a Korg Wavestation for years, and it basically allows you to take a series of simple waves up to 32 and play them in sequence with variable transposition, crossfade length, volume and transposition amount. It's just terribly slow and buggy to work with in the Wavestation. Even with an external editor.

The Wavetable instrument mimics this I use a 8 voices in mulit voiced sample instrument in my host. With that I load a sequence of eight sounds I want to play back. Then using two gates, one for actually triggering the sound and one for moving from sample to sample the "counter". I get the sequence to play back with variable choice of time for each sound. Each wave is a single waveform generated mathematically in software, In my case I'm using the waveforms from the Galabanum Architecture bank that I rashly went out and bought in the heat of the moment while I was working on my Wavetable instrument. This is a wave pack with 26000 samples to choose from. The interesting thing about the single means that it is complete and does not need crossfading. It is much more transposable than normal samples, up to 3 octaves or more is no problem. Thes waves can be seen as oscillators. Easy to use no issues with crossfade bumps or pitch variation. The big problem as mentioned is navigating 26 k samples! They take up very little space on the disk though.

The thing I was hoping was i could get these raw sounds into a synth enviroment for dynamic shaping and filtering and so on. Also slick ways of balancing four of these waves together would be nice. The concept here is that certain types of waves are actually designed to be uses a FM modulators. they are named "modulo" I can set it all up in Numerology but the number of modules make the setup a bit hard to navigate.


Why all the issue of using Wavetables when you have Diva, Bazille, Surge, Zebra. Well basically it gives another type of sonic resource. The Idea of a morphing oscillator, both for smooth sweeps but also for glitchy types of effects, rough edged and raw. It's an explore this kind of project.

Regards

Wade





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[TwoToneshuzz]

You should also look through and download some of the osc preset located here:

http://www.u-he.com/PatchLib/zebra.html#mseg

There are easily over 2000 waveforms with many of them already in Zebra wavesets. They will work in the demo so you can try them. When using wavesets and oscFX the resolution knob on individual osc page is an important parameter and will have a drastic effect on the sound as it scans through the waves.

Even though you have your Numerology set-up, I suggest you try Zebra. Like Sendy said, between the Waveset and 2 OscFX's you have quite a capacity to morph through waveforms... and that is just in 1 osc.

Great, that's nice to know, I'm getting warmed up for a Zebra buy I see...

I like what I see in Zebra compared to the other synths I mentioned in the OP.

Thanks for the tips!

Regards

Wade

[Shabdahbriah]

... The big problem as mentioned is navigating 26 k samples!

The above mentioned "converters" are made for single cycle waveforms LIKE the "Architecture" series.

Your folder ("bank" of available waveforms) is too large for the purpose you have stated... [2c]

[TwoToneshuzz]

If you're thinking of single cycle waves that are scanned thru in a table, with each one harmonically slightly different than the last (or not for special FX), then between the morphing waveforms and Osc FX that entire sonic territory is covered by Zebra.

The Osc FX and how they interact with the continuously changing waveforms fed to them from the wave editor produces the kinds of results which would fill a wavetable anyway - the difference is you're doing it on the fly in Zebra, you can combine Osc FX (essentially creating the equivalent of a 3D wavetable (1 dimension of waveform morphing, two dimensions of Osc FX interactions)!), and you get to choose how frequently a new waveform is calculated, so you can have retro PPG style sweeps or continuous morphing and mangling... Not to mention the instant gratification of it all.

Thanks I did not have this insight. But still isn't a resource where you bring in waves that are custom designed for bringing out certain effects and not just generated on the fly a more solid foundation for getting usable results? How specific can you be with the wave generator I'm wondering.

What I'm thinking is with these custom designed waves there a fair bit of know how behind the way they are built up and not something I can just tweak a few knobs to achieve the same result.

Not to disparage the Wave generating functionallity in Zebra at all. It's me, the users that perhaps is the weak link in the chain.

Regards

Wade