Zebra 3 Public Beta Revision 20399

[PieBerger]

• No number values appearing when adjusting slider/knobs is inconvenient, as it means that again you are guessing at the range of those values...

The values appear in the top bar as you're adjusting them, this is standard for u-he plugins (for better or worse)

• ...The mod matrix is also super messy - there's no ordering of modules - So if I assign LFO2 to two different places at different times, they might be spread out somewhere across the bottom bar, meaning you need to hunt for them and read every single label and assignment. Could these be grouped by modulation source...

There is an option to reorder the matrix already, there's a slider to order by Target, Source or Slot, it's slot by default.

Hope this helps you out in the meantime

[Urs]

I apologize if you've already answered this, but are you accepting user made presets from the Zebra 3 user community? I'd love to make some to say thank you for giving us Zebra 3!

Always!

Our curation process is tough though, we're very strict about volume levels, controller assignments, tidiness... on top of how good it sounds and how well it fits. We've hired 20+ of the most talented sound designers we know for the factory lib, and they pull their hair out because we always find niggles.

That said, our content team *is* super busy atm... but give it a try. Email is same as for everything, support at u-he dot com

[Matty686]

I would also like to see a button that resets all things that are not current in use one thing I hated about zebra two is if you take a modulator or oscillator or fx out of a lane and add it back in later it retains the values you first set it to I think that is useful but there should be be an option to reset everything you are not using that way when you finish making a patch you can go back 15 or so days later to fix a bug and still know exactly how everything works I hate messy patch design as I mentioned before I have OCD (actually pretty bad OCD ) and I hate thing modules I am not using are not set to default and as I mentioned earlier the modulation matrix should either be sortable or be sorted by something other than the order you added stuff that's why i don't use falcon because you can't change the order of the modulators and it drives me bonkers

[Matty686]

ok actually I can see you can chose some aspects of sorting order using the switch in the matrix I do like that I wish you could change the slot number around though

[Q-Bass]

There is a switch to sort it by "source", "slot" or "destination" on the left of the matrix. Or are you speaking about something else?

[Urs]

Yes, pretty cold... Owners of Legacy (those who bought in the past) should get SOMETHING. It's still Zebra2, it was a borderline obsolete product and it cost money, it wasn't a gift.

You did get something, you got Zebra 2, Zebra HZ and the Dark Knight set, and a bunch of presets for less than half the price of what everyone else paid pre Legacy version. Uhe were really clear and gave loads of notice beforehand about the conditions for the upgrade. You still get the intro offer, worth every penny.

If you're an Uhe fanboy - which is totally fine to be, you're not doing them any favors with this type of intransigence. It's not 2006 anymore.
Secondly, none of that was clear to me when I bought Legacy and the other Uhe stuff I own. Not everyone is paying attention to "the wall" or whatever.
My post may have triggered you because it sounded like entitlement - and it is - my dealing with Uhe is transactional while yours is probably different in nature, I don't know.
Getting to beta test an unfinished product for a hefty 179 while your previous purchases are ignored, doesn't feel right to me. But it feels right to you, great let's move on.

I'll say two or three things...

• it is not at all common for companies to lay out upgrade paths for products that do not exist
• we did it anyway, when we switched from Zebra 2 and its soundsets to Zebra Legacy, as a token of transparency and also to preempt any of the confusion we have today
• on top of the Zebra Legacy webpage is a bright disclaimer saying in not-to-fine print:
• "For information regarding Zebra3 upgrade paths etc., please see the related news article."
• The news article is the single point of truth in this regard, and about Zebra legacy it says:
• "As Zebra Legacy is such a bargain, we will not be offering a Zebra3 upgrade path from the new 99 € licenses."

Ok, that was 6 things.

However, in the meantime we are considering an offer for Zebra Legacy users. This offer, should it come to pass, will be made once Zebra 3 is released, and it will be made towards the full price of Zebra 3. The offer will most likely be in the vicinity of a 20% coupon code, as that is pretty much what one could expect from a 99€ product towards a 249€ product. But it is also less than the current 70€ pre order discount.

[Urs]

It's a bit like 'Elon Musk' everywhere.

I don't have all of U-he's stuff, just Bazille, Ace, MFM2, and Uhbik, all of which were bought on their respective introduction offers, but having interacted with and observed the interactions of Urs (here and on numerous other forums) for what seems like decades... He is one of the mellowest, sharpest, cordial, and just plain coolest humans around, and is more than generous with giving credit and praise to his 'collaborators'... which is profoundly in contrast to mr. muskrats public persona.

Thank you!

[Matty686]

On Zebrallet 3, there was an option called “soft attack.” I used it with the gate to get a synth controlled solely by pressure, which is fantastic for creating ocarinas, trumpets, and other mono wind instruments. I thought this feature would be retained, but I can’t find it anywhere. Additionally, I would like to see a bypass pressure button for the entire synth. It’s incredibly challenging to preview instruments when they use pressure to control both volume and pitch. The preview you play on the keys is either silent or out of tune. Even better, in the performance section, add a way to set the pressure for when you click the key. This would be amazing. Imagine if the slider was on the key itself, allowing you to use pressure with the mouse!

[Nihoteph]

Z3 sure is lovely stuff! Some quick suggestions, might have missed if something works differently than I understand. The SW architect in me have some feedback though:

Split the bottom modifier (MW/PB/AT etc) into two rows:
8 CTRL instead of 4. I personally often find 4 too few.
Custom slots that you can right click and add (i.e user selected Midi CC)
8 ENV/8 LFO?
Curve control on A/D/R on envelopes
X/Y modulation possibility on MSEG points.
A "hold" on a MSEG point that sits there until release phase, a loop can get weird timing depending on where it is.
A little red point on the knob "radial" so it is easier to see where the current value is.

the automation naming becomes less than fun in REAPER/CLAP, a zillion properties gets duplicated names like "Source", "Output" and such.

Some FX have inconsistent behaviour on left/right click. Delay shows menu on leftclick (does not change Routing/Color etc). Reverb changes mode and has correct right click menu.

That FILTER with arrows. This really also needs a right click two level with type then slope as second option, this is a pain if you know what you are after. But it is WIP so..
UPDATE: Really nice overview popup if added as insert on osc! IT does not appear to show when in master FX lanes tho. Hence the confusion

On knobs; way easier if right click has option to add modulator directly (An Add Modulator> with the options in next level in two levels (LFOs, Envs, Midi CC then exact one in second level), also add other CCs in here than the obvious ones, like CC2 breath and such, plus option to use 14-bit C options (2+32 etc) on those, not just 7bit MSB.

Right click should also have an "edit value" option directly

[Urs]

@Supersensory thank you, that's great feedback!

I'll just quickly say that we can probably do some of these things, like right-click-assignments.

I do have my (stubborn?) belief that "nervous balls in orbit of knobs" as visual feedback are the wrong way to go about things. Here's why: Slow moving balls don't say anything, and neither do fast moving balls, as they just turn into a blur. The window of accuracy IMHO is very small, like, maybe for medium decay times or such. Their main purpose is to seek attention, and the fast things always win, as if they were the most important ones.

We have a killer alternative though. Maybe give it a try, and let us know what you think once you work with it. Our Scope can show up to 4 modulations in parallel, including ModMatrix Slots with modifiers. You can freeze it, you can zoom in on almost sample level. So you can, say, hit a note, freeze and trace exactly what's happening on the onset. This thing has proven invaluable for many people in Hive, in order to get a great picture of what's happening with certain modulations.

(ok, there's a bug that makes envelopes appear steppy... they are not and we'll fix it)

We're also working on a project to display all modulation paths. Like, an alternative view on the patch focussed on the modulation setup rather than the audio signal path. But this project is ongoing and might not make it into the initial release of Z3.

Another word on visual modulation feedback: It uses a lot of extra CPU for the UI. We have another project going to bring UI performance down on Windows. We're not doing hardware acceleration there, yet. But maybe by end of next year we will. And then I'm happy to revisit the subject, even if only for a skin that makes Zebra 3 more familiar for Serum users.

The mod matrix is also super messy - there's no ordering of modules

You can order by index, source or target.

[Fannon]

I do have my (stubborn?) belief that "nervous balls in orbit of knobs" as visual feedback are the wrong way to go about things. Here's why: Slow moving balls don't say anything, and neither do fast moving balls, as they just turn into a blur. The window of accuracy IMHO is very small, like, maybe for medium decay times or such. Their main purpose is to seek attention, and the fast things always win, as if they were the most important ones.

How about a compromise where there's at least a visual indicator that something is modulated and if you hover / click on it, you see the modulations and can jump into the mod matrix / remove a modulation? Not sure how to do this best, as there are also the local modulation slots.

In the end it would be great if there's a way to get a good visual overview of what's being modulated, not so important to see it in real-time feedback. For that I agree, the scope is very nice!

[Dirtgrain]

If you're an Uhe fanboy - which is totally fine to be, you're not doing them any favors with this type of intransigence. It's not 2006 anymore.
Secondly, none of that was clear to me when I bought Legacy and the other Uhe stuff I own. Not everyone is paying attention to "the wall" or whatever.
My post may have triggered you because it sounded like entitlement - and it is - my dealing with Uhe is transactional while yours is probably different in nature, I don't know.
Getting to beta test an unfinished product for a hefty 179 while your previous purchases are ignored, doesn't feel right to me. But it feels right to you, great let's move on.

You are here to troll, clearly. It was crystal clear at the time of your purchase. Your bitterness was your design.

[Urs]

Release velocity its not working in reaper either definitely a bug

Yeah... Release currently is just a Gate...

Release Velocity is something we wanted to add for years, but it requires some changes to our voice handling. I'm not sure if we can do these changes before the initial release or for a subsequent update. But I can say for sure that this is on our eternal ToDo-list.

[Urs]

[...] I second the idea of being able to sort stuff in the modulation matrix or at least have it organized in some rational format other than the order you assigned it.

In case it's missed in my previous post, you can sort the ModMatrix by Slot Index, Source or Target.

Screenshot 2025-12-12 at 11.16.58.png

(not sure if I have the very latest version of the UI on my home machine... but those controls should be there)

[stippenstoh]

We've hired 20+ of the most talented sound designers we know for the factory lib

I like that the current presets already include rather 'simple', analog synth style, sounds. With the possibilities of Zebra3 it is easy to get lost in complex soundscapes but some beefy bread & butter mojo is much appreciated as well.