One Synth Challenge #104 - Zebralette by u-he (Photonic Wins!)

[functionform]

Hi everyone, I'm getting random click or transient-ish pop sounds in Zebralette. I thought it might have been one sound, or an errant Reaper plugin, but after removing all compression/limiting I still get it on a variety of patches. The weird thing is, it's so quick that it doesn't show up in spectrogram or levels. It sounds like someone took a pop, and removed all sustain on it and filtered low end so its just a really high click.

When I zero in on one track, it will play the same 4 bars fine and then randomly I get a click. It makes no sense.

EDIT: It's definitely not anything with Reaper. When I lower all levels so they're nowhere near clipping, the synth still produces the click sound.

Is there a quirk to Zebralette that I'm not aware of?

[doctorbob]

... I pretty much went straight for music and then began tailoring sounds for the music ..

Hmmm ... generally the way I do it ... once things are in place, then it's then a matter of perhaps tweaking sounds to sit better in the mix rather than Eq-ing to hell and back to make it work

Although, I spend a few days first exporing the synth to get some idea of its sonic capabilities, then the above!

dB

[generaldiomedes]

Hi everyone, I'm getting random click or transient-ish pop sounds in Zebralette.

I am getting clicks in Ableton, have not yet been able to pinpoint the source. It only seems to appear in playback, playing the same notes on the keyboard does not seem to produce clicks.

[Taron]

Hi everyone, I'm getting random click or transient-ish pop sounds in Zebralette.

I don't have any disturbing clicks, but a click problem I noticed with it, too. Attack and Release both like to click, but I'm not too shocked about it for some odd reason. Gets a little frustrating with attack, because you can't quite tweak it off.
Possibly the FX, Sync and Phase section are all highly sensitive to such troubles. However, it ain't "random", but rather reliable, I find.

... I pretty much went straight for music and then began tailoring sounds for the music ..

Hmmm ... generally the way I do it ... once things are in place, then it's then a matter of perhaps tweaking sounds to sit better in the mix rather than Eq-ing to hell and back to make it work

Although, I spend a few days first exporing the synth to get some idea of its sonic capabilities, then the above!

dB

Funny, but I mostly just use EQ to cut around 400Hz to make room in the body. On occasion I use it to push aspects of a sound that I find most relevant, but not often at all.

Anyway, I think, every synth suggests a somewhat different procedure and then there's the "mood" thing, too, of course. The interesting thing about Zebralette is, that you somehow notice pretty quickly, that you can ultimately supply almost any "common" sound in one way or another, giving you a chance to relax and simply make things happen with a cherry on top for the wilder stuff, which somehow knows no end either, hehehe.
So many synths nearly lock you into a specific paradigm from which you can't quite escape or expand, I find. BUT... (really, really BIG "BUT"), I find that Zebralette always needs treatment not to sound utterly plastic or push itself too far forward. It's like every single instrument wants to be a kind of "diva" (yes, ironic, isn't it). Just my feeling.
I'm still at least leaning against the fence for some absurd reason...

[functionform]

It only seems to appear in playback, playing the same notes on the keyboard does not seem to produce clicks.

Noticed exact same thing. CPU load is very low too and I also tried to roll off attack with no success.

[Pweg]

Hi, I'm having this issue with Zebralette. After Reaper restart, it doesn't show preset name on the top field or in the preset browser. When I switch preset with the arrows in the top field, it starts from first preset from the list. It is little annoying Is it normal behaviour?

[TrojakEW]

Regarding clicks - looks like it is phase problem. All presets for me that use phase sync suffer for this problem. It is only audible with fast attacks settings and when played notes with wider ranger one after another - octave higher or so. Clicks are very annoying on sound when I try simulate lowpass filter. So I adjust attack time as much as I can to remove those clicks and also made 2nd instance of synth for lower notes - like one instance for left hand play and second for right hand. Still some clicks here and there.

With sync off most problems are gone but sounds is too diferent. . Reset phase doesn't help and also again sound change too much. From time I started participating on OSC I realize that I need to adjust or rather say limit track theme/play to synth "bugs". Simply u can't do whatever you want.

[eraze the borders]

Dont know if im gonna use those but here are some drum experiments:
ExpensiveDrumMachinesHateThisFreesynth

MSEG+Noise=

Very very cool sounds. Tr925 -->

[mmGhost]

Hi everyone, I'm getting random click or transient-ish pop sounds in Zebralette.

as Taron mentioned, i have this as well (Logic Pro X). tbh i had to change some of my sound design to avoid it, and it is tricky to roll the attack off enough to completely get rid of it.

[BbluntProductions]

https://soundcloud.com/bblunt-productio ... zebralette

KVR OSC Zebralette Contest

Title: ZebTonic

Synth: Zebralette (x26)

DAW: Reaper v5.0rc14b x64

All factory presets tweaked. Thanks to Taron for the drums and Killrbite for the Dubstep patches.

Plugins:
ReaComp
ReaXcomp
JS: Bass Manager/Booster
JS: 4x4 EQ
MEqualizer
MSaturator
MAutopan
MbandPass
MLimiter
Voxengo TubeAmp
Ozone Imager
TAL Dub Delay
OldSkoolVerb
Variety Of Sound TesslaSE
Terry West CS12m
A1 Stereo Control

Thanks!

[functionform]

After going back and listening to previous challenges, I'm blown away by the quality people produce.

The #1 thing I notice is the quality of the drum programming. How are people getting such natural sounding drum fills and beats - through step editing? Since these synths aren't "kits" like a sampler would expose (aka 1 midi track channel which can be routed for audio purposes), how do people write beats and fills that sound so natural with them? My only guess is setting up a midi controller exposing one note/channel combo per pad and simultaneously recording all the drums on various tracks which have different input channels.

[Taron]

Well, in MuLab I've made myself a template that uses so-called "Note Event Pads". You assign a key (note) to them, which then goes into an instance of the synth. Though, I hooked a "Note Modifier" into the chain, which allows to change the note sent to the synth. This way I can map the drums just like general midi, for example, which I somehow generally took over ( C:kick, D:snare, F#:hihat...).
Then you can just program your drums like you would any drum machine. If you then either play live or generate a custom quantization grid, like you can in MuLab, or even work without a snap, you can get fairly natural sounding beats and drumsets going.

[generaldiomedes]

Ableton has drum racks which do the same thing - instrument plus entire fx chain can be built for each midi note. Makes it easier to see your drum pattern when all in one piano roll. I don't know if other daws have this ability - some like studio one have a built in drum rack but it only works with samples.

humanizing plus velocity dynamics = realistic drum track

[functionform]

Fascinating. Reaper must have something like that, I just gotta find it in the millions of options. Coming back to music after an almost 20 year break has been challenging - so much is possible now that I would have never dreamed of.

[Taron]

Oh my, welcome to candyland, functionform!