Your opinion about Zebra 2

[Julien Unison]

But you can certainly assert the difference between those two statements:

"Zebra can't do these sounds".

"I can't get these sounds out of Zebra".

Which one would you say is the truth? Which one would you say is the common sense of civilised argumentation rather than just pure agitation?

Exactly

[Julien Unison]

Well, IIRC the claim wasn't "Zebra doesn't sound like Avenger". The claim was "Zebra can't do EDM sounds", "Zebra sounds too weak", blah blah. Then, Avenger was brought up as an example of something that can, and to me, I'm sorry, it turns out it's not about synthesis and all about production.

Of course you can then say "as an artist, I don't care about technicalities, I just want things to work". To which I will reply "ok, then you don't need our tools. Our tools are designed for people who care".

And I totally second that too

(that's what I meant earlier)

[Julien Unison]

And I re-say it :

For me it's really way more useful to know producing and mastering techniques than to only use 3 or 4 synths that includes production tricks into their architecture.

[Urs]

Well, now that I figured out what people are talking about, I'm fairly sure we can re-discuss adding multiband limiters and what not. As I wrote before, we did that once. We're afraid though that there'll be too many presets which are just unusable for people who use a traditional production workflow. That is, we're happy to embrace the needs of "the EDM crowd" (if you would allow me to generalize), but not at the expense of alienating everyone else. Just like, we won't stop applying Velocity and other means of expression to our factory library.

[JoeCat]

And yeah - you can kinda end any sound quality argument with "it was good enough for Hans Zimmer to use in like a billion popular movies."

Sorry for the long post (and it will be my last post in any U-he related thread ) but nobody is arguing against the sound quality. But the assumption like "it's good enough for Hans Zimmer so it must be good enough for everyone for every task" is not quite valid imo.

I mean, would you recommend Zebra to someone who has years of experience in production and sound-design, wants to make new usuual sounds no other synth can make, make the sounds playable in unusual tricky ways? Of course, Zebra is made for such people....

...So long story short, it's not like I tried few presets, din't find these wobbles and supersaws and decided that the synth is crap. I tried hard to use it and like it but at my current level of production and sound design competence it's not worth the effort as there alternatives that are more fun to use and give more rewarding results. This is why I'm not recommending it to beginner trance producers. But obviously it's a great choice for some fraction of more advanced users.

For the most part I agree with you. I'm only talking about the sound quality in general. There are a lot of quality cars that can't tow a boat, etc., so of course there are other/better tools for different tasks.

[vurt]

Well, IIRC the claim wasn't "Zebra doesn't sound like Avenger". The claim was "Zebra can't do EDM sounds", "Zebra sounds too weak", blah blah. Then, Avenger was brought up as an example of something that can, and to me, I'm sorry, it turns out it's not about synthesis and all about production.

Of course you can then say "as an artist, I don't care about technicalities, I just want things to work". To which I will reply "ok, then you don't need our tools. Our tools are designed for people who care".

i recommend ejay.

[Delta Sign]

Man, someone, I think my aunt, once gave me an early version of dance ejay as a christmas present in the late 90s or something because "I'm into music making". She thought it was the best present ever

Haven't heard about that software in ages

[zerocrossing]

There's an assumption a lot of EDM producers are just picking a preset and adding some compression/verb, and that's probably true of the millions of amateurs, but there's a lot of creative layering and effects. A lot of "what's that synth/patch" questions aren't answerable - take a band-passed piano for the pluck / attack (Avicii), along with a simple saw-tooth / square wave, and creative use of reverb (very small ambiance with the right settings can create a very wide, thick sound and simulate unison) - create a template with that, make a few changes (different piano, square vs/ saw) for each floorbanger, add a few more effects, and you're playing Ibiza.

I get that some synths are better /quicker at arriving at certain sounds used primarily for EDM (zipppy-wub-zap), but Zebra's too versatile so say it "can't" do any genre quite well.

If you want to get to "untamed" quickly, Bazille will do that, and with a little work you'll stand out from the Serum crowd.

I had to come up with some EDM tracks quickly using NI only (because of licensing on multiple systems that weren't mine), and found Kontour to by quite awesome - probably not anyone's go-to choice!

And yeah - you can kinda end any sound quality argument with "it was good enough for Hans Zimmer to use in like a billion popular movies." Try that with a Timbre Wolf (sorry Akai - cheap shot )

Well said. I notice with genre focused people that they tend to find a synth that someone used in a hit track and glom onto it. I’ve been there, though not with synths. I bet all we’d need is for the modern equivalent of a DeadMau5 to do a video where they showed how Zebra made the signature sound and hoards of EDM kids would flock to it. Then what happens? Well we end up with a bunch of wannabes all kind of sounding the same with the same kinds of patches done on the same synth.

If that’s what you’re into, knock yourself out. For some of us, synthesizers aren’t a tool to make sounds for a specific genera. They’re devices made for exploration. Absynth was my first software instrument. I didn’t buy it to make any specific sound for some genre of music. I got it because it was vastly different than anything I had in my hardware based studio. It extended my capabilities. So, maybe you’ve found that Avenger is your go-to synth for whatever. I haven’t really heard a demo of it that excited me, but whatever. Instrument choices are personal. Anyway, I’d still recommend Zebra, if for nothing else, a tool with a different character and work flow that will force you to approach things differently. While I’m at it, I’ll recommend Bazille too. Brilliant synth... and your Kontour as well (though I’ve never used it). Get a bunch of synths. They’re f’n cheap. You’ll find they have different character. Different feature sets. Different work flows. They will lead you down different paths, and if you’re not careful, you may end up coming up with your own sound.

[zerocrossing]

Well, IIRC the claim wasn't "Zebra doesn't sound like Avenger". The claim was "Zebra can't do EDM sounds", "Zebra sounds too weak", blah blah. Then, Avenger was brought up as an example of something that can, and to me, I'm sorry, it turns out it's not about synthesis and all about production.

Of course you can then say "as an artist, I don't care about technicalities, I just want things to work". To which I will reply "ok, then you don't need our tools. Our tools are designed for people who care".

i recommend ejay.

Nothing wrong with eJay. I use it all the time. I load it up with samples of interesting sounds, movie clips, ambient loops I’ve made, etc, and use the transport and effects to further mess with the sounds. It replaced a malfunctioning Numark Axis 9. Could you use it to DJ crappy EDM? Probably, but that’s boring.

[DJErmac]

I notice with genre focused people that they tend to find a synth that someone used in a hit track and glom onto it.

This may be true for Sylenth, Massive or Serum, because tutorials. Most EDM tutorials show Sylenth, Massive and Serum. I have good friends who make a living out of making EDM tutorials, they all use those synths. So yes, EDM beginners may follow and think you need Sylenth and Serum without trying anything else. But Avenger or Rapid are not tutorials favorites AT ALL as far as I know... They're nearly secret weapons at this point...

[vurt]

Well, IIRC the claim wasn't "Zebra doesn't sound like Avenger". The claim was "Zebra can't do EDM sounds", "Zebra sounds too weak", blah blah. Then, Avenger was brought up as an example of something that can, and to me, I'm sorry, it turns out it's not about synthesis and all about production.

Of course you can then say "as an artist, I don't care about technicalities, I just want things to work". To which I will reply "ok, then you don't need our tools. Our tools are designed for people who care".

i recommend ejay.

Nothing wrong with eJay. I use it all the time. I load it up with samples of interesting sounds, movie clips, ambient loops I’ve made, etc, and use the transport and effects to further mess with the sounds. It replaced a malfunctioning Numark Axis 9. Could you use it to DJ crappy EDM? Probably, but that’s boring.

in the right hands any tool is useful.

[chk071]

Well, IIRC the claim wasn't "Zebra doesn't sound like Avenger". The claim was "Zebra can't do EDM sounds", "Zebra sounds too weak", blah blah. Then, Avenger was brought up as an example of something that can, and to me, I'm sorry, it turns out it's not about synthesis and all about production.

That's sort of the black/white confusion people always have, when people say that this or that synth rather lends itself to certain genres. I don't think anyone says that any synth can't do genre specific sounds. It's just that some synths do those better than others, and there's even synths which sound utterly crap for them. And, some synths simply have a easier, and more straight forward workflow, when you're just up to do a supersaw, or other more simple sounds, for example. To pick up on your example, Sylenth1 is massively popular in EDM. Because it does what it does in very high quality. And doesn't require a master degree in sound design.

Why do we even have to discuss this? After all, that's why Hive was created in the first place, if i'm not mistaken. Even though it will obviously become quite nerdy now, with the wavetable scripting. Which is not a big surprise for me, though, after all, it's a u-he synth, and not something simply like Sylenth1. Absolutely fair enough, when i look at the usual target audience for u-he products.

[Urs]

That's sort of the black/white confusion people always have, when people say that this or that synth rather lends itself to certain genres. I don't think anyone says that any synth can't do genre specific sounds. It's just that some synths do those better than others, and there's even synths which sound utterly crap for them. And, some synths simply have a easier, and more straight forward workflow, when you're just up to do a supersaw, or other more simple sounds, for example. To pick up on your example, Sylenth1 is massively popular in EDM. Because it does what it does in very high quality. And doesn't require a master degree in sound design.

Sure. Everyone prefers this or that. No question.

I guess, the common place of users to confuse individual preference for product quality has driven many developers from public forums.

Why do we even have to discuss this? After all, that's why Hive was created in the first place, if i'm not mistaken. Even though it will obviously become quite nerdy now, with the wavetable scripting. Which is not a big surprise for me, though, after all, it's a u-he synth, and not something simply like Sylenth1. Absolutely fair enough, when i look at the usual target audience for u-he products.

Hehehe, calling Hive "nerdy" because it loads wavetables is a bit of a stretch.

Sure, we added this scripting thing. It may strengthen Hive's appeal to a geekier crowd, but for the user who isn't interested in editing wavetables, Hive is only getting what was asked for most: More Waveforms. A lot more.

[Delta Sign]

Sure, we added this scripting thing. It may strengthen Hive's appeal to a geekier crowd...

Hello

Hive wasn't really all that interesting to me before, but now it obviously is

I don't think this will bother the more "casual" users too much. I mean, they just get more waveforms to select and don't ever have to see any of the scripting related things.

[Teksonik]

March on KV Army.........

I think sometimes people confuse "It Can't" with "I Can't".......

Anyway my opinion of Zebra 2 ? Awesome synth.