Zebralette 3 Public Beta Announcement (Revision 15573)

[pdxindy]

Is your phase set to "Reset" or "Random"?

Tried with both - no difference. Its a single long note.

Additive or Wavetable Renderer?

[paramita123]

^ Hopefully, that visually demonstrates the clear need for the current "scale" functionality within u-he's products?

I fully agree with the scale functionality
And thanks for sharing your screen, now makes me envious of your real estate as I'm on a widescreen QHD monitor, not bad, but not as much resolution as you !

[paramita123]

No, sorry - it doesnt sound like Vital at all...or any other supersaw lead. There is 2nd layer or something below the main saw sound which is wobbly and dances all the time - just press the note for over 10 sec and you'll start to hear wobwobwobwob which goes higher in volume then it fades away, then it comes back again and so on. If you increase the detune, it will still be there but with increased wobbling speed - like a sine lfo and increaing/decreasing hz.

Interesting, you had me try again, and listen to super saw tooth for too long haha
And I am not fully sure I got it, but on my system comparing this simple 16v detuned sawtooth I get very similar sounds with Zebralette 3 and Vital, the only difference is in Zebralette 3 the low end wobble is more pronounced. But it's there too on Vital, just quieter.
So I don't know if it's perhaps a Zebralette 3 issue on some setups? I'm on Win 10 Cubase Pro 12.
Feel free to render a short mp3 and post for us to listen to more beautiful sawtooth

[paramita123]

Is your phase set to "Reset" or "Random"?

I tried both and not getting the issue they mentioned. Unless I'm getting deaf
Here's a screenshot of my settings, so if it's not the same as the other guys please tell me so we can figure this out

z3.jpg

[cyrb]

So ENV1 no longer has Fall/Rise like in the original Zebralette? Is that intentional? I had gotten used to that as it's a nice balance between simplicity and complexity as it's just that slightly more versatile than a plain ADSR. Not to mention the quadratic/linear/slope modes.

Also, does this mean that u-he is no longer supporting VST2, even in the eventual Zebra3? I admired the fact they supported not only 64-bit VST2 but x86 version as well.

Is the insane CPU usage going to carry over after the beta phase? Seems like maxing polyphony of one instance is enough for my DAW to hit 80%... on a fairly respectable Ryzen 5600x. That limits its usefulness. Even with Poly limited to 3 notes, it can max at 30% utilization.

[GruvSyco]

So ENV1 no longer has Fall/Rise like in the original Zebralette? Is that intentional? I had gotten used to that as it's a nice balance between simplicity and complexity as it's just that slightly more versatile than a plain ADSR. Not to mention the quadratic/linear/slope modes.

Also, does this mean that u-he is no longer supporting VST2, even in the eventual Zebra3? I admired the fact they supported not only 64-bit VST2 but x86 version as well.

Is the insane CPU usage going to carry over after the beta phase? Seems like maxing polyphony of one instance is enough for my DAW to hit 80%... on a fairly respectable Ryzen 5600x. That limits its usefulness. Even with Poly limited to 3 notes, it can max at 30% utilization.

From Urs earlier in the thread.

There is no hope for VST2. We have updated to the latest and greatest version of VST3, which comes with the provision of ending VST2. We double-checked this with Steinberg: Within the next 12 months or so we have to remove VST2 from all our releases. By then our transition to CLAP as our internal format needs to be complete, i.e. not only our plug-ins but all our internal testing tools will be rewritten to use CLAP instead of VST2.

It reads to me like Steinberg is putting a nail in the coffin of VST2. If that’s the case, it won’t be just U-he dropping support. I think this was all hinted about with the introduction of CLAP.

CPU usage has always improved with plugin development. I don’t think he’s intentionally handicapping Zebralette 3 to be more CPU hungry.

[BasariStudios]

I am so confused, for the life of me i can not find a Filter except in the OSC Effects. No more Modules like in Zebra 2?

[Urs]

I am so confused, for the life of me i can not find a Filter except in the OSC Effects. No more Modules like in Zebra 2?

This is Zebralette 3, not Zebra 3.

The old Zebralette which came with Zebra2 has no dedicated filters, either. That's the whole point of it

[BasariStudios]

The old Zebralette which came with Zebra2 has no dedicated filters, either. That's the whole point of it

Aaaahhhhh i am sorry. I never used Zebralette 2.

[cyrb]

It reads to me like Steinberg is putting a nail in the coffin of VST2. If that’s the case, it won’t be just U-he dropping support. I think this was all hinted about with the introduction of CLAP.

Ah thanks! Truly deplorable. Imagine if that were done with MIDI; and all software had to cease and desist the ability to read/write/process MIDI data. It was a mistake to even allow Steinberg to even act like a standards body. It has hurt a lot of people, and it only enriched them.

CLAP is great (infinitely better than VST3 - hope devs continue to grow its support), but I do work with retro setups that need VST2. It can be tough to leave an environment you know in and out. And VST3 is just unfriendly to both the user and the developer. The specification outright attempts to dictate where you can or can't install plugins to (limited to Program Files), so I can't maintain my plugins on a separate drive. I always avoided VST3 whenever possible because it never had any feature that I needed that VST2 couldn't provide.

[pdxindy]

Is the insane CPU usage going to carry over after the beta phase?

You can read about it in the beta release notes.

[BasariStudios]

It reads to me like Steinberg is putting a nail in the coffin of VST2. If that’s the case, it won’t be just U-he dropping support. I think this was all hinted about with the introduction of CLAP.

Ah thanks! Truly deplorable.

The world moves forward. VST2 is almost 90s. I own almost every plugin on the planet, transferred all my Templates to VST3 and whatever wasn't VST3 i just deleted. Only because of that reason, when they stop working. VST 2 ran its course already, time to retire it. Depends if you need them or no but there are MANY benefits of VST3.

[Urs]

Let's try to not discuss plug-in formats here. I'd be happy to spawn off another thread but I also think there have been more than plenty of threads on the topic.

Let me (hopefully) conclude the discussion with this:

We've been very strategic and IMHO thoughtful about when to do the final move from VST2 to VST3. We hope that we can still release Uhbik 2.0 as VST2 so that all our commercial plug-ins that were originally sold as VST2 will reach the modern standard that we have developed in the past five years. But all new plug-ins and not if not all coming updates will drop support for VST2.

There is a chance that someone (it can't be us for aforementioned reasons!) creates a CLAP-as-VST2 wrapper. This would benefit the people who still need VST2 support. Specifically because the licensing of VST2 and (current) VST3 make it impossible to create a VST3-as-VST2 wrapper.

By far the best option would be for Steinberg to put VST2 into the public domain, or rethink the non-permissive licensing of VST3. I'm still optimistic that this can happen, as some of the developments in CLAP land start to show where this can take things.

Anyhow. This thread is about Zebralette.

[paramita123]

I made a quick demo song with 5 instances of Zebralette 3, one of them being a preset, see if you can spot it
CPU peaking at around 70% on Win 10 Cub pro 12 3yo Alienware laptop setup.
I added some processing here and there especially the bass, couldn't figure out how to get it more rowdy within Zl3.
SoftLimit and InflatorPackage on master bus.

https://whyp.it/tracks/158665/zebralett ... oken=uqgBr

This is just a quick track for myself to see how Zl3 could be useable within my style of music.
I enjoyed the tweaking

[JO512]

Thank you so much Urs for making Zebralette 3 and giving it to us for free! I haven't had a chance to use it too much yet, but so far I am very impressed! I have long been wanting a much better wavetable and MSEG editor. You definitely delivered! Most of the editors in other software are really quite bad. What you have provided in Zebralette 3 is great. I couldn't have hoped for better. I use a lot of graphics software too, like Illustrator, Blender, and Rhino, and am used to decent spline drawing tools. I often wished I could draw waveforms in Rhino and then import an SVG to use as a wavetable or LFO table in audio plugins. No need now. Your toolset offers more than it occurred to me to want.

Some might prefer the extremely limited toolset in the editors in some other plugins, but I definitely don't. It's awesome though that in Zebralette 3, you made it possible to still edit in a simple way with more limited tools (and in the best way for a simple editor too), and also to dig in with a more complete toolset too if you want, so that you better serve both those who want simple editors and those who want complex and powerful ones! There simply are no better waveform and MSEQ editors available right now than yours. And for free!!! There is a reason I bought licenses for many of your plugins.

It was generous of you to allow WAV export. That means I can use Zebralette 3 to create for example an LFO table in Phase Plant. It seems this is a little risky for you, since your free product might help people to better use competing plugins. But for me, someone who usually reaches for a U-He plugin anyway, the ability to do that just creates in me much more appreciation for you and your brand and makes me want to support your work even more. And when Zebra 3 comes, with these tools and everything else it will likely have, what reason will there be to reach for anything else?

I am looking forward to Zebra 3!