U-he Zebra 3 (Alpha)

[Caine123]

Busy days... sorry...

Randomisers are tricky here. If it can get loud in Filterscape, imagine how loud it can get in Zebra... one of the things that keep me from adding randomisers is the possible liability when people get their gear or - worse - their ears blown up. So a randomiser would require a built in limiter and all that (which we did for Filterscape), and probably a lot of extra logic to make sure that whatever you hear, is compatible with human ears.

appreciate it!

would be awesome though

[Fannon]

Not sure if this is what you're looking for, but this u-he preset randomizer should also work with Zebra 3, just not sure how well: viewtopic.php?t=609896

But it's a good point, this should be really used with care and limiter. I can imagine that with Zebra 3 possibilities, random patches can get quite out of hand.

[whassup]

The real question for me is will Zebra 3 be able to make sounds that I can't already create with the other synths in my extensive collection either on their own or in combination.

That is a very good question and I have it too.
The other thing why I am hoping for Z3 are the modules like the filters who insert character.
Please tons of character and not only all the old same same but with better quality.
That it sounds DIFFERENT.
And this with tons of quality.
Then I am happy to keep it monophonic until I get a new computer in the future and all will be available with 500 voices and quality settings to "super high precise awesome"!

[liquidsound]

The real question for me is will Zebra 3 be able to make sounds that I can't already create with the other synths in my extensive collection either on their own or in combination.

How about Zebralette 3?
Any results from it that could give you a partial idea?

[Urs]

The real question for me is will Zebra 3 be able to make sounds that I can't already create with the other synths in my extensive collection either on their own or in combination.

That is a very good question and I have it too.
The other thing why I am hoping for Z3 are the modules like the filters who insert character.
Please tons of character and not only all the old same same but with better quality.
That it sounds DIFFERENT.
And this with tons of quality.

So, the filters and many other modules do add tons of character. If Zebra 2 was often described as "neutral" in sound, Zebra 3 can certainly go into any territory, from convincing analogue character to digital harshness or surgical precision. Neither is difficult to achieve.

As for the question of whether it puts anything new to the table... this actually goes both ways. If you have 20 synths that each maybe cover a portion of the sounds Zebra can do, then Zebra might be flexible enough to cover the grounds of, dunno, half your arsenal?

I guess it's a matter of perspective. In the end it comes down to whether you like the workflow or not. Whether you get the results you seek or not. Whether you click with it or not. This will be different for everyone.

(Do people still say "I tried to like it but..." on KVR a lot?)

[whassup]

(Do people still say "I tried to like it but..." on KVR a lot?)

LOL! Yeah, we do...

[Gam456]

The expectations are so high, I'm sure that many people will be disappointed or overwhelmed at first.

No worries
We know what we get for what we pay with U-he

[TechHaus]

A post from April 5, 2016:

Zebra3 is right around the corner, and I'm definitely going to nab it.

viewtopic.php?p=6432314#p6432314

[Teksonik]

The real question for me is will Zebra 3 be able to make sounds that I can't already create with the other synths in my extensive collection either on their own or in combination.

How about Zebralette 3?
Any results from it that could give you a partial idea?

I tried an early version but it was unstable here so I put it aside. I did run four instances at once to get somewhat of an idea of what Zebra3 will do but that's not fair as I'm sure Z3 will be more than just 4x Zebralette.

It's not only will Z3 make sounds that I can't already make but also will it make sounds I like and use? I'm not into modular bleeps and bloops, I don't do EDM, etc so some sounds just hold no interest for me although I'm sure they do for others.

As for replacing my other synths unless Z3 is multi-layered multi-sampled it's not going to replace my favorite synths. Will it augment my favorite synths? That's what we will see when the beta or demo drops.

Yes I will try to like it but.....if I don't then so be it....the world will keep spinning either way.

[surreal]

The real question for me is will Zebra 3 be able to make sounds that I can't already create with the other synths in my extensive collection either on their own or in combination.

How about Zebralette 3?
Any results from it that could give you a partial idea?

I tried an early version but it was unstable here so I put it aside. I did run four instances at once to get somewhat of an idea of what Zebra3 will do but that's not fair as I'm sure Z3 will be more than just 4x Zebralette.

It's not only will Z3 make sounds that I can't already make but also will it make sounds I like and use? I'm not into modular bleeps and bloops, I don't do EDM, etc so some sounds just hold no interest for me although I'm sure they do for others.

As for replacing my other synths unless Z3 is multi-layered multi-sampled it's not going to replace my favorite synths. Will it augment my favorite synths? That's what we will see when the beta or demo drops.

Yes I will try to like it but.....if I don't then so be it....the world will keep spinning either way.

What are you fav Synths Tek?

[MrJubbly]

Some people will find it too complicated.

To help mitigate that...

Will u-he be supporting the official Zebra3 release with any commissioned tutorial videos, to help better explain and demonstrate various ways of using the new features, to assist users of various experience levels?

[ Cough! Dan Worrall ]

[Urs]

Sure, we have our own video department... I love Dan, but he's so booked out and we need 10+ videos a year.

So far we have mostly done tutorials for our hardware stuff, Zebra 3 will be the first new software we'll cover from ground up.

[sunthief01]

Urs has some great content on his YT channel if you are ready to get into the weeds of the oscillator and MSEG spline editors, which is where a lot of the wild potential is!

That said I mostly avoided the editor in Zebralette 3 for about a year and just used oscillator effects and the smaller window in the main UI.... But once you go into the spline editor, and then the morph editor, you're really opening up what can be achieved

[vaygr]

Will Zebra 3 have the same UI theming capabilities as the rest of u-he and maybe a couple of themes included?

[Urs]

Will Zebra 3 have the same UI theming capabilities as the rest of u-he and maybe a couple of themes included?

This can only be answered by "Yes, but..."

We still use the same UI framework which we built and maintain ourselves. But the UI of Zebra 3 has become extremely complex. It's not like anyone can open our built-in editor, move a few things around, save and you have a new UI.

Quick check, as of now there are 1123 knobs, 748 drop downs and 1571 text labels. If someone wanted to build a theme for Zebra 3, it's gonna be a crazy complex task

It is a full time job for our design team to not lose their mind.

On a positive note, we have implemented a way to reduce the size of the UI script by introducing styles. So all the knobs and whatever else which share the same look and feel, can be edited in one place. The Zebra 3 UI as of now has 239 styles. That's more styles than Hive has individual knobs. Not sure if that makes it any easier

Another complication: People often just swap images out to change the look and feel of a UI. In Zebra 3, almost all images are SVG and almost all colours in those SVGs are customised within the script file. So changing the colours in the image does not work, one has to change them in the script file. The good thing about that is, if someone wanted to do that, they could just open the editor and poke around with the colour values - much faster than editing hundreds of image files one by one.

I think what I'm trying to say is, the Zebra 3 UI has about five times the complexity of our other plug-ins, twice as many controls as Zebra 2. Therefore, I guess, creating themes is quite a challenge.

We will however certainly try to include a light theme, but I can't yet promise anything or say when it would happen.