u-he

brianvassallomusic · Post by **brianvassallomusic** » Sun Oct 13, 2024 10:12 pm

Zebrallette 3 continues to attract me with its powerful sound. Unfortunately it is very CPU intensive. May not be a problem for a powerful PC or Mac. But somehow I want to see this synth running on an i5 8gbram system, which is still considered powerful. Why not, after all we went to the moon with a Guidance Computer, which weighed 70 pounds, had only 36K of RAM and 2K of ROM.

UHE please challenge this issue of having this wonderful synth not only to be run on selected hi tech computers but also with the specs above. Therefore available to be run without latency issues and glitches as soon as you start pushing it's functions, and I will be one of the first to consider buying it if it runs smoothly.

Thanks all - Brian

pekbro · Post by **pekbro** » Sun Oct 13, 2024 10:51 pm

Sounds like you should consider buying some aftermarket ram, it's pretty cheap. I have an i5 as well, I can tell you 8gb is not nearly enough for windows, particularly if you're using onboard graphics.
Maybe for linux it would be fine.

My AIO pc has 12 gb, and I'm prob going to upgrade it to 32 gb very soon, for about $60 off amazon.

Fannon · Post by **Fannon** » Mon Oct 14, 2024 5:44 am

The Guidance Computer wasn't probably not even running an Operating system (?), just the code that calculates. Also no GUI etc. It's not a comparison that makes a lot of sense.

Agree with pekbro. 8GB RAM is barely enough to run Windows. I wish it were otherwise and software would be written to be more efficient. Uhe is actually one of the devs who really care about efficiency, but their synths are also doing highly CPU intensive tasks. At least going to 16GB could maybe help a bit, but I feat that Zebralette in some settings is just plain CPU intensive (due to the nature of how the sound has to be created). More RAM will generally help, but not with such CPU intensive calculations.

brianvassallomusic · Post by **brianvassallomusic** » Mon Oct 14, 2024 1:24 pm

It was just an analogy, that is, making a synth like Zebra 3 that can withstanding a not so packed of a ram of a computer , but still able to go to that distance, making sound design without starting to feel the load.

I owned Zebra 2, and never had this issue. But as soon as I change a setting on Z3 it sounds like it is breaking apart.

I hope they can find a way. By the way I am using a MacBook Pro and much respect for the PC. I started making music on a PC for many years.

gauderbock · Post by **gauderbock** » Mon Oct 14, 2024 1:32 pm

Bear in mind that it's still beta, and they've said there's still code optimization to do.

Freaqpeak · Post by **Freaqpeak** » Mon Oct 14, 2024 4:53 pm

Its a beta version so I think some optimizations can be done.

With that said, the things it does in realtime is pretty amazing for the High quality audio.
I guess a Eco mode could be introduced for people with old/budget computers?

Intel i5 is considered low-end/budget for video and audio work. Macbook Pro from what year?
Doesnt Apple sell their own ARM chips for several years now?

brianvassallomusic · Post by **brianvassallomusic** » Sat Oct 19, 2024 6:15 am

Hello 'Cnt' . I agree with the 'Eco' mode, like Zebra 2 If I recall correctly, and can be very handy in Beta . And I might agree with you at a certain extent about using i5 Macbook pros. However I owned many synth plugins, most recently Omnisphere, and ran smoothly and made alot of music without limitation or glitches. However I am curious to know , if upgrading an OSX has any impact on performance, besides the advantage of plugins compatibilities.

Brian

Urs · Post by **Urs** » Sat Oct 19, 2024 9:09 am

So, some things in Zebraletten 3, and its oscillator in particular, are very CPU intensive by nature. Those are processes that probably wouldn't run at all on machines we had 10 years ago, but which now are somewhat possible and usable, even if only in patches with a low voice count.

I'm sure we can squeeze some more juice out of, say, the Spectral Decay effect, which runs 1000 decay envelopes (one per harmonic) per oscillator per voice. That's just something that few developers would have done a few years ago, and if they did, they probably didn't do it in an environment where one could also have 1000 sine oscillators per voice and spline morphing and whatever other CPU intensive stuff there is in Zebralette. There are quite a few of such things.

Additionally, with CLAP we now have the first plug-in format that embraces multithreaded processing in the plug-in (AUv2 has something about that too, but it's not nearly as efficient). We also have more and more CPU cores in computers, soon 16 cores will be the new quad core. This is a massive opportunity to leverage progress. Hence, I think that other plug-in formats and their hosts will adopt similar technology sooner or later.

So I think that, while some of Zebralette's settings may be too taxing to play large polyphony today, it won't be a problem much longer. Hence, I'd rather not drop or withhold such sound design possibilities even if they are taxing today.

Funkybot's Evil Twin · Sat Oct 19, 2024 3:10 pm

I remember how much of a total CPU-breaker DIVA was upon release. There were some CPU optimizations sure, but CPU's have gotten a lot more powerful too. Nowadays, it can still be high-ish in Divine mode, but I feel like the CPU is about average for most uses. At least compared to other high quality VA's.

I'd rather have that. A synth that eats a lot of CPU upon release to prioritize sound quality, and one that will grow and remain relevant for a decade-plus as CPU power increases.

surreal · Post by **surreal** » Sat Oct 19, 2024 4:46 pm

Funkybot's Evil Twin wrote: Sat Oct 19, 2024 3:10 pm I remember how much of a total CPU-breaker DIVA was upon release. There were some CPU optimizations sure, but CPU's have gotten a lot more powerful too. Nowadays, it can still be high-ish in Divine mode, but I feel like the CPU is about average for most uses. At least compared to other high quality VA's.

I'd rather have that. A synth that eats a lot of CPU upon release to prioritize sound quality, and one that will grow and remain relevant for a decade-plus as CPU power increases.

However what everyone and Urs seems to forget is that Zebrallette 3 is just one oscillator module... if it so heavy that it needs a super pc to power it then what about zebra3 which is 4 x Zebrallette3 and some more.. it will render Zebra3 practically impracticle to use.. and the sounds that Zebrallete3 produces can be made with other synthesizers and samplers which have far more friendly requierments... i do use a 4 ghz i7 processor for my productions and i can run 7 instances of repro5 just barely.. and a production pc does not just run one synth at a time in realtime production environments.. so if zebra3 is gonna be more resource intense it will be not usefull at all especially with win11 potentially being another resource hog environment

Funkybot's Evil Twin · Sat Oct 19, 2024 4:50 pm

surreal wrote: Sat Oct 19, 2024 4:46 pm
Funkybot's Evil Twin wrote: Sat Oct 19, 2024 3:10 pm I remember how much of a total CPU-breaker DIVA was upon release. There were some CPU optimizations sure, but CPU's have gotten a lot more powerful too. Nowadays, it can still be high-ish in Divine mode, but I feel like the CPU is about average for most uses. At least compared to other high quality VA's.

I'd rather have that. A synth that eats a lot of CPU upon release to prioritize sound quality, and one that will grow and remain relevant for a decade-plus as CPU power increases.
However what everyone and Urs seems to forget is that Zebrallette 3 is just one oscillator module... if it so heavy that it needs a super pc to power it then what about zebra3 which is 4 x Zebrallette3 and some more.. it will render Zebra3 practically impracticle to use.. and the sounds that Zebrallete3 produces can be made with other synthesizers and samplers which have far more friendly requierments... i do use a 4 ghz i7 processor for my productions and i can run 7 instances of repro5 just barely.. and a production pc does not just run one synth at a time in realtime production environments.. so if zebra3 is gonna be more resource intense it will be not usefull at all especially with win11 potentially being another resource hog environment

I wouldn't panic about that just yet. We're still a ways away from Zebra 3 being released. I don't think U-he would put it out Zebra3 it was totally unusable on modern CPUs. But I would expect it to be on the high side of things.

Urs · Post by **Urs** » Sat Oct 19, 2024 5:00 pm

If none of the most CPU intensive OscFX are used, and the wavetable renderer, then the oscillators are almost as efficient as those of Hive, and those are faster on average than anything we've tried them against.

Also, the additive renderer is very fast when using something like 64 harmonics. This is usually sufficient for many things, e.g. when combined with other oscillators.

GruvSyco · Post by **GruvSyco** » Sat Oct 19, 2024 5:17 pm

I'm pretty certain that Urs is well aware that Zebralette 3 is only one oscillator. I'd venture to say anyone that's bothered to make a patch in Zebralette 3 is also aware that it's only one oscillator.

I'd like to know what other products on the market can do what Zebralette 3 can do.

I did a quick google of 4ghz I7 and most of what comes up is 4790 and 6700. Those are both getting pretty long in the tooth. My 9900k is almost as old but still seems to do okay although, I mostly use my M1 Mac these days. M4's are about to become available and they are monsters in comparison and the Mac Mini is the cost of a handful of plugins. I'm sure there are reasonably priced PC's that would give a significant performance boost too. I know a modern I5 is more power than my 9900k.