Zebra 2/3: Equivalent to Massive X's Wavetable modes?

[Lyhrus]

Hello everyone,
Is there anybody who owns both Zebra 2 and Massive X?
I prefer Zebra due to many reasons, but in Massive X there are ten so called Wavetable modes, which 'determine the readout of the wavetables and hence the behaviour of the Wavetable oscillators' (manual, see link below). There are some of the modes I like very much (especially Jitter) and I would like to get similar results in Zebra

Is (resp. will be) there an equivalent to those Wavetable modes in Zebra 2 (resp. 3)?
Thanks in advance for any advice or an explanation what 'readout of wavetables' could mean technically.
Lyhrus.

Link to manual:
https://native-instruments.com/ni-tech- ... able-modes

[EvilDragon]

Massive X is unique in many of those wavetable readout modes, nothing else has them AFAIK, or if they do have something similar, it's not at that level of quality most probably.

[Urs]

We never bothered looking at it. Our focus is on Zebra 3 though. Happy to discuss things there, should we have missed anything essential.

New beta of Zebralette 3 should be out soonish.

[Lyhrus]

Massive X is unique in many of those wavetable readout modes, nothing else has them AFAIK, or if they do have something similar, it's not at that level of quality most probably.

Thanks. This is what I think, too, I found it nowhere else. Whenever I use Massive X, I use those modes as they add / produce a strong character.

We never bothered looking at it. Our focus is on Zebra 3 though. Happy to discuss things there, should we have missed anything essential.

Thanks. I respect that Zebra is your focus, but as it is mine as well, I would like to find out if there is a way to get similar results like those Massive X modes, though they are from another manufacturer. I wouldn't ask NI to give us something like Zebra, because they would never achieve it. So I need to ask the other way round. (Yep, or use both synths ...)
However, for now, it's kind of poking around in the dark when I try to get similar results as I don't have the technical knowledge about those modes. I assume that they are kind of a precedent and/or modulating shapers of the waveforms. IMO (just IMO) it's worth looking at them.
It's obvious that in Zebra the waveforms are modulatable by drawing / shaping the curves. But again, I don't know how to shape the curves, or how to "render" (whatever that means) them to get similar results. And I don't think I would get it by just adding distortion plugins or so. That would be more kind of polishing the surface, but not working with the waveshapes themselves.

New beta of Zebralette 3 should be out soonish.

Looking forward to it as I work with Zebralette a lot to comprehend the upcoming Zebra 3.
Thanks again.

[spektralisk]

Massive X is unique in many of those wavetable readout modes, nothing else has them AFAIK, or if they do have something similar, it's not at that level of quality most probably.

Thanks. This is what I think, too, I found it nowhere else. Whenever I use Massive X, I use those modes as they add / produce a strong character.

We never bothered looking at it. Our focus is on Zebra 3 though. Happy to discuss things there, should we have missed anything essential.

Thanks. I respect that Zebra is your focus, but as it is mine as well, I would like to find out if there is a way to get similar results like those Massive X modes, though they are from another manufacturer. I wouldn't ask NI to give us something like Zebra, because they would never achieve it. So I need to ask the other way round. (Yep, or use both synths ...)
However, for now, it's kind of poking around in the dark when I try to get similar results as I don't have the technical knowledge about those modes. I assume that they are kind of a precedent and/or modulating shapers of the waveforms. IMO (just IMO) it's worth looking at them.
It's obvious that in Zebra the waveforms are modulatable by drawing / shaping the curves. But again, I don't know how to shape the curves, or how to "render" (whatever that means) them to get similar results. And I don't think I would get it by just adding distortion plugins or so. That would be more kind of polishing the surface, but not working with the waveshapes themselves.

New beta of Zebralette 3 should be out soonish.

Looking forward to it as I work with Zebralette a lot to comprehend the upcoming Zebra 3.
Thanks again.

To me, the jitter mode in Massive X sounds similar to modulating an oscillator's phase with a noise source. I quickly checked this in Hive using a saw wave, and the results were very similar. Since Zebra doesn't offer noise as a modulator, I replicated the effect by using an LFO in "Rand Glide" mode (with the time-base set to 0.1 seconds and the rate cranked up) to modulate the oscillator phase. This produced a similar sound on a saw wave. It may differ with other waveforms, but the results remain equally interesting—especially when switching oscillator modes (like GeoMorph, Spectromorph, etc.). I hope this helps!

[Lyhrus]

To me, the jitter mode in Massive X sounds similar to modulating an oscillator's phase with a noise source. I quickly checked this in Hive using a saw wave, and the results were very similar. Since Zebra doesn't offer noise as a modulator, I replicated the effect by using an LFO in "Rand Glide" mode (with the time-base set to 0.1 seconds and the rate cranked up) to modulate the oscillator phase. This produced a similar sound on a saw wave. It may differ with other waveforms, but the results remain equally interesting—especially when switching oscillator modes (like GeoMorph, Spectromorph, etc.). I hope this helps!

I reproduced your steps using the LFO, thanks a lot! I sounds very close actually. The difference is, that I can hear some slow swinging of the LFO (despite of the adjustments) in comparison to the static chaos of the (assumed) noise modulator used in Massive X. I would prefer this static chaos.
So, as for me, it would be great to get noise as a modulating source in Zebra 3. It could be helpful to get some imperfection to the sounds. (I personally always miss the noise floor of the electronic components of hardware synths, too, whenever I work with software synths, but that's just my taste)

[spektralisk]

To me, the jitter mode in Massive X sounds similar to modulating an oscillator's phase with a noise source. I quickly checked this in Hive using a saw wave, and the results were very similar. Since Zebra doesn't offer noise as a modulator, I replicated the effect by using an LFO in "Rand Glide" mode (with the time-base set to 0.1 seconds and the rate cranked up) to modulate the oscillator phase. This produced a similar sound on a saw wave. It may differ with other waveforms, but the results remain equally interesting—especially when switching oscillator modes (like GeoMorph, Spectromorph, etc.). I hope this helps!

I reproduced your steps using the LFO, thanks a lot! I sounds actually very close. The difference is, that I can hear some slow swinging of the LFO (despite of the adjustments) in comparison to the static chaos of the (assumed) noise modulator used in Massive X. I would prefer this static chaos.
So, as for me, it would be great to get noise as a modulating source in Zebra 3. It could be helpful to get some imperfection to the sounds. (I personally always miss the noise floor of the electronic components of hardware synths, too, whenever I work with software synths, but that's just my taste)

You're welcome.

Zebralette3 has ModNoise modulator available, so this will be in Zebra3 eventually.

[Lyhrus]

Zebralette3 has ModNoise modulator available, so this will be in Zebra3 eventually.

I was still focussed on Zebra 2 in this discussion, so I hadn't this new feature in Zebra(lette)3 in mind. Thanks for the hint.
Last question, as I still have to struggle a bit with the new architecture in Zebra(lette)3: how to modulate the oscillators phase (by ModNoise in this case) in the way you suggested to do it in Zebra 2?

[spektralisk]

As I mentioned, in Zebra2 it's not possible since there's no ModNoise modulator available there.

Regarding Zebrallete3, there's a ModNoise source available but looks like there's no Osc Phase as target available (I hope they will add in Zebra3). There's a plenty of other interesting targets that make similar results like Osc Pitch, Curve Morph, Spectral Distortion. I have a free pack for Zebralette3 that uses ModNoise in a couple of patches -> https://spektralisk.com/products/varial

Not sure if that's what you wanted, so let me know.

[Lyhrus]

Thanks for the offer, @spektralist, I appreciate that. However, if I may hold on to this post's subject, I would like to ask Urs if an oscillator's phase modulation like in Zebra 2 is planned for Zebra 3. (If yes I assume it will be modulatable by NoiseMod anyway.)

[pdxindy]

Regarding Zebrallete3, there's a ModNoise source available but looks like there's no Osc Phase as target available (I hope they will add in Zebra3). There's a plenty of other interesting targets that make similar results like Osc Pitch, Curve Morph, Spectral Distortion. I have a free pack for Zebralette3 that uses ModNoise in a couple of patches -> https://spektralisk.com/products/varial

Not sure if that's what you wanted, so let me know.

In Zebralette 3, there is the Map-O-Matic OscFX. One of the Mapping Modes is Phase Offset. Then you can use the Guide curve to control it. Use a fast LFO to modulate the Depth and you can get all sorts of noisy fx by tweaking the Guide Curve. Start the Guide Curve flat to simply offset Osc Phase.

[spektralisk]

Regarding Zebrallete3, there's a ModNoise source available but looks like there's no Osc Phase as target available (I hope they will add in Zebra3). There's a plenty of other interesting targets that make similar results like Osc Pitch, Curve Morph, Spectral Distortion. I have a free pack for Zebralette3 that uses ModNoise in a couple of patches -> https://spektralisk.com/products/varial

Not sure if that's what you wanted, so let me know.

In Zebralette 3, there is the Map-O-Matic OscFX. One of the Mapping Modes is Phase Offset. Then you can use the Guide curve to control it. Use a fast LFO to modulate the Depth and you can get all sorts of noisy fx by tweaking the Guide Curve. Start the Guide Curve flat to simply offset Osc Phase.

Indeed, thx for the tip!

[pdxindy]

Regarding Zebrallete3, there's a ModNoise source available but looks like there's no Osc Phase as target available (I hope they will add in Zebra3). There's a plenty of other interesting targets that make similar results like Osc Pitch, Curve Morph, Spectral Distortion. I have a free pack for Zebralette3 that uses ModNoise in a couple of patches -> https://spektralisk.com/products/varial

Not sure if that's what you wanted, so let me know.

In Zebralette 3, there is the Map-O-Matic OscFX. One of the Mapping Modes is Phase Offset. Then you can use the Guide curve to control it. Use a fast LFO to modulate the Depth and you can get all sorts of noisy fx by tweaking the Guide Curve. Start the Guide Curve flat to simply offset Osc Phase.

Indeed, thx for the tip!

And in this use, the Osc Resolution makes a big different (200, 800, 2K)

[Lyhrus]

In Zebralette 3, there is the Map-O-Matic OscFX. One of the Mapping Modes is Phase Offset. Then you can use the Guide curve to control it. Use a fast LFO to modulate the Depth and you can get all sorts of noisy fx by tweaking the Guide Curve. Start the Guide Curve flat to simply offset Osc Phase.

Sounds promising, thanks a lot, I will check it out next week!

[Urs]

Osc Phase is probably coming. It's one off the many things that we keep for adding late in the game, to figure out what's the best possible way. A dedicated knob would clutter the interface, but a "Phase" OscFX would waste a slot. So unless we add more slots (yet another thing that wait to be decided), we'll probably add a Phase parameter, either right on the UI or - like in Hive - available through the ModMatrix only.

We welcome thoughts on this, but be aware that this does not have a simple answer!

Likewise, we could probably add a few dozen OscFX, but that would make things rather unusable. Too many choices are not good. So we try to figure out what we can do with the existing set, like, what can be achieved with them even in non-obvious ways (like pdxindy using Map-O-Matic for phase control), and what can we do do make the existing FX more powerful.

Therefore, apart from maybe a few no-brainers (e.g. often requested bit reduction, sample rate reduction), we will not add any OscFX anytime soon. We might still enhance some of those already in there.