Zebra: Modulation confusion

[wilx]

I'm starting to dig into zebra more, since I have a rare few days off. Could someone explain the point of the assignable knobs, like the ones in the oscillators? It seems redundant to have them there, for two reasons:
1) it would be better to just right-click the knob itself (eg 'Tune') and then assign the modulator from a drop-down list (or even drag and drop, like the matrix). Then you could scale the modulation amount up or down on the same knob, like Serum/Alchemy etc etc.

2) The mod matrix! This lets you modulate pretty much anything anyway.

So why not get rid of the assignable knobs, make modulation even more elegant and simple by doing it directly from the parameters' knobs, and reduce clutter? The OSC panels would therefore just about be half the size they currently are.


Also, I'm getting slightly frustrated at the lack of visual feedback - I modulated 'Wave' position on OSC 1 with LFO 1. Great. Except clicking on the 'osc 1' panel in the bottom tab shows nothing changing, and there's nothing on or around the 'wave' knob or in the lfo panel to indicate anything is being modulated.

I know some people like this - I mentioned visualising envelopes before and there were disagreements with people saying they didn't like them, but for me, the better designed a synth is, and the more intuitive visual feedback it has, the better. Not obnoxious flashing lights everywhere - just effectively designed visual feedback that communicates what is happening with a particular patch.
I don't mind so much when I'm tinkering away on a Sunday afternoon, but I just had a week of intense deadlines for film/game work where stuff needs doing at lightning speed - and it really highlighted the speedbumps in my workflow. I love U-He synths and use them on everything, but it made me notice how brilliantly Serum is designed from a visual feedback point of view. It's so well though-out and a joy to use when stuff needs doing on a tight deadline.

I know zebra and serum are very different beasts, but if some lessons from the way Serum handles visual feedback can be incorporated into Zebra 3, lots of busy / stressed composers will be a lot happier!

[wilx]

covered in the z3 thread, so ignore this one