Zebra 2.9 released

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Rev 9421

Yeah, saw that. Just edited my reply to you. Strange.

[Elektronisch]

Hmmm. It should look like this:

Z2 Editor.jpg

And you're using the same build, version, and OS as me.

EDIT: at any point did you modify the skin or create a custom version with some mods based on the original 2.8 skin?

NOpe, i didnt its same doteight default one

[tasmaniandevil]

I figured that, but its not available here, thats why i asked in the first place

Ohkeyyy, that's a bit weird, but might be due to Windows often not being able to clean up stuff correctly during an installation. Try deleting the Zebra2.data\Data folder, then install rev. 9421 again. This way it can't mix up old with new graphics during installation, and it should work then.

[Elektronisch]

I figured that, but its not available here, thats why i asked in the first place

Ohkeyyy, that's a bit weird, but might be due to Windows often not being able to clean up stuff correctly during an installation. Try deleting the Zebra2.data\Data folder, then install rev. 9421 again. This way it can't mix up old with new graphics during installation, and it should work then.

Fixed it! thanks tho it was a different problem, for some reason Zebra was installing in a different folder.

You see i have vstplugins 64 inside vstplugins and DLL had a right path selected automaticly correct, but data folder had not, and i just got used to all uhe plugins always finding right path i just saw first one installing in to vstplugins 64 folder so i just didnt checked the other as i also saw it was being installed in vstfolder and i just predicted all will be fine

[tasmaniandevil]

You see i have vstplugins 64 inside vstplugins and DLL had a right path selected automaticly correct, but data folder had not

Aaah, that's actually a point in the release notes. We did a lot of improvements on the Winstaller, to hopefully prevent most of those "no GUI resources" and other permission problems when people install into locations which are not safe. We also improved how the installer finds existing installations, and which locations it suggests as default installation paths.
But ideally, the installer should have found your existing installation, and use that as default install path.
Would you mind posting the exact paths where the old Zebra2.data was installed, and where the installer accidentally installed the new Zebra2.data to? That might help us figuring out what went wrong. If you don't want to post them here, you could also write us a quick mail to our support.

[Ploki]

is there a way to make Zebra (or zebralette) animate Wavetables when you mod them, like Hive does?

[Elektronisch]

You see i have vstplugins 64 inside vstplugins and DLL had a right path selected automaticly correct, but data folder had not

Aaah, that's actually a point in the release notes. We did a lot of improvements on the Winstaller, to hopefully prevent most of those "no GUI resources" and other permission problems when people install into locations which are not safe. We also improved how the installer finds existing installations, and which locations it suggests as default installation paths.
But ideally, the installer should have found your existing installation, and use that as default install path.
Would you mind posting the exact paths where the old Zebra2.data was installed, and where the installer accidentally installed the new Zebra2.data to? That might help us figuring out what went wrong. If you don't want to post them here, you could also write us a quick mail to our support.

ah thank you for explaining

This is the path new installer was installing the data folder and dll file
D:\Program Files\Vstplugins\ (DATA)
D:\Program Files\Vstplugins\vstplugins 64 (DLL)

This is where orginaly it was installed
D:\Program Files\Vstplugins\vstplugins 64 (DATA)
D:\Program Files\Vstplugins\vstplugins 64 (DLL)

[Dewdman42]

I think the sRGB IEC61966-2.1 profile switches macos back to 24 bitdepth or so? Stadnard is 30 bit, but seems to be badly implemented into macos.

I read somewhere that it gives a performance boost, if you disable alpha for most CGImages as possible in Quartz, e.g. everything in the background. I am a total Quartz/CoreGraphics noob. Surely you did that already

Did you try the color profile called "Apple RGB"?

If you look at the contents of various OSX color profiles, you will see that some are short and simple and some have a lot of stuff in them. I have no idea what all of the stuff is, but my understanding is that if you use a custom color profile, it can induce applications to perform color conversion math on every pixel. That problem becomes multiplied if you're using HiDPI modes since there is an internal canvas in OSX that is 4x the resolution you actually see. My understanding is that "Apple RGB" is very simple and avoids such runtime software color conversions during "blit" operations that sometimes happen in some software on bitmaps.

I don't think it has anything to do with 24bit vs 30bit. I am using Billions of Colors on my Mojave OSX install, with RX580 metal card, 3008x1692hidpi and everything is working totally fine including Zebra 2.9, but it was not working fine before when I used pretty much any color profile other then "Apple RGB".

FWIW, I was having problems with some applications, not all, before. That included DP10 which was much worse then DP9 to the point of not being usable. And Facebook on safari for some reason was unbearably laggy also. Then one plugin (not U-he) had such a problem it would literally pin the CPU to 100%. That plugin dev sent me a beta build that used OpenGL instead, and the problem went away instantly. But that is not a good long term solution because Apple is deprecating OpenGL. But when I changed color profile to "Apple RGB", the problem went away entirely on all the products that were an issue before. It has to do with the way color profiles can cause runtime color correction to happen, on each and every pixel, and this is particularly troublesome with bitmap operations on a large internal canvas.

[superdencho]

Urs, please, give us at least a bit of info about Zebra 3 It would be so good to know at least it's in the making or smth.

[illwillis]

I think the sRGB IEC61966-2.1 profile switches macos back to 24 bitdepth or so? Stadnard is 30 bit, but seems to be badly implemented into macos.

I read somewhere that it gives a performance boost, if you disable alpha for most CGImages as possible in Quartz, e.g. everything in the background. I am a total Quartz/CoreGraphics noob. Surely you did that already

Did you try the color profile called "Apple RGB"?

If you look at the contents of various OSX color profiles, you will see that some are short and simple and some have a lot of stuff in them. I have no idea what all of the stuff is, but my understanding is that if you use a custom color profile, it can induce applications to perform color conversion math on every pixel. That problem becomes multiplied if you're using HiDPI modes since there is an internal canvas in OSX that is 4x the resolution you actually see. My understanding is that "Apple RGB" is very simple and avoids such runtime software color conversions during "blit" operations that sometimes happen in some software on bitmaps.

I don't think it has anything to do with 24bit vs 30bit. I am using Billions of Colors on my Mojave OSX install, with RX580 metal card, 3008x1692hidpi and everything is working totally fine including Zebra 2.9, but it was not working fine before when I used pretty much any color profile other then "Apple RGB".

FWIW, I was having problems with some applications, not all, before. That included DP10 which was much worse then DP9 to the point of not being usable. And Facebook on safari for some reason was unbearably laggy also. Then one plugin (not U-he) had such a problem it would literally pin the CPU to 100%. That plugin dev sent me a beta build that used OpenGL instead, and the problem went away instantly. But that is not a good long term solution because Apple is deprecating OpenGL. But when I changed color profile to "Apple RGB", the problem went away entirely on all the products that were an issue before. It has to do with the way color profiles can cause runtime color correction to happen, on each and every pixel, and this is particularly troublesome with bitmap operations on a large internal canvas.

Recently realized that the default "Color LCD" profile was the cause of almost all my audio plugin-related graphics glitches, lag, and latency on my MBP.

[GruvSyco]

Quick question: the vouchers available for existing customers are valid for a single product (let’s say a new synth) or a single purchase (a synth and a preset pack for example)?

A single purchase. If you want Twangström, Diva, Hive 2, a bunch of soundsets, then you can put them all in the cart and apply the 30% discount to the entire order. But if you purchase, and later you find out that you wanted Repro as well, then your coupon won't work anymore.

Thanks for clarifying. The way I read it initially was one item in the order was eligible for the discount. Order placed.

[Urs]

Urs, please, give us at least a bit of info about Zebra 3 It would be so good to know at least it's in the making or smth.

We can’t work on it while we still have a backlog of maintenance updates. We will re-release 50% of our stuff with Catalina compatibility in December, the other half in updated versions (e.g. bug fixes and small improvements), with the exception of Uhbik which we can’t update before Q1/2020

After that we have Development work left mostly on certain UI Editors, a lot of supplemental modules and filter design. As I tweeted elsewhere, I’d need a few quiet months to go through this, but I’m afraid I’ll hardly have any of those before mid of 2020...

[superdencho]

Urs, please, give us at least a bit of info about Zebra 3 It would be so good to know at least it's in the making or smth.

We can’t work on it while we still have a backlog of maintenance updates. We will re-release 50% of our stuff with Catalina compatibility in December, the other half in updated versions (e.g. bug fixes and small improvements), with the exception of Uhbik which we can’t update before Q1/2020

After that we have Development work left mostly on certain UI Editors, a lot of supplemental modules and filter design. As I tweeted elsewhere, I’d need a few quiet months to go through this, but I’m afraid I’ll hardly have any of those before mid of 2020...

That's a shame you need to spend so much time on this maintenance crap Thank you for your work! It's almost 2020 and I still love my old trusty zebra 2

[Hanz Meyzer]

Did you try the color profile called "Apple RGB"?

Yes, sure, I tried it. It looks slower here than the sRGB profile. Definitely there is something fishy in the color profile code of Apple, but I guess Apple doesn't even realize that, because the responsible programmers never will read the many bug reports about it, thanks to Apple's nonsense bug report policy, and also are busy programming the total lock-in or cloud stuff. Interesting that you still have 30-bit color then.

Then another theory: The finder is fully drawn by GPU. I think macos actually tries in a bad way to move Cocoa programmed graphics to GPU. Maybe some color profiling though requires the CPU, but not some profiles like sRGB or Apple RGB. So then the CPU is interrupting a fluent GPU work, since a CPU is way slower and blocks somehow the GPU execution then for some time.

[tasmaniandevil]

This is the path new installer was installing the data folder and dll file
D:\Program Files\Vstplugins\ (DATA)
D:\Program Files\Vstplugins\vstplugins 64 (DLL)

This is where orginaly it was installed
D:\Program Files\Vstplugins\vstplugins 64 (DATA)
D:\Program Files\Vstplugins\vstplugins 64 (DLL)

Great, thanks.
This explains why you had the old graphics showing up in the new revision.
The new installer created the Data folder in a different loaction, and placed a shortcut to it next to the plugin. But there was also the data folder from the previous installation directly next to the plugin. And if the plugin needs to decide between shortcut and real folder, it will choose the real one.

Doesn't explain why the new installer did suggest that wrong path for the data folder, but that's a good start for testing what went wrong.