Zebra 3 Public Beta Revision 20399

[teilo]

We would love to do that, but can't yet say when we do it.

The MPE specs btw. do not mention Release Velocity. But yeah, we'd love to support it.

Yeah, Release Velocity has nothing to do with MPE any more than regular velocity does. It's just the velocity value in the Note Off message. Lots of keyboards today support it without also supporting MPE.

[NAD]

I can't figure out what these blue, green, and salmon-colored curves do. No matter how I try to change them, they don't affect the oscillator's sound.

Try using the Curve Filter or Spectral Decay osc fx and edit the blue curve. (Then read the manual, lol!)

[Quasipro]

@PieBurget @E_Anderson

Thank you for the assistance! Much appreciated

[Matty686]

We would love to do that, but can't yet say when we do it.

The MPE specs btw. do not mention Release Velocity. But yeah, we'd love to support it.

Yeah, Release Velocity has nothing to do with MPE any more than regular velocity does. It's just the velocity value in the Note Off message. Lots of keyboards today support it without also supporting MPE.

Interesting I never knew that and I have been using it for quite a while now I guess that's because I don't actually use a keyboard to compose.

[PieBerger]

[*]Key-Tracking Center Key
It would be super handy to be able to determine at which key no modulation is applied for parameters with variable key-tracking. For example, I might want a parameter to stay put on the lowest key and to be scaled up for all higher keys based on their distance from the lowest key. I think some synths do this but I can't recall any at the moment.

You can do kind of do this already using a Mapper set to Key mode and drawing in an offset rising ramp/saw. It's arguably a bit convoluted and there's a case for a simplified version, but it's possible to achieve all the same.

Yes, very true. It would be so cool if we ever got mappers that use the same type of curves as the oscillators and MSEGs (in addition to the stepped ones of course).

I can't keep track because 3 threads but somewhere I'm sure Urs mentioned the Mappers getting their own proper Editing Tools. In the meantime, you can draw a curve in Osc/MSEG and copy paste it into the Mapper via right-click menu and you'll get a 128 point representation (I just learned this today from Urs!)

[PieBerger]

@PieBurget @E_Anderson

Thank you for the assistance! Much appreciated

PieBurget, that's a new one for me Have fun!

[Urs]

Is it possible to set up custom feedback loops in the main grid and or FX /OUT somehow?

Unfortunately no, there would be latency around such feedback loops. We had that in Zebra 1.5 and it simply wasn't usable enough...

[Urs]

I can't figure out what these blue, green, and salmon-colored curves do. No matter how I try to change them, they don't affect the oscillator's sound.

So we call them "Guide Curves" because they can be used to edit the normal curves. But as they are there, we thought we might as well use them for some OscFX or the frequency warping in the additive renderer.

However, their main goal is to cut, scale or limit points in another curve, as a sculpting tool in a truely CAD fashion.

[Urs]

I can't keep track because 3 threads but somewhere I'm sure Urs mentioned the Mappers getting their own proper Editing Tools. In the meantime, you can draw a curve in Osc/MSEG and copy paste it into the Mapper via right-click menu and you'll get a 128 point representation (I just learned this today from Urs!)

Yeah, the mappers are supposed to get some improved tool chain as well, but of course not quite as deep as the oscillators/MSEGs.

That was my task for early January, but looking at the great feedback on other aspects of the UI, I might prioritise other things and leave the Mapper editor for later...

[joradn]

A few (optimistic) feature requests which have hopefully not been covered by others.

- Multiband compression/OTT. I've seen that Urs has stated in the past it leads to sounds that are overly dense and difficult to mix, and I don't disagree with that perspective, but I personally like using it to bring out hidden textures for further reshaping into something more usable.
- Feedback loops in the main grid. I'm sure this is a difficult thing to implement, but it would be very nice for waveguide synthesis and other physical modelling and delay based tricks. (Upon previewing this post I see this has already been discussed while I was writing it, but I'll leave this here anyway).
- Re-render to opposite domain for the Osc. For example, you could draw the harmonics in the spectrum curve, then re-render it to a waveform, and vice versa. I think moving between time and frequency domain without changing the sound would be useful for fine tuning. I saw somebody earlier suggest rendering oscillator FX into the curves, which I also agree would be a nice feature, and perhaps could also be worked into this suggestion. (Perhaps one re-render function which allows you to choose time or frequency domain, and will also bake in oscillator FX when possible?)
- A waveshaper that allows you to draw a custom curve, perhaps as an option in the distortion module.

- Other people have brought up a toggle for disabling mousewheel parameter changes. I agree with this, this often bothers me in other synths.
- I also agree with some kind of functionality that shows every source modulating a parameter, or every parameter a source is modulating, perhaps with right click or a keyboard modifier.

[Matty686]

[*]Disable Loop
Sometimes you just want a one-shot kinda deal. You can attach the loop markers to the last point but it would be nice to be able to just switch off the looping entirely. In that case it might be nice to have a marker to delineate sections for the attack and release (or decay in this case) rate knobs.

I think disable loop would be a very useful feature especially for percussion

[rmbles]

Thought I'd save Urs from typing the same responses over and over again - introducing https://ead9206a.zebra-pricing-faq.pages.dev/

[NAD]

[...] you can draw a curve in Osc/MSEG and copy paste it into the Mapper via right-click menu and you'll get a 128 point representation (I just learned this today from Urs!)

That's so cool, I did not know that!

[Andreya_Autumn]

I can't figure out what these blue, green, and salmon-colored curves do. No matter how I try to change them, they don't affect the oscillator's sound.

Those are the "guides" referenced here and there. They are used in several oscFX, can be used to shape the actual oscillator/mseg curves, etc etc.

[NAD]

Multiband compression

I agree. In small dosses it can be quite handy.

(Perhaps one re-render function which allows you to choose time or frequency domain, and will also bake in oscillator FX when possible?)

Yeah some way to bake in osc fx would be neat. And that other stuff you said.

A waveshaper that allows you to draw a custom curve

Oh yes!