Zebra3 Info

[david.beholder]

Sorry, the skin isn't fully done yet... everyone is working on Repro-1 now...

That's good news!!!! Please avoid us

[atreehaseyes]

"10 years in the making announcement"

Yeah, that was a little bit strange, and, from my uneducated in the arts of sampling and software design point of view, kind of embarassing for them to admit. I probably have no idea what I'm talking about, though.

Edit: ...forgot about their uploading issues (or whatever) that delayed the announcement an additional however many hours. Great software, not so great PR...

[chilly7]

"10 years in the making announcement"

Yeah, that was a little bit strange, and, from my uneducated in the arts of sampling and software design point of view, kind of embarassing for them to admit. I probably have no idea what I'm talking about, though.

Edit: ...forgot about their uploading issues (or whatever) that delayed the announcement an additional however many hours. Great software, not so great PR...

That is better to delay great product then give it in time but not great.

[omlettor]

What I would love to see in future Zebra is an expansion of the parameter lock, so it can lock complete sections. E.g. locking all arpeggiator parameters, to completely preserve the arp programming when switching presets. I've seen this in an Omnisphere 2 vid and the first thing I thought was "I'd love to have this in Zebra".

Also I'd love to see copy and paste of modules or module settings. An entry in grid module's context menus like "Copy to new instance" would do. When invoked on OSC1 for example it would then create OSC2 with the same settings as OSC1.

[Urs]

What I would love to see in future Zebra is an expansion of the parameter lock, so it can lock complete sections. E.g. locking all arpeggiator parameters, to completely preserve the arp programming when switching presets. I've seen this in an Omnisphere 2 vid and the first thing I thought was "I'd love to have this in Zebra".

Also I'd love to see copy and paste of modules or module settings. An entry in grid module's context menus like "Copy to new instance" would do. When invoked on OSC1 for example it would then create OSC2 with the same settings as OSC1.

That's on our todo list, for sure!

[EvilDragon]

Maybe even for Z2?

[Urs]

Maybe even for Z2?

Not too likely, since we could never implement it for the Arpeggiator and its Control Sequence. It's possible to do that but it would as possibly be a constant source of headaches...

We've learned since and implemented arps and sequencers differently (see Hive).

[fourthmanfire]

Maybe even for Z2?

Not too likely, since we could never implement it for the Arpeggiator and its Control Sequence. It's possible to do that but it would as possibly be a constant source of headaches...

We've learned since and implemented arps and sequencers differently (see Hive).

Speaking of the Z3 arpeggiator/sequencer, will it remain similar to Z2's in style/function or will it be overhauled/changed (a la the one in Hive)? I always found Z2's arpeggiator/sequencer a bit cumbersome to work with.

[omlettor]

Speaking of the Z3 arpeggiator/sequencer, will it remain similar to Z2's in style/function or will it be overhauled/changed (a la the one in Hive)? I always found Z2's arpeggiator/sequencer a bit cumbersome to work with.

I second this. Tweaking the arpeggiator is one of the reasons I choose alternate skins, because standard Zebra arp tweaking really isn't very comfortable.

[david.beholder]

I second this. Tweaking the arpeggiator is one of the reasons I choose alternate skins, because standard Zebra arp tweaking really isn't very comfortable.

At least there arp and seq on Z2. Compare to Diva.

[Urs]

Speaking of the Z3 arpeggiator/sequencer, will it remain similar to Z2's in style/function or will it be overhauled/changed (a la the one in Hive)? I always found Z2's arpeggiator/sequencer a bit cumbersome to work with.

I second this. Tweaking the arpeggiator is one of the reasons I choose alternate skins, because standard Zebra arp tweaking really isn't very comfortable.

I think the main problem is the marriage between Arpeggiator and Sequencer in Zebra. It's one thing that wants to be both.

In Hive we split it up in two entities, dropped a few esoteric functions and made it a really enjoyable combo. Now, if we find a way to enable "poly steps", we're probably all covered for a Z3 Arp+Seq combo.

[fourthmanfire]

Speaking of the Z3 arpeggiator/sequencer, will it remain similar to Z2's in style/function or will it be overhauled/changed (a la the one in Hive)? I always found Z2's arpeggiator/sequencer a bit cumbersome to work with.

I second this. Tweaking the arpeggiator is one of the reasons I choose alternate skins, because standard Zebra arp tweaking really isn't very comfortable.

I think the main problem is the marriage between Arpeggiator and Sequencer in Zebra. It's one thing that wants to be both.

In Hive we split it up in two entities, dropped a few esoteric functions and made it a really enjoyable combo. Now, if we find a way to enable "poly steps", we're probably all covered for a Z3 Arp+Seq combo.

Good to hear. I find Hive's arrangement and layout much more intuitive.

[Hanz Meyzer]

Really looking forward for Zebra 3!

I would like to add the following feature suggestions:

synthesis
- Simple gain module
- Cross-OSC sync module
- 3 OSC FXs
- more different OSC filter FX / multiple types
- much more fine wavetable, higher number of waves.
- additional smoother and faster transition wavetable algorithm
- More distortion algorithms like: softclip, pickup, sine shaper, reduce
- Additional filter types: LP 48dB, clean LP 24dB, BP 24dB
- band splitter device with different crossover filter types, also with linear phase
- simple math module for combining lfo and envs? itself targetable as macro modular
- on/off switches in the modules on the left itself
- drift amount, not only switch
- glide mode retrigger activateable per ENV, so "individual retrigger" mode
- limiter DSP fx
- unison curve parameter for detune spreading
- dry/wet, mix and panning parameters for ring mod module
- side / mid splitter and joiner module
- phase inversion / rotation module

Workflow improvements
- copy/paste for modules in the matrix, duplicate
- while moving modules around horizontally, keep all connections / update connection numbers automatically

EDIT:
- attack parameter for reverb
- search for preset browser
- renaming for preset browser


Thanks for consideration

EDIT: +1000 for below suggestions

[Urs]

Thanks for consideration

Thank you - a lot of this is part of our plan, some of it will need to be evaluated once we're almost there...

[karrikuh]

While eagerly waiting for Z3, I've spent some time just like others thinking about ways to improve relative to Z2. I'm aware that some of the points have already been suggested or even confirmed by Urs, in this case just consider it as another +1 upvote.

Oscillators

• Allow importing full bandwidth wavetables (upto at least 1024 samples/cycle)
• PM (a.k.a. Yamaha "FM") like FMOs
• Tuning as ratio. Useful (actually, crucial) for both FM and ring mod.
• Linear Frequency offset (-10 Hz .. +10 Hz). Allows nice beating effects with speed independent of pitch
• Odd behavior in Z2 I hope that can be fixed: In SpectroBlend mode, even when applying highly nonlinear SpectroFX, the resulting waveform is heavily bandlimited and hence sounds dull in the lower registers.

More Osc SpectralFX modes
Although the new modes proposed here be also achieved via separate modules, having them as SpectralFX makes a lot of sense as they would then be applied individually to unison voices instead of their sum.

• "FM 1", "FM 2": PM waveform with sinusoid modulator of freq ratio 1:1, 2:1 (one octave up). In contrast to the available "Trajector" mode, the osc waveform would in the new modes apply to the carrier.
• "sine shaper", "hard clip", ...: waveshaping by sinusoid, hard clipper

Improve UI of Osc SpectroBlend mode
I like this mode especially for draw-bar organ like sound generation. However, the current UI makes precise control of individual harmonics quite fiddly. Some ideas to improve on this:

• show harmonics as solid bars
• show number of Harmonic (e.g. tooltip) while hovering with mouse pointer
• Modifier key combination (e.g. Ctrl-Shift-Click) to limit modification to only level of clicked harmonic
• horizontal zoom

Routing UI convenience

• Add context menu options for slots
• "Insert >" sub-menu: inserts a module in the given slot and moves existing module in this slot and all modules below one slot downwards. The sub-menu containes the usual list of modules.
• "Replace with >" sub-menu (if slot already contains a module): replaces a module in a slot with a new one. The sub-menu containes the usual list of modules.
• Shift-hold and click to select multiple slots and allow moving by dragging at once.
• Change behavior when dragging module to different already occupied slot in same lane. Rather than swapping the two modules, all modules between source and target slot should move one slot below/above (depending on whether source slot is above or below target slot). E.g. say we have 4 modules 1,2,3,4 in lane (from top to bottom). Dragging 4 (lowest slot) to 1 would result in new order 4,1,2,3. Analogously, dragging 1 onto 4 would yield 2,3,4,1. I think this is much more likely the desired result than what you get currently.

Improve EQ graph mode UI

• Make Ctrl-Click and double click on labels (L,H,1,2) reset that particular filter to 0 dB gain
• Hovering or clicking labels should blend in curve of individual EQ band

ADSR EG

• Ditch all modes and make it generally behave like the current v-slope.
• Allow to adjust attack slope independently of decay/release slope (convex-linear-concave).
• In monophonic mode, make it behave like in analog synths which is a newly triggered note should have the envelope CV start at the current value, not reset to zero.

MSEG

• Adjusting segment with positive slope is counter-intuitive: dragging upwards should make concave shape, downwards convex.
• Speed-up Time Unit "seconds": When attack/decay scaling controls are set to default mid position, a unit in the time line in Z2 takes something like 4 seconds which is not only unexpected but also much to slow for practical purposes. It really should be 1 unit = 1 second in this case.
• Allow MSEGs as primary mod source for lane amp (currently there is only Gate and regular Envs)

LFO

• Ditch Global LFOs and add "Global" switch to regular LFOs
• Allow multi-segment waveforms similar to MSEGs. With this, Zebrify would finally properly work as an "LFO tool".

Ring mod
Add a dedicated pane with mixer controls "Src A", "Src B", "Ring" to allow blending in source signals. This is I think a rather common use case and having to resort to an extra mixer module (or two!) is tedious. One could argue there would then be a lot of overlap between the ring mod and mixer module, therefore see proposed "simplifications" below.

ModFX
With just two enhancements, it could be made capable of more versatile effects like Leslie, Univibe, vibrato, string ensemble chorus.

• increase max. LFO rate to 10 Hz
• switch for LFO shape triangle/sine

Also, some rather nasty behavior I noted with Z2: huge jump of resonance level towards end of feedback parameter range. Maybe tweak the parameter value mapping to avoid this?

Reverb
We need a new quality algorithm (Z2 reverb tends to sound metallic) with more traditional controls like ER/Late mix, Size, Decay, Density. Current parameters like "diffusor" and "feedback" are too nerdy and not intuitive to adjust in order to achieve a particular impression of space.
The reverb from Hive would actually be adequate quality-wise, but should at least receive an ER section.
Additionally, a Dimension Expander or Ambience effect I consider important for modern productions. Something to artificially create or enhance stereo width without obvious reverb tail.

Shaper
Add sine shaper

General

• Saving/loading settings of individual FX modules.
• Saving/loading ARP patterns
• Add "Global Pitch" as target in mod matrix. It would equally affect all regular Oscs and FMOs. Maybe it should also affect key tracking
• "Amp"/"Gain"/"Volume" parameter controls should always be logarithmic (dB), but modulation should be linear.

Simplifications
This is my favorite topic. I get the feeling there are a couple of redundencies and unnecessary complexity in Z2 architecture. I guess some are due to the necessity to preserve backwards compatibility when introducing new features in the past. Since Z3 is supposed to be a clean break, I hope we can improve in this area. Here are some ideas:

• combine VCF and XMF into single Filter module
• combine Dist and Shaper into single Distortion module. The pre/post filters from Dist module would be just as useful for the Shaper modes.
• combine Osc and FMO? (not quite sure if feasible)
• combine Ring and Mix module (see above)

That's it for now, I hope Urs can take some inspiration from this...

EDIT (20.10.2016): updated, and will probably continue to do so in the future as new ideas arrive.