Zebra 3 Public Beta Revision 20399

[Urs]

I would also like to see a button that resets all things that are not current in use

That something we want, too. I can't promise quick relief as something that potentially alters dozens of connections in a patch needs to be tried and tested with utmost care.

[PieBerger]

X/Y modulation possibility on MSEG points.

You know can morph through MSEG curves right, up to 7 (and everything in between) and there are Morph Vectors which allow you to define how the morphing between adjacent frames happens?

p76-79 of the manual covers MSEGs, jump back to p45 to learn how Morph Vectors work

[PieBerger]

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

Will the factory lib have an expanded Osc presets offering, from talented sound designers or otherwise

[Urs]

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!

So the whole project about the Modulation Graph and visualisation of modulation assignments is also an opportunity to have knobs "know" what's going on with their parameters. I can think of various ways to visualise "targetness", even if we don't necessarily wish to have too many moving elements on the UI for now.

I'm sure we can reduce the scavenger hunt aspect quite a lot.

Our main focus was just on audio modules for most of us, I'm sure looking forward to also get back into UI aspects.

[grahamhadfield]

Any details on the CSV files for the modal resonator? I noticed they are text files with partial info I guess.

Oh my! I'm so glad it's an open CSV format!

I wonder whether u-he will release an analysis tool for the mode analysis of sounds. I'm going to use MaxModRes in Max for now to generate resonance models, and convert its freq/amplitude(0-1)/decay output to Zebra's ratio/gain(dB)/decay input, and give it a go!

))))))))

[tanuki0031]

Hi,

I have a question regarding my u-he licenses and how they are handled under the current system.

I purchased the Everything Bundle in September 2025, and I'm wondering about a few points:

At that time, were the products included in the bundle considered “Legacy” items?

Should I be able to retrieve my license card via the “My Licenses” page by entering my email address, or is that feature limited to newer purchases?

If there is anything that can be taken into consideration regarding my bundle purchase, I would greatly appreciate it.

I'm not demanding anything — I just want to understand how the current licensing system applies to my situation.
Thank you very much for your time and help.

Kind regards,
D

[zvenx]

Until someone official answers.

I didn't even know u-he had/has an Everything Bundle.
There is a product called Zebra Legacy, which will still be maintained... no other product afaik is considered legacy, (not even Zebra Legacy, despite its name... they will all be maintained and updated over time afaik)
Yes anyone who purchase a u-he license should.. I joined the 'family' about 17 years ago and all my products (except Zebra2) are on the card (but all are in the serial number section of the email).


rsp

[Matty686]

To Urs and the rest of the team, I want to express my deepest gratitude for releasing a beta version of zebra 3 for us all to play with. I had stopped making music because I was eagerly waiting for the release of Zebra 3. I prefer to create all my presets in a single program, and I had been using Phase Plant. However, after watching the demo videos of Zebra 3 and playing with Zebrallet 3, I realized that I couldn’t continue using Phase Plant. Zebra 3 offers a much better organizational system. I believe that good organization is one of your strengths. Despite my preference for swapping the slots around for the modulation matrix, I must admit that Zebra 3 is still the best synth for someone who values neatness and order. I particularly appreciate the feature that allows me to write both an instrument description and usage instructions in the preset manager. I frequently work with synths that use pressure as their only envelope, which usually results in silent sounds. I suggest adding a pressure control on the keyboard in performance mode. However, the way you enable me to provide such detailed descriptions is incredibly helpful in accurately describing my instruments, which I can’t always audition properly. This feature was particularly beneficial when I used Zebrallet 3 for a few months before its official release. I must say that you all have the best preset browser I’ve ever used.

Anyway, I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to get Zebra 3 in time for Christmas. My mom was worried that it wouldn’t be released until next summer. I am extremely happy and surprised that you all managed to release it so quickly. I have a strong OCD and find it challenging to manage the psychological burden of organizing patches for multiple synths. I wanted to select the best synth, and I’ve deemed Zebra 3 the best. If I had any influence, I would give you all a massive award for creating a product that is easy to understand and for making it easy to copy settings for components between presets. I also love that the mseg envelope can have the attack and release times changed in real time. This gives me an opportunity to test a theory I had six years ago called A.R.I envelopes (Attack Release Intensity). It’s a system designed to make it easier to hand-program songs with articulation . It works by mapping velocity to envelope attack time and release velocity to envelope release time. (Currently, it seems release velocity is broken; it must be a bug.) Then, you control the intensity with a macro or timbre instead of velocity. (I don’t see timbre available either, and I can’t access Ctrl A, B, C, or D via the DAW yet, but you guys do have a mod wheel that I can use for this purpose, and that works.) I look forward to the release velocity bug being fixed so that I can use this method on some of my more analog-sounding mono synths. However, I think pressure is still best for physically accurate emulation of flutes and other acoustic instruments. I use Bitwig for pressure so that I can program it by hand. It’s just that I feel A.R.I is better for some patches. Anyway, I also started experimenting with controlling both attack time and release time simultaneously with the mod wheel in Bitwig. That actually worked quite well for fast composing, but now I can’t use the mod wheel for the intensity part, so I have to map that to velocity (not quite as neat). I can’t wait to access Ctrl A, B, C, and D from Bitwig. I hope you guys set that up soon. I love the polymorphic vector wave table oscillators; they totally rock. That’s why I chose the zebra 3; otherwise, I would have chosen the surge XT. I also like that you guys have a really good reverb. I didn’t have any issues with it sounding metallic or anything. I also hear you guys have some really good filters. I will have to try them all out as I haven’t yet. I’ve mostly been focused on fun ways to bend envelopes to make composing realistic. In my opinion, a good synth should feel completely organic like an actual acoustic instrument, not a keyboard. When I was younger, I used to make vanilla patches without articulation options, which is what most people do. However, I started to get upset because my ocarina synth (my favorite patch that I can easily wire to most synths) didn’t sound like real ocarina music. That’s when I learned about pressure. Ever since then, it’s been a constant struggle to make all my patches sound as realistic as possible. I quickly outgrew most synths and focused on just a few, but that left me with very limited choices for what could actually be used. At the same time, I struggled immensely to figure out a way to keep all my patches organized, which was an uphill battle because half of them I couldn’t even audition due to the way pressure works.

for a while I used Phase Plant, but I always struggled to get the wave table editor to do what I wanted and it was hard keep my instrument name and description short enough. Then, I saw the Zebra Three demos and ZebraLett 3, and I was in love at first sight. ZebraLett 3 offered a preset browser with the ability to use ridiculously large names and descriptions. Now, I could tell what synth I was using even if I couldn’t audition it. In the final version of Zebra 3, I figured I could just use the mod wheel as a pressure override or something so I could audition my synths. The allure of wave tables that were vector-based was too much, so I stopped making patches and waited for Zebra 3 to come out.

[sm909]

Any details on the CSV files for the modal resonator? I noticed they are text files with partial info I guess.

Oh my! I'm so glad it's an open CSV format!

I wonder whether u-he will release an analysis tool for the mode analysis of sounds. I'm going to use MaxModRes in Max for now to generate resonance models, and convert its freq/amplitude(0-1)/decay output to Zebra's ratio/gain(dB)/decay input, and give it a go!

))))))))

Great idea. I wonder if there a way to do this with Melda Plugins?

[Urs]

Any details on the CSV files for the modal resonator? I noticed they are text files with partial info I guess.

Oh my! I'm so glad it's an open CSV format!

I wonder whether u-he will release an analysis tool for the mode analysis of sounds. I'm going to use MaxModRes in Max for now to generate resonance models, and convert its freq/amplitude(0-1)/decay output to Zebra's ratio/gain(dB)/decay input, and give it a go!

))))))))

Yes, we have plans to release such a tool. But I can't promise anything, we really first have two concentrate on Zebra 3, then probably venture over to a long overdue Diva update.

That said, the team is large, and someone might continue work on these other tools as well (it is our internal oscilloscope and analyser tool, which can export raw Modal Profiles, but they might need a little more polishing afterwards)

[Viktor [TUC]]

On Zebrallet 3, there was an option called “soft attack.” I used it with the gate to get [...]

With just a single envelope in Zebralette 3 that made more sense, in Zebra 3 however I'd just one of the other envelopes set to a Gate-like shape but with softer attack.

It’s incredibly challenging to preview instruments when they use pressure to control both volume and pitch.

I'll check for presets that do that, I usually don't like when Pressure goes to pitch (unless it's the main purpose of the preset). Which ones are these, have an example?

Viktor
u-he team

[zvenx]

(Just as an aside Viktor, for me Pressure to pitch on a Fretless Bass patch is glorious).
rsp

[Urs]

To Urs and the rest of the team...

Matty, that is a lot to unpack... thank you for your feedback... please bear with me if I can't answer in equal detail, I have spent the past 5 hours answering forum posts and haven't even had breakfast yet... and I need to hurry to the office...

As for Poly AT/Pressure... I have a concept for that which lets people use it as VCA envelope. It wasn't finished enough to be added now, but I'm hopeful to continue work some time next year.

[DorianBloom]

Man, I already spent way too much during black friday...Now Absynth AND Zebra 3?

Kinda sad that there is no cross grade path..but they have definitely put a lot of work into this one, So I guess its fair enough.
I am absolutely loving what am hearing so far. Cannot wait to get stuck into it today.

Can't wait to hear those filters! I love it when companies push the boundaries of what computers can currently handle, because they are getting so much more powerful at a staggering rate, should future proof the synth a little better.

Does anyone have even a vague idea of when this might be released? Need to budget for this one!

[Ananda]

Dear Urs & Team,

I also can only say WOW! this is a massive 'Berlin - synth' week.
Since yesterday my Absynth6 arrival (sorry to mention that product of your Berlin colleagues here;)

However since I am a Zebra Legacy costumer I wonder how to get the new license or how to redeem it?

Maybe you can bring this procedure out a bit more clearly?
Or I am a bit to less patient to get the new 'monster'?

Ok now I first try the beta and check how your new license card will work for me:D

Thank you all for being engaged in making EDM instruments!

I wish you all: Eine schöne, gemütliche Weihnachtszeit und liebe Grüße nach Berlin!

Yours
Ananda

Short addon from 'Klein Paris':)

The Beta REV 20399 is running like a charm in Pro Tools 2025.10 on Windoof 11!
And is the 'Pitch' - tab entry 'cents' meant as general tuning, seems to be so! Yes I am detuning my sounds a bit;)
But how to enter for example -31.77 cents?
Thank you for the lock, very pleased to have this option!

And friends out there: Please check preset Alien Escapist! or Arcadia, Around the corner.. just 'in letter a!' 'Whats Out There' or, or.. huWuu;) I am on the way to put it in an 'Atmosbed', to let it swirl around a bit more:D..
Once more;
Ganz ganz lieben Dank an Euch!