Zebra 3 feature suggestions

[EvilDragon]

That sounds like a stellar solution to me, Urs. Can deal with duophony easily while also doing "weird shit" on top of that (i.e. arp modulating something.

I love it.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Pigments is quite a lot of attention-seeking. Too much, in fact.

I agree. I only picked up Pigments recently and I do like the UI, it's functional but I find all of the animations a bit jarring and ultimately not that useful. They're nothing compared to visualising modulation assignments in Hive's scope for example. Being able to check contour and align triggers from multiple sources etc is actually useful and justifies the additional CPU cycles. The visuals in Pigments are just superfluous fluff, good for marketing and not much else imo.

I find Pigments is very good at broadly seeing what's happening. The question of "what's causing this modulation I'm hearing" is very quickly answered in Pigments because you've effectively got a bunch of scopes all visible at once, with inactive modulations appearing inactive. This "Scope Row" is all VERY useful IMO. It's Pigment's best innovation IMO. Most times, when trying to figure out what's going on in a preset, I think that's 90% of what users will be looking for. It's more effective than a mod matrix or a modulation ring around parameter when it comes to that specific task.

If U-he added an expandable/collapsible "Scope Row" to Z3 that effectively acted as a series of scopes for any active modulations on a patch, that'd be awesome in my book. Example: I add a key triggered LFO, one global LFO, a Shape Seq, and an MSEG, having an animated set of scopes that showed those modulations would be super helpful IMO. As long as it didn't kill GUI performance.

Just a thought.

[MitchK1989]

holy shit it sounds like Z3 will be able to mono/poly style paraphonic patches, arp style duophony, sequencer/keyboard hybrid control, and all sorts of other crazy stuff with that sort of 4 pitch/gate source option.

Colour me hyped.

EDIT: Sounds like Analog Shift Register behavior is on the table as well.

[Urs]

It won't do everything. It'll still have the concept of voices. I have a concept for key-based selection of modules, but that's just a little pin somewhere on a memorised note in my head.

[Hanz Meyzer]

Tonight tried to design some solid cyberpunk / darkwave sounds with Zebra. It is a very "modern" genre, using comb filters, very precise attack phases, lot of layering, using clocked sequences, 48db filter slopes and so on. Now I found myself struggling a bit with some points. I would like to share here my thoughts, it is a bit critics, hope you can stand it:

- Can't midi restart the NMAPS! Please, couldn't you add this already to Zebra 2? The only way currently is to send a midi reset from the DAW, it is a bit annoying. I use the NMAP for precise overtones in ringmodulation, can't start random, only specific start points will groove. Can you add simply a vst parameter at the end of the list "restart nmap1-4" (maybe we you can give a start offset value, too), and value 1 to restart/stop, value 0 to continue? Or will this hurt to do so?

- The envelopes, esp. the curve of the attack seem to be a bit imprecise to setup. If I compare this with those synths were you simply have a bend parameter per env phase, those seem to be much better to control for fitting into the mix and also visually better to understand. The zebra ADSR shows me no visual feedback at all.

- I miss a way to create harmonic overtones in ringmod and fm. Avenger there has a mode "harmonic" where it only chooses those frequency intervals (e.g. powerchord etc) which sound harmonical.

- Still I am missing a lot of bandpass and negative peak shapes. Mostly a keyfollowing 48dB pole peak filter. For this genre, some kind of mp3-style ringing or so is desired actually. Love Falcon's per voice eq here, which can keyfollow. The bandpass filters lack of a "width" control, and some algorithm with two equated peaks.

- I don't know the technical details, but I remember that my korg radias had various ringmod modes, not only such a very raw mode as in Zebra: There was also a mode "ringmod+sync", which gave really interesting results, and it also had some kind of amount parameter (I guess a simple mix-dry-signal).

- The GUI is eyecandy and so... Still visually I miss those huge ENV editors of VPS avenger, the huge keyfollowing EQ of Falcon, the better indication of automation of a lot of synths or yes, even a visual waveform display. An ADSR slope graph... Zebra 2 gives me always a bit the feeling of "being blind". I think it also is the small size of the controls (even on upscaled GUI), and the relatively big space in between. On the other hand, Zebra is not wasting too much space overall, unlike others (were you have a constant preset browser consuming a lot of GUI space and so on).

- Still this problem that Zebra arp goes out of sync, if I restart the song on uneven positions...

- A simple "silence" module would help. For example, I add a noise later, on a ringmod modulator matrix lane. Now I only seem to can mute the modulator by adding a filter with cutoff at 0 or so.

- I don't like that mix modules use a 50%:50% ratio, and not a 100%:100%. As soon as you use a mix module, you are getting in trouble having too low volume. It also simply could have a post gain... Layering is not so fun in Zebra actually, you can feel that Zebra was designed at a time when layering was not a topic at all. WIsh there was a multi-lane-mix module, so multiple sidechains... That would make usage easy.

- Talking about layering, a simple (maybe even keyfollowing) concept for a crossover filter for two layers is totally missing in Zebra. You will waste a lot of filters and then are not sure neither about the precise keyfollwing or crossover-slopes... This crossover could happen in the new multi-sidechain-mix module!

- Mix amounts (100:100) are missing a a bunch of modules. Since the dsp lanes are quickly limiting, this is sad. For example the comb filter.

- Also missing a keyfollowing, very smooth tilt filter, with tilt and center control...

- The noise generator's filters are way too limited. It quickly will sound resonant, and there is no 24dB or even 12dB slope? Sounds like 6dB There will be always noise over the whole spectrum, without an additional (dsp lanes wasting) filter (and then no fitting bp here). Why then the noise filter?

Thanks for reading this and thinking about it

[EvilDragon]

Use two filters in series and you get 48dB slope. Moreover, you can then create all sorts of passband types you can't get from a single filter module.

Ring+Sync in Radias is not possible in Zebra. It's basically osc 1 as sync master to osc 2, and then output of osc 2 is ring modulated with osc 1. You can get it in Reaktor or VCV Rack or any other modular synth.

Regarding the envelope - just use MSEGs if you need more flexibility with slopes.

Mix module should definitely be 50:50, not 100:100. Agree to disagree but 50:50 is correct.

Noise generator using 6 dB filters is also correct, as it's how you shape white noise into pink or blue noise.

You have tilt filters in Dist modules. Use them. They can also be keytracked through the mod matrix.


Also don't expect one synth to be EVERYTHING. So don't expect Avenger features in Zebra. Then use Avenger! Use Zebra for the things it has and does better than other synths.

[Hanz Meyzer]

Sure, sorry. Thanks for those tricks. Basically what I am missing is visual feedback and maybe help tooltips

Still it wouldn't hurt if the mix module had a gain, too. I meant key following tilt filter, not statical.

[EvilDragon]

You can keyfollow the center freq in the Dist module, which would probably do what you want?

[accessdune3]

Urs, will we see zebra 3 alpha beta this spring ?

[EvilDragon]

Doubt it. IIRC Urs said he needs 6 months without distractions

[rafa1981]

Wrong year pal

[N__K]

Regarding filters for an additive synthesizer, one interesting - or dare I say, essential - possibility is simulating "filtering" in frequency domain, allowing the user to:

• freely draw the filter shape, including any type of LP/BP/HP, comb-like, phaser-like etc., and pretty much anything else imaginable
• automate not only the center/cutoff frequency, but also the width of the "filter" and amount of its effect on partials
• have multiple layers of such "filters" (many modules one after another, all remaining in frequency domain)
• perhaps, have more than one automatable frequency (or "control point") inside same "filter", allowing to go beyond "cutoff, res and width" paradigm into pretty much any kind of morphing
• a per-"filter" timeline for those curves, with each "animation frame" holding one custom shape

Image-Line Harmor is a proof of some of those concepts (notably lacking an animation timeline for filters). Its "filter" and "resonance" functionality is basically math that operates on amplitudes of partials, with FREQ being the main shape and RES being a secondary shape linked to it, and applied after it.
They are drawable by user via custom graphs with practically unlimited number of static vector points. The center frequencies and widths of those "filters" are automatable, as are offsets and amounts of the secondary RES shapes.

In my personal experience, after getting used to that flexibility, going back to having only pre-set filter curves in a synth is comparable to wearing a straitjacket. YMMV, of course


***

So as far as feature suggestions go, that kind of filter would be the first thing I'd wish from an additive synth.

Along with it, I'd wish for possibility to set additive oscillator's partials in inharmonic order: X partials per octave or per semitone, with various skewing / squishing / etc. controls, including manually drawn distribution curve.

And, to make it three wishes, a possibility to manually animate both pitch and amplitude states [of additive oscillator's partials] as "frames" in a timeline, in which the time position is automatable, both via synth's envelope and as a VST parameter.
Zebra/lette's wavetable-like oscillator states are one such example, and Harmor's IMG module is another. The latter is effectively two "timelines" in which brightness of a pixel controls pitch or amplitude of the partial.


(I've posted these kinds of dreams before in a Z3 thread, hopefully it's not too much of annoyance that I bring them up again...)

[nilhartman]

We share a similar dream it seems, I'd love a fully additive mode for Zebra that would allow to shift partials dynamically the way Razor or Harmor do.

[pdxindy]

In my personal experience, after getting used to that flexibility, going back to having only pre-set filter curves in a synth is comparable to wearing a straitjacket. YMMV, of course

My mileage varies...

What you are describing sounds like a nightmare of endless manual work to me with levels of complexity I would never be able to make meaningful use of.

What I like about Zebra 2 is that it offers a variety of synthesis types with each one being relatively simple to understand and work with. Overall I would prefer Zebra 3 stay with this philosophy. I would be fine with u-he adding a wavetable editor with resynthesis, so it is all 'in house', but I have those tools elsewhere and so it doesn't matter to me.

I would also prefer Z3 not become much more complicated than Z2. I hope as much focus goes into simplification as goes into complexification.

For example, I would rather not have double the number of OscFX. The number that is there right now is already at the edge of my capacity to be effective with.

Zebra 3 suggestions...

Since Zebra is a stereo signal path, I would welcome more stereo offset options in modules and modulators.

Some sort of morphing between user snapshots (same modules and structure of course) could be a way to simplify complex modulation setups.

I would love to have a couple HQ/oversampling modes. I generally run my projects at 96khz cause both Zebra and Bazille sound noticeably better to me at 96 compared to 48.

Some modular concepts, such as ways to trigger envelopes besides note on.

I have not exhausted the sonic possibilities of Zebra 2 yet... so sound quality, easy of use, streamlined interface and workflow along with a few sound generation additions are what excites me for Zebra 3. That plus MPE!

[Teksonik]

I'd like a Release function added to Zebra 3. As in release that bad boy now.......

Creeping up on three years since this thread was started.....