Zebra3 Info

[Cyoon]

sweet!

[Photontic]

Couldn't hurt to ask Sean at least - that man knows his reverbs!
Then you can always decide if it's worth the cost etc.

[Spirit2017]

Hello Urs how long does it take with the zebra (HZ) update ?
The wait is no longer fun because i want to start my project and wants to isolate me from the net.How long do you think it still takes?

[vvilms]

What I'm currently working on is classical Lexicon-style reverbration though, as I found a way to do something pretty complex with very low CPU footprint.

That sounds sick. =) Have you messed with R4 at all yet? (Was fortunately able to score Nimbus while a student, and got the slick 50% intro for R4 this past Spring. )

[pdxindy]

Things I like about Serum:

More than half of that is already done in Zebra, but some that weren't might cause a trade off CPU load for not much gain. (Not sure if it's possible in Serum, but it's requested often...) One can not combine oscillator detune in large intervals (as opposed to, say, +/- 1 semitone) with realtime wavetable manipulation at a low CPU footprint.

In my view, one does not need all filter types ever imagined. One needs a few which are very well distinguishable and which have loads of responses (LP/HP/BP, different dB/oct etc.). We have a really good concept for this, and we've got quite the expertise in filter design.

I like the sonic featureset of Icarus better than Serum. The Morph modes are more musically interesting than the Warp options in Serum. Icarus has some interesting filters too. Modulation is not so strong in Icarus, but I consistently get pleasing sounds out of it and it has useful re-synthesis options.

I would love to see some vocal filters (formant) in Zebra 3. The current formant filter in Z2 is fiddly. Because there are quite few filters in Z2, one can build what one wants, but would be useful to have better 'built-in' options that take less work.

[Urs]

Hello Urs how long does it take with the zebra (HZ) update ?
The wait is no longer fun because i want to start my project and wants to isolate me from the net.How long do you think it still takes?

Same issue as Repro-5: The reworked preset browser has a few issues left. We will go in beta soon. And even though we are confident that it will be good, for a serious project I'd recommend to stick to the current version, if it is urgent.

[Spirit2017]

Soon in beta are good news.

One more question can you imagine to emulate the Ensoniq DP/4 in the future ?

[mrj1nx]

Thanks for elaborating on the Serum/visuals topic, fascinating read indeed.

Regarding something completely different, comb filters. They can sound stunning when used for stringed instruments. (Remember my first encounter was the patch Harpolodic in massive, took me quite a while to find out what the hell was going on and why only that patch sounded so stunning in that particular way)

How much further does the comb filter rabbithole go than what you already did in Z2?

[julianboyd]

For Z3 oscillators the sound and functionality of the Crumar/DKI Synergy seems like a natural fit.
Especially the graininess of the oscillators is something i don't hear in current additive synths:


It was said Wendy Carlos used typically just 4 to 5 partials per sound and tuned them by ear. Amazing, how much variety is possible with such a limited set of harmonics as long as you can tune them.

[medienhexer]

To be clear - I vastly prefer Zebra to Serum.

We'll see... today spending another few hours on the reverb. I wonder what it would take to hire Casey or Sean to dial in a good setting if we made the architecture available to them. Or maybe they'd chuckle at the architecture... who knows.

Urs, kvr is really the wrong place to ask this question. I'm pretty sure a lot of folks here are dreaming of any sort of collaboration between u-he and valhalladsp. They probably already have the celebrity couple names sorted out. Like uhalla or v-he...

[zvenx]

To be clear - I vastly prefer Zebra to Serum.

Hehehe, that's cool!

It's just whenever someone sums up Serum to me I have the feeling they're saying "OMG look how great it is" when all I hear is, "hmm, yep, sounds good". Recently one of my younger employees who hasn't been familiar with Zebra did this, and each time he pointed out a feature that's great in Serum, I'm like "so...?". So we finally did an internal presentation about Zebra for the young ones, and now they're all hyped to do Z3.

We'll see... today spending another few hours on the reverb. I wonder what it would take to hire Casey or Sean to dial in a good setting if we made the architecture available to them. Or maybe they'd chuckle at the architecture... who knows.

(but then maybe we should make the architecture available to public and wait for people to send us good settings...? But that would cost so much extra time...? Decisions.. decisions...)

1. As much as a u-he fan boi as I am,I can't let the serum knock go unaddressed. I have to say even if Zebra has a lot of the features that Serum has, Serum to me has probably the easiest, logical gui of any synth I have owned or used........period.... full stop .....I have never really had to read the Serum manual or look at a tutorial to figure out most things. I have read the Zebra manual and seen the tutorials umpteem times and every few months when I try to do something i have to revisit them to remember how to do it........my honest two cents.

2. If you are going to hire out the reverb code...to me software wise the best two are Michael from exponential Audio and Martin from relab...since Casey makes arguable the best modern hardware reverb which clearly required a whole heap of DSP Code, he surely is in that league too.
my other two cents.
rsp

[Urs]

1. As much as a u-he fan boi as I am,I can't let the serum knock go unaddressed. I have to say even if Zebra has a lot of the features that Serum has, Serum to me has probably the most easiest logical gui of any synth I have owned or used........period.... full stop ...... imho.....I have never really had to read the Serum manual or look at a tutorial to figure out most things. I have read the Zebra manual and seen the tutorial umpteem times and every few months when I try to do something i have to revisit them to remember how to do it........my honest two cents.

Please also refer to where this came from, in my previous posts - I think Serum is brilliantly reduced to what it is, but I'm simply not in awe of its concepts.

2. If you are going to hire out the reverb code...

Hehehe, nope, not hiring out reverb code. Just thinking about hiring out tweaking parameters of the algorithm I have.

However, it turns out I can easily achieve the sound of some of those reverbs, so there might not be any need to hire this out.

[aumordia]

Let's say you have an abstract understanding of a sound you want to make. "An FM pluck of a violin wave cycle running through a comb filter and followed by a lightly resonant low-pass filter. Mix in a bit of pink noise, send to delay and reverb."

To me, the fastest synth to go from something like the above to a finished patch is Spire, surprisingly enough. For simpler patches, it would be Sylenth1 or Hive. I suspect that for more complex patches, Zebra is the fastest, but I don't tend to get much more complex than what I described above. Serum is actually surprisingly finicky for making your standard issue beautiful synth sounds -- the workflow is really optimized for making wubs and screeches.

But here's the point I really want to make: Spire only has a 20 page manual to explain its features, and you basically never need to open it. Thus you don't really have to "learn Spire," if you know synthesis, you're set. Now, Zebra isn't like that due to its history. But could Z3 be like that -- or at least more like that? Something that gives you maximum return on your synthesis knowledge with minimum investment in learning Zebra per se.

Sylenth1/Hive, Spire, and Serum all embody this philosophy, but at the price of much greater sonic limitations. Zebra removes those limitations, but demands that the user invest much more in learning Zebra vs learning synthesis. Could Zebra 3 make it possible to have my cake and eat it too? It would be quite the design challenge, yet I feel in my gut that if it's possible at all, Urs and co are the people to figure it out.

[Cyoon]

There are also very good and very short videos about the Zebra modules. Despite the fact that the manual is written very well, and picked with nice tips & tricks by Howard. Worth a read for sure imo.

[pdxindy]

Let's say you have an abstract understanding of a sound you want to make. "An FM pluck of a violin wave cycle running through a comb filter and followed by a lightly resonant low-pass filter. Mix in a bit of pink noise, send to delay and reverb."

That is not an abstract understanding, that is a description of a Spire patch. If instead one said I want to use the 1st, 3rd and 7th partials in an additive Osc and then add some phase distortion and an LP filter and to Delay and Reverb, that is rather different in outcome then yet not more complex in structure.