U-HE Zebra 3 Alpha Prototype Developments

[audiojunkie]

[Ah_Dziz]

I think so too.

We did take great care so that the "small" editors feel just like better versions of their counterparts in Z2. Anyone who's familiar with Z2 will almost immediately be familiar with Zebra 3 in most ways.

I don't think importing old presets into the new engine is going to do it justice. They won't sound the same, even if we spend six months or more on trying to write such a translator. Instead I think people with a background in Z2 sound design will achieve spectacular sounds that go way beyond anything that Z2 has to offer.

Hey Urs. Fantastic work on Zebralette, and I'm really looking forward to being able to use it, and Zebra 3 when it comes out.
One question though, after what you just said about presets......

Will zebra 2 legacy installers still be available in perpetuity ?
This is an example of a situation that concerns me more and more with vsts.......
You get a new computer, and you get all the important things installed....drivers, DAW, etc....etc....and you load in an older track. Let's say for example it uses zebra 2. The DAW says the vst is missing, because it hasn't been re-installed yet, so you go to u-he.com thinking it'll be easy to download Zebra 2, but the only version there is zebra 3, and you have no idea what tweaked preset the track used because the only information the DAW gives you, is that it's missing.

So, if Zebra 3 is such a vast improvement over Zebra 2, to the point where they won't function with the same presets, can you guarantee the legacy installers will still be available to download from our account and zebra 3 isnt just going to replace zebra 2 ?

This kinda thing happens a lot with other developers, and it means part of the track is lost. It could have been a very unique sound that was crucial to the track. The only way around this that I've found, is to render every track part to stems, but then they can't be retroactively edited again if needed to do a remix or remaster of something.

You can back up old installers. I have hundreds. I know very little about the uhe copy protection but if the installer isn't connected to a specific user then finding a zebra 2 installer wouldn't be a problem even if they stopped hosting them on the official site.

[Double Tap]

LOL... I can still read while I'm on the road...

[Chicken Drummy]

Here's another Zebralette 3 example... little z3 has an impressive range of possibilities

https://dandelionaudio.com/sound/Z3-4.mp3

That sounds fantastic!

[MrJubbly]

With regards to the preset creators, I do hope that the excellent preset designers at u-he (or otherwise), will take a note from Zebra/Zebralette's predecessor and will still focus on creating great-sounding, yet still very practical (musical) sounds and instruments, which are very usable across many genres, not just niche modern fads.

The temptation with access a new toolset, or ways of working with them, is to push these as far as is possible, and get a bit "showboaty" and impractically weird/sound-effecty on the presets. Which can be great for that individual, but perhaps less beneficial to the average musician.

I'm just thinking about another recent synth that was released, 'Current' by Minimal Audio. Wherein, I found around +80% of the factory presets to be very impractical and almost useless for most musical genres. Some other synths (even great ones) with a lot of sound-design possibilities (for e.g. Phase Plant) sound libraries also suffer a heavy bias / overload of more non-musical SFX-type sounds, in lieu of musical instrument sounds. A few is okay and even laudable, so long as they are not too dominant.

I doubt u-he would fall into the same trap, since they have never done so thus far with their previous synths, all of which having very healthy mix and balance of very useable presets, which both showcase the breadth of sound-design possibility, while still remaining very useful for musicians to also use/tweak without too much knowledge.

Just worth a mention, while the sound designers are busy going crazy (but perhaps not too crazy) with all their sound design options available to them.

[Urs]

I'm not worried.

[pdxindy]

Just worth a mention, while the sound designers are busy going crazy (but perhaps not too crazy) with all their sound design options available to them.

It's a good point to make.

I just have to mention the humor of bringing up two very complex synths in Current and Phase Plant when Zebralette 3 has 1 Osc, no Filter and minimal modulation...

[LFO8]

Can Zebralette have it's own separate installer now (instead of installing everything Zebra along with it)?

[DrGonzo]

Just worth a mention, while the sound designers are busy going crazy (but perhaps not too crazy) with all their sound design options available to them.

It's a good point to make.

I just have to mention the humor of bringing up two very complex synths in Current and Phase Plant when Zebralette 3 has 1 Osc, no Filter and minimal modulation...

True - but my first thought when watching the Urs presentation was uh-uh-I-have-to-restrain-myself-here.

[Stokely]

With regards to the preset creators, I do hope that the excellent preset designers at u-he (or otherwise), will take a note from Zebra/Zebralette's predecessor and will still focus on creating great-sounding, yet still very practical (musical) sounds and instruments, which are very usable across many genres, not just niche modern fads.

The temptation with access a new toolset, or ways of working with them, is to push these as far as is possible, and get a bit "showboaty" and impractically weird/sound-effecty on the presets. Which can be great for that individual, but perhaps less beneficial to the average musician.

I'm just thinking about another recent synth that was released, 'Current' by Minimal Audio. Wherein, I found around +80% of the factory presets to be very impractical and almost useless for most musical genres. Some other synths (even great ones) with a lot of sound-design possibilities (for e.g. Phase Plant) sound libraries also suffer a heavy bias / overload of more non-musical SFX-type sounds, in lieu of musical instrument sounds. A few is okay and even laudable, so long as they are not too dominant.

I doubt u-he would fall into the same trap, since they have never done so thus far with their previous synths, all of which having very healthy mix and balance of very useable presets, which both showcase the breadth of sound-design possibility, while still remaining very useful for musicians to also use/tweak without too much knowledge.

Just worth a mention, while the sound designers are busy going crazy (but perhaps not too crazy) with all their sound design options available to them.

This is one of the things I really like about the u-he synths I have.

I won't name names, but I've tried demos from a few other popular plugins and they sound glorious at first...lots of crazy layers, nutso effects and 1-button-push patches, but where do you go from there once that beast is on a track? I guess from one perspective if you are a working composer (which I certainly am not), it's a good thing--it's done! And to be fair, you could do programming/automation within that one patch with all those layers; I just happen to like to do it in the Daw, so different strokes.

[pdxindy]

True - but my first thought when watching the Urs presentation was uh-uh-I-have-to-restrain-myself-here.

With Zebralette 3, the time you'll have to restrain yourself is when you haven't been eating or sleeping!

Another audio example...

https://dandelionaudio.com/sound/Z3-9.mp3

[audiojunkie]

You can eat and play at the same time!

[dlandis]

You can eat and play at the same time!

True, but the mayonnaise that gets on the keys is difficult to remove fully.

[audiojunkie]

You can eat and play at the same time!

True, but the mayonnaise that gets on the keys is difficult to remove fully.

[pdxindy]

You can eat and play at the same time!

You have to remember to eat though!