Zebra 3 and Zebra Legacy

[audiojunkie]

Pardon me for being out of the loop, but what’s the design rationale for not having wave tables? Is the idea that something else Zebra has effectively covers that basis?

Yes.

Zebra 3 has a built-in waveform editor, but it is vector based, using splines - as opposed to sample based waveforms that wavetables are made of. You can import and vectorise individual waveforms from .wav files, and Zebra 3 will create a smooth transition between two or more of them. But it won't import hundreds of frames, only up to 16.

However, wavetable import is hit and miss. In most cases, hand edited waveforms and transitions sound much better. And like Hive's .uhm generated wavetables, they are as crisp as it gets.

Here's a video from three years ago (gosh) that shows what Zebra 3 waveforms are made of, and what kind of transitions it can do easily:

But why only 16? For reference, Serum 2 uses 256 frames. I'm just trying to understand... Are you saying that with Zebra 3, you can get the same motion and sound evolution with 16 frames that Serum 2 can get with 256 frames through the advanced "smoothing" process?

Also, I'm curious how big of a frame can be imported (WAV file) to create the reference for the Zebra 3 conversion to its way of doing things. For example 2048 samples? 4092 samples? etc?

[audiojunkie]

but can 16 cycles make a complex, long and smooth sound like for example 256 cycles in wavetable?

They are a lot smoother and more spectacular than anything you could ever draw as wavetables from hand, or import from a sample. It's even smoother than Hive, and easily as spectacular as Hive's mathematically generated wavetables.

I also dont understand a little bit why to invent a different bike and not use tried and tested

This has been tried and tested in Zebra 2 for 20 years, it's called "GeoMorph" and "SpectroMorph" there, but this is in a different league of just how good this is.

It looks like if I would have read just a bit further, someone else would have asked a very similar question to mine. I just had to read a bit more in the thread.

[Urs]

But why only 16? For reference, Serum 2 uses 256 frames.

I challenge you to create any of the 7 transitions between 8 waveforms shown in the video with Serum's built-in editor.





If you can draw just one of those transitions across 256 frames with Serum's built in editor, I'll admit I was wrong all the way. You have 10 minutes. That's how long it took me to create all 8 transitions in Zebralette back then.

(and no, you can't just draw two waveforms and hit "spectral morph". It's not the same, not even close)

[audiojunkie]

But why only 16? For reference, Serum 2 uses 256 frames.

I challenge you to create any of the 7 transitions between 8 waveforms shown in the video with Serum's built-in editor.





If you can draw just one of those transitions across 256 frames with Serum's built in editor, I'll admit I was wrong all the way. You have 10 minutes. That's how long it took me to create all 8 transitions in Zebralette back then.

(and no, you can't just draw two waveforms and hit "spectral morph". It's not the same, not even close)

Challenge NOT accepted!!!

[Urs]

Also, don't get me wrong. Serum's editor is great for what it is - one can quickly draw a nice waveform or stitch some wavetables together. Works. But doesn't do what Zebra does.

Zebra simply isn't a wavetable synth. And the reason for that becomes most obvious when things that are effortless in Zebra are close to impossible to accomplish in a common wavetable synth.

[jtsterays]

Will a module just dedicated to supersaw be out of place/unnecessary in Z3? I know the sound is overused and has existed for so long now, would be quite a contrast to all the new next gen generator modules in Z3. But it just sounds really good and a good base to a lot of layered sounds (it's also a reese bass, and that sound will probably never go out of style). So a module just for that task with different detune laws + aliasing option (which imo are why the JP saws sound really "alive") + optimized CPU would be pretty nice.

Probably it's sufficient to have a few saw waveforms in the Z3 OSC, maybe also emulating a bit the style of particular hardware synths? There are many wavetables out there that do this, no reason why you couldn't do it as vectors for Z3 OSC.

Just picking a clean saw should be very easy and adding "super" is just a matter of duplicating it with some drift, which many OSCs can just do via parameters.

But I do like the simplicity of e.g. Hive or Pigments 3, where you can also just go for the simple standard OSC types and not have to use something more complicated like a wavetable. Not sure this fits into Z3 design philosophy, though.

You forgot about detuning laws & aliasing, 2 most important parts imo. Adding a menu for detuning law for the spline osc unison would complicate it, and an aliasing option for such hifi module wouldn't make sense. That's why I think a dedicated module would be better. But yeah, still feel quite out of place in Z3 where everything else are pretty futuristic.

[GruvSyco]

… (babbling removed by author)

[Shiek927]

Incredible! it's my first time seeing the UI for Zebra3! it definitely looks familiar which should make transitioning a fun process!

I'm guessing there's a road-map once 1.00 build comes out? bringing back the X/Y pads, the arp/seq, and whatever other fun things people think up? I bet Hans Zimmer is going to be excited

[seafire]

Hopefully it's skinable

[Urs]

Incredible! it's my first time seeing the UI for Zebra3! it definitely looks familiar which should make transitioning a fun process!

I'm guessing there's a road-map once 1.00 build comes out? bringing back the X/Y pads, the arp/seq, and whatever other fun things people think up? I bet Hans Zimmer is going to be excited

No concrete plans, let's see where things go. Arp/Seq is a very likely future add on and we're developing some ideas.

XYs have been such a hassle... dunno. Sound Designers are commonly not so keen on setting them up, and doing the assignments ourselves has proven to be more expensive than the presets themselves. It took us 7 years to tag and polish all our factory presets and soundsets, and I'm not even sure we've finished that yet...

[Shiek927]

Incredible! it's my first time seeing the UI for Zebra3! it definitely looks familiar which should make transitioning a fun process!

I'm guessing there's a road-map once 1.00 build comes out? bringing back the X/Y pads, the arp/seq, and whatever other fun things people think up? I bet Hans Zimmer is going to be excited

No concrete plans, let's see where things go. Arp/Seq is a very likely future add on and we're developing some ideas.

XYs have been such a hassle... dunno. Sound Designers are commonly not so keen on setting them up, and doing the assignments ourselves has proven to be more expensive than the presets themselves. It took us 7 years to tag and polish all our factory presets and soundsets, and I'm not even sure we've finished that yet...

That's valid!! Zebra3 has been cooking for so long and Zebra2 has been around for even longer. It's very easy to communicate with the userbase about what they're using and not using; and Zebra2 already provides a perfect guidebook of ideas given how many years it's been updated. If the X/Y pads are hardly worth the effort and aren't actually being used all that much, then I agree it's one less thing to add.

Zebra2/ZebraHZ is so feature-rich that, honestly, once Zebra3 is in parity with Zebra2, it can honestly just stay there. It's not as if Zebra2 needs *more* features than it already has. Regardless, Zebra3 will have a very long shelf-life and I'm sure the userbase will come up with all sorts of fun requests and ideas.

[Shiek927]

Hopefully it's skinable

From what I recall, it should be! I remember Urs personally complimenting Plugmon who always does fantastic work

[Urs]

It is skinnable... but it is also extremely complex.

[misterandy]

Incredible! it's my first time seeing the UI for Zebra3! it definitely looks familiar which should make transitioning a fun process!

I'm guessing there's a road-map once 1.00 build comes out? bringing back the X/Y pads, the arp/seq, and whatever other fun things people think up? I bet Hans Zimmer is going to be excited

No concrete plans, let's see where things go. Arp/Seq is a very likely future add on and we're developing some ideas.

XYs have been such a hassle... dunno. Sound Designers are commonly not so keen on setting them up, and doing the assignments ourselves has proven to be more expensive than the presets themselves. It took us 7 years to tag and polish all our factory presets and soundsets, and I'm not even sure we've finished that yet...

But from your screeshots it looks like there will be control A, B, C and D with their own knobs, just like macros. Think that combined with modwheel that will be plenty.

[Urs]

But from your screeshots it looks like there will be control A, B, C and D with their own knobs, just like macros. Think that combined with modwheel that will be plenty.

Expanding our assignable MIDI CCs from 2 to 4 is indeed based on the idea that they overlap purpose with macro controls. But even with just 4 CCs, some sound designers are overwhelmed, and we need to put extra effort into this.