u-he

Urs · Post by **Urs** » Wed Dec 03, 2025 9:27 pm

We're pretty far, code-wise, so I can spend some time here... really just polishing some edges and trying to safe guard a few things. The people who are in constant stress are the UI, video and web people. Hey, tomorrow we're probably gonna post a video with myself in it, and dawg do I look worn out... should be fun though.

Kyunghee · Post by **Kyunghee** » Wed Dec 03, 2025 9:50 pm

Will it be possible (if not immediately, at some point) to customize the colour shades of UI elements like we can in some other plugin synths? Like a simple colour picker/slider.

Shiek927 · Post by **Shiek927** » Wed Dec 03, 2025 11:06 pm

When it comes to the color-coding and aesthetic of Zebra3, I can only imagine there will be dozens and dozens of different skins and options from fans or skilled users in the community like Plugmon.

For the default look of Zebra3 however, my personal opinion is that the best choice would be to actually go all the way back to the beginning and make a modern version of the OG Zebra2 skin. The black and white zebra pattern, the green text and parameters.

Down the line, I'd love to see new versions of other Zebra2 factory skins like ZebraHZ's "Dark Knight" skin which looked really cool and served as a good "night mode"; but I think if there's supposed to be a "main" or "default" skin to Zebra3, it should honor the one that started it all.

david.beholder · Post by **david.beholder** » Thu Dec 04, 2025 3:04 am

In terms of color coding can we have some alternative to white on black. For my eyes night mode = tears mode. But I think we talked about it before.

Urs · Post by **Urs** » Thu Dec 04, 2025 4:45 am

Technology forces us to leave the design possibilities of the past behind and embrace vector graphics.

Shiek927 · Post by **Shiek927** » Thu Dec 04, 2025 4:59 am

david.beholder wrote: Thu Dec 04, 2025 3:04 am In terms of color coding can we have some alternative to white on black. For my eyes night mode = tears mode. But I think we talked about it before.

Really? do you find this hard on the eyes? There aren't any pure whites. It's mostly cloudy blues and shades of gray

david.beholder · Post by **david.beholder** » Thu Dec 04, 2025 5:17 am

Urs wrote: Thu Dec 04, 2025 4:45 am Technology forces us to leave the design possibilities of the past behind and embrace vector graphics.

I mean I see there are a lot of resolutions to cover but what else is pushing you?

Shiek927 wrote: Thu Dec 04, 2025 4:59 am Really? do you find this hard on the eyes? There aren't any pure whites. It's mostly cloudy blues and shades of gray

Yep, it's not as bad as say Valhalla FutureVerb (white lines over black bg) but say DotEight makes no discomfort in comparison.

Urs · Post by **Urs** » Thu Dec 04, 2025 5:29 am

david.beholder wrote: Thu Dec 04, 2025 5:17 am
Urs wrote: Thu Dec 04, 2025 4:45 am Technology forces us to leave the design possibilities of the past behind and embrace vector graphics.
I mean I see there are a lot of resolutions to cover but what else is pushing you?

Bitmap graphics are the bottleneck in modern UI rendering, and UIs composed out of bitmaps the size of 3000 x 2000 pixels and beyond are glacially slow.

Shiek927 · Post by **Shiek927** » Thu Dec 04, 2025 6:11 am

Yep, it's not as bad as say Valhalla FutureVerb (white lines over black bg) but say DotEight makes no discomfort in comparison.

That's valid! I'm confident there will be tons of different skins and even re-imaginings of the whole GUI by Plugmon over the years.

WalterH · Post by **WalterH** » Thu Dec 04, 2025 6:43 am

Instead of choosing which is correct color for UI, why not just make some UI colors adjustable from parameters ?

Lyhrus · Post by **Lyhrus** » Thu Dec 04, 2025 8:30 am

I find the new UI for Zebra 3 (I'm talking of the dark mode which is shown in the screenshots on p. 101) quite appealing. It's pretty clear, seems to be intuitive (Zebralette 3 at least is easy to handle) and on the colour side it has a unique and beautiful combination of colour spaces (green/orange on several grey shades). I like the work of Plugmon and own some of his u-he skins, but as for now I don't really find a reason for him to take action.

stippenstoh · Post by **stippenstoh** » Thu Dec 04, 2025 10:28 am

I think Green/Orange is one of the more divisive colour combinations (albeit popular in the 1970's).
Whatever they'll come up with, I'll take it though - come as you are. I'm here for the sound.

Urs · Post by **Urs** » Thu Dec 04, 2025 12:36 pm

So once we publish it, we'll open a topic where all sorts of details can be discussed and suggestions made. Much like we did for Zebralette 3, when we needed structured feedback.

exmatproton · Post by **exmatproton** » Thu Dec 04, 2025 1:18 pm

Urs wrote: Thu Dec 04, 2025 12:36 pm So once we publish it, we'll open a topic where all sorts of details can be discussed and suggestions made. Much like we did for Zebralette 3, when we needed structured feedback.

literally cannot wait

animula42 · Post by **animula42** » Thu Dec 04, 2025 6:40 pm

Hey Urs,

firstly, many thanks for your wonderful work!

One thing I am really missing with Zebra 2 is the depth and ease of use of FM synthesis. For example Serum has the possibility for the oscillators to FM between themselves and does not need a third (+ very limited) FM oscillator. Combined with so many different oscillator waveform presets you can get so many different FM sounds really quickly in Serum.

Hope this is atleast somewhat implemented in Zebra 3, if not just an idea for a future update

Thanks for listening!

u-he

KVR Audio

Zebra 3 and Zebra Legacy