Zebra 3 Public Beta (final beta)

[Dr.Gunjah]

Best solution I have ever seen IMHO, was in Synthmaster 2 (don't know if it flowed to SM 3 either):

You had a list of modulations, which you could be set to automatically filter to modulator- or destination-centric.

So if you clicked on a modulator in the synth the list showed all destinations, which this modulator is modulating. If you clicked on a destination the list showed all modulators, which modulated this destination.

Perfect to analyse patches or find mistakes.

Unfortunately I didn't see, that the industry was jumping on that solution. May it has some backdraws, which I am not aware of.

The method used by Dawesomes Kontrast is kinda amazing too. When you right click a knob there is a very clear visual representation of all the modulations for this knob. If you right click on a mod background instead you see all destinations for that modulator.
Zebra3 actually has a similar feature. If you select a mod at the bottom or in the mod lane on the right, the targets show a tiny yellow (?) dot where you can also set mod depth. It's just way too subtle, and if a target is within a collapsable page (like FMO->width) you won't see it, unless it's expanded and not out of screen. It also does't work for the direct modulation slots - For example, if I drag Env1 directly onto curve morph, I see the yellow dot, but if I drag it onto the direct modulator slot, there is no dot.
The backwards search is also there thanks to the "remove modulation" dialog, but yeah it's not pretty and it also doesn't work with the direct modulators.

Personally I'm with Urs that a spreadsheat view like in Dune3 or Ana2 is far from the best solution and anything but modern. Hell, I even prefer the way MassiveX does modulations and it's not exactly known for its great UI. Then again, the direct modulators are probably even less modern and they occupy screen real estate, which leads to the quite "cramped" look of the current UI.

[zerocrossing]

Zebra 3 is good, but not as intense or as artifact free.

C'mon, really? The worst case I could measure is like 60dB headroom before aliasing kicks in... that's 1:1000... with tone fully up.

If others have better anti-aliasing with an equally beautiful tanh() shaper, I want to see how much CPU (or latency) they use...

Zebra, especially Zebra 3 has some of the best sounding oscilators in the industry. In fact, so do most of the U-HE synths.

I'm not talking about oscillators. I was talking about the distortion effect, which I said was good. Not as good, or intense, as Phase Plant, but better than most. I'm not complaining, I'm just stating my observation.

[zerocrossing]

A separate modulation page showing all modulation in a filterable way would be essential. See the Korg Native synths (Wavestate, Modwave, Multi/Poly) UX for this, which is excellent additional way to handle all modulations on a single page very quickly.

I love this idea.

[spektralisk]

I'm not a fan of matrix/spreadsheet views either.

My vote is going for contextual approach, something I already mentioned in other thead.

1. Click on the control: show all modulators affecting it (bottom-right pane?)
2. Click on modulator: same view but filtered differenty - all targets affected by selected modulator.

[Funky40]

1. Click on the control: show all modulators affecting it (bottom-right pane?)
2. Click on modulator: same view but filtered differenty - all targets affected by selected modulator.

something like that would be great


i´m new to Zebra. I´ve NOT looked at any manual.
So far i have no idea how to setup modulations (with LFOs etc. ). Means, wherever i clicked at, it was not that, haha.
My fail. But it tells something
( PS: i´ll figure it out ! my main focus was elsewhere so far)

[Super Piano Hater 64]

So far i have no idea how to setup modulations (with LFOs etc. ). Means, wherever i clicked at, it was not that, haha.

You can drag and drop from any of four areas:

1. The master modulator list at the bottom of the window (MW, PB, AT, VEL, etc.)
2. The MSEG and Mapper slots on the horizontal tabs (drag from the squircles)
3. If you have the matrix tab open, the destination fields on any existing matrix slot (to reuse an existing slot) or that lone squircle at the end of the list (to create a new one)
4. The squircle in the top left corner of any modulator that shows up in the modulation rack (top right scroll area; ie. any modulator already in use)

When you hover over most of these, a target reticle appears, and you just drag it to the control you want to modulate. (In the matrix, the reticle doesn't appear until you start dragging. I'm not sure if that's a bug.)

There are also several places to select a modulator from a pop-up menu:

1. Any direct modulation slot, such as the two below the Cutoff knob in the filter controls
2. Either of the source fields at the top of any existing matrix slot
3. The downward triangle at the end of the matrix slot list (next to the squircle; this is another way to create a new matrix slot)

However, most controls don't (currently) give you that type of pop-up menu, so you'll need to drag and drop to set up most types of modulations.

[Funky40]

You can drag and drop from any of four areas:

Thanks for the Feedback !

( my post was not meant to force any such response. But i appreciate it .......i have to dive in slowly. I´ll come back to this post first when i´m ready ( hopefully the next coming days) )

[Sampleconstruct]

FR: When copying/pasting a given oscillator there should be an option to copy/paste all modulations with it.

[viveka]

and maybe find ways to highlight things that are active. And also improve the menus on the knobs.

GRM Atelier has a toggle switch that can show / hide all modulation "wires" and they are color coded. I've found it to be useful so far.

Hitting that switch would auto-tab to the Z3 Matrix - it would follow the same aesthetic; all modulators below, all targets above (even if you're using a module to modulate one of its own parameters). What are your thoughts on something like that?

Z3 sounds fantastic. Congratulations on the release!

[Fannon]

When you add MPE support, please consider making MPE Timbre its own modulation source. You already added Release Velocity, which is probably even less widely used than Timbre. Timbre would also be special because it's meant to be assigned bipolar (like the old Z2 XY pads). But please don't mix it up with CRTL A-D, which are currently unipolar and assigned without thinking about how well they would work for MPE. I think it's better to keep those separate concerns.

Also, please don't feel pressure to make existing patches MPE compatible. People can do this by assigning pressure / timbre themselves to their own liking and MPE controller needs, if necessary. And there will probably specialized sound sets, focusing on MPE anyway.

[swilow11]

I'm not a fan of matrix/spreadsheet views either.

My vote is going for contextual approach, something I already mentioned in other thead.

1. Click on the control: show all modulators affecting it (bottom-right pane?)
2. Click on modulator: same view but filtered differenty - all targets affected by selected modulator.

Love how Phase Plant does this. It's able to present immense complexity very clearly. Actually genius level UI/UX imo.

I don't mind Serums spreadsheet style but it is easy to get lost especially if you use the same modulator on multiple sources.

Current does the interesting thing where you can select a modulation and a contextual matrix pops up. This would be good in Serum if you apply something like note on random- you always need to modify the amount by going to the matrix. You can make the editable remap curve appear in context but not actually adjust the amount.

That is probably the perennial issue with extremely powerful synths. How do you not restrict its capacities while making it easy to navigate? To my mind, Phase Plant has this alliance perfected...

[Urs]

When you add MPE support, please consider making MPE Timbre its own modulation source. You already added Release Velocity, which is probably even less widely used than Timbre. Timbre would also be special because it's meant to be assigned bipolar (like the old Z2 XY pads). But please don't mix it up with CRTL A-D, which are currently unipolar and assigned without thinking about how well they would work for MPE. I think it's better to keep those separate concerns.

Also, please don't feel pressure to make existing patches MPE compatible. People can do this by assigning pressure / timbre themselves to their own liking and MPE controller needs, if necessary. And there will probably specialized sound sets, focusing on MPE anyway.

Hmmm... this would be rather inconsistent with our current implementation... possible though.

Btw. MPE specifies Timbre to be bipolar or unipolar. Up to the synth developer.

[Fannon]

Hmmm... this would be rather inconsistent with our current implementation... possible though.

Btw. MPE specifies Timbre to be bipolar or unipolar. Up to the synth developer.

Thanks for considering! Just putting it out there as oppinion.

Ok interesting, I saw Timbre usually be bipolar. It's strange that the spec doesn't really define this, that probably leads to quite some inconsistency even in how hardware devices would handle this?

Just a gut feeling: Then bipolar may be the better option if the macros are unipolar - giving at least one mod source which is clearly opinionated towards bipolar. Not sure on this..

[Urs]

I think the specs do prefer Timbre to be bipolar, but it is not a must.

[Gam456]

Hi Urs
Do you have a crash report file to sent you the informations about the crash ?