Zebra 3 Public Beta Revision 20399

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jtsterays wrote: Sun Dec 21, 2025 7:34 pm
Urs wrote: Sun Dec 21, 2025 5:52 pm
jtsterays wrote: Sun Dec 21, 2025 5:36 pm It is just me or the attack values below 5 in the envelopes are a bit useless because it's too clicky? I feel like 5 should be the lowest value. Obviously this might not be possible to change now because of compatibility, but having to change it every time I start an init patch is quite annoying.
Depends on oscillator phase, and / or synthesis method. For Modal Synthesis you need a lot of control over the first few samples...
It's a pure sine with random phase. And for Modal, isnt the point is that you use the exciter (click) just to have something to excite it (modal) so you get the long decaying feedback, and remove the initial click with suppress dry? plus upping the attack would help with that too because it sounds like Env is post generators so why are the few first samples important? (I dont have alot of knowledge about this topic).

It's not exclusive to Zebra too, Hive is the same. Bazille too without soft click which is exactly the feature that what I want, can we have that here also?
I always viewed "Soft Attack" as a crutch from when I started out. It does successfully prevent most clickyness though, but it also then removes presence in high frequencies.

So a pure sine with random phase will almost always click, and pretty inconsistently so. The lower the pitch, the more audible. An efficient way to declick it is to have the envelope key track. Set it to a Key Scale at -100, then set attack high enough to unclick low notes. Then, high notes are instant and low notes are declicked. If you need equally long releases, find a compromise between key Scaling value, attack and release.

As for Modal Synthesis, yes, the initial event is usually a click, and a loud one at that. The results of Modal Synthesis are often "tangible", like realistic instruments. This impression often stands and falls with the initial attack. Sculpting it carefully over the first 1-10 ms is pretty important there IMHO.

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jtsterays wrote: Sun Dec 21, 2025 8:39 pm I just watched your faster matrix target video and honestly it's still quite slow
I don't mind taking it further, but please cut me a break :tantrum:

(sorry, just kidding, it's a good idea, but I'd need way more than a weekend to implement it)

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Urs wrote: Sun Dec 21, 2025 8:54 pm
jtsterays wrote: Sun Dec 21, 2025 8:39 pm I just watched your faster matrix target video and honestly it's still quite slow
I don't mind taking it further, but please cut me a break :tantrum:

(sorry, just kidding, it's a good idea, but I'd need way more than a weekend to implement it)
Oh ofc, please take your time. Im not trying to rush you anything. Just based of the video, I got the impression that I hv to switch modulations constantly in the future which kinda worried me.
Last edited by jtsterays on Mon Dec 22, 2025 3:53 am, edited 1 time in total.

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I think the main point was that people want to be able to see what modulates what. So now anything that has any modulation from the matrix will have an indicator. Whether it's just a fainter dot, a ring or whatever it will be is something the UI/UX guys can work out.

So it's now clear, this knob has a mod, that fader has one, cool. A right-click produces a list of assignments, which is also helpful, and one can directly choose the globally selected modulator.

I think that's an improvement.

The problem with an overlay panel is that it may hide whatever lays under it, and there needs to be an extra action required to close it. I would offer it as an option, but I would definitely not make it the only way.

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Urs wrote: Sun Dec 21, 2025 9:07 pm
I think that's an improvement.
Yes! :love:

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deleted.
Last edited by jtsterays on Sun Dec 21, 2025 9:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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What people really want which is something I know you are pretty resistant to - is point orbiting the knob. The modulator itself also needs to be animated too for the full combo. Eg if unison detune is being modulated by 1 of the 3 LFOs, you can gauge how the orbiting point moves and it's speed then look at the animated LFOs on the right, it will pretty easy to figure out which is the correct one. With this it's really easy to analyze patches, because our eyes can detect similarities when everything is visualized.

I'm aware that the point loses its meaning when it's being modulated by multiple sources or high speed. But the Serum, Phase Plant people dont seem to complaint about it.

And it's not just the orbiting points, there are obvious stuff that helps with this too: filter & osc waveform visualization (in the mini module), animated LFOs & EQs, Env curves, etc...

The panel can be closed by clicking anywhere outside of it, except the contextual matrix tab. And I dont think it matter what it's hiding underneath, because you're focusing on the mod window.
Last edited by jtsterays on Sun Dec 21, 2025 9:43 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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All these animations and visualisations are too expensive on CPU with our current framework. It just so works in Hive, which has no scrolling.

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The Vital guy got it working so I know you guys would too in the future. The visualizations in that is extremely smooth and beautiful, that guy is more of a graphic coder than a synth one.

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The plugin is always loosing the license card — every time when I add Zebra to the DAW (Live 12.3.2) I see «Registered to Beta Tester». I'm on Mac OS 15.7.2

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Andrei Marchenko wrote: Sun Dec 21, 2025 9:47 pm The plugin is always loosing the license card — every time when I add Zebra to the DAW (Live 12.3.2) I see «Registered to Beta Tester». I'm on Mac OS 15.7.2
I stupidly dated the beta license newer than most of people's automatic Z3 license. The beta license will automatically disappear at some point, or with the final release version.

If you want it to disappear earlier, you just need to manually remove the bet license card from here:

Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/u-he
Win: C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\u-he
Linux: Dunno, ask our support team...

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jtsterays wrote: Sun Dec 21, 2025 9:40 pm The Vital guy got it working so I know you guys would too in the future. The visualizations in that is extremely smooth and beautiful, that guy is more of a graphic coder than a synth one.
I think he uses OpenGL though, which I am afraid is a PITA for plug-ins. I know of several companies which switched to OpenGL, then after a while switched back because it cost too much support.

We're going to refactor our rendering backend so that we can switch between different methods and frameworks. So that if we need to switch again at any point, we just need to pop in a different backend, where the old one still works best for old systems and the new one takes over for newer systems.

Those lessons that one learns after doing these things for long enough...

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Urs wrote: Sun Dec 21, 2025 10:00 pm
jtsterays wrote: Sun Dec 21, 2025 9:40 pm The Vital guy got it working so I know you guys would too in the future. The visualizations in that is extremely smooth and beautiful, that guy is more of a graphic coder than a synth one.
I think he uses OpenGL though, which I am afraid is a PITA for plug-ins. I know of several companies which switched to OpenGL, then after a while switched back because it cost too much support.

We're going to refactor our rendering backend so that we can switch between different methods and frameworks. So that if we need to switch again at any point, we just need to pop in a different backend, where the old one still works best for old systems and the new one takes over for newer systems.

Those lessons that one learns after doing these things for long enough...
I see, beautiful but buggy. Hope to see it soon though, I know you are aware, that for a lot of people, the main issue with Z3 is its “huge learning curve. I believe this perception mostly stems from the lack of visualizations. Once the animations are implemented, it will definitely pull a lot of people to Z3, and hopefully the Serum/Phaseplant people. They are probably Zebra's biggest haters and if you can pull some of them, you've succeeded.

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To offer a different viewpoint, I'd prefer it if Zebra 3 didn't look like an animated spaceship console. :D

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There definitely are people who want the moving rings/dots or whatever. But (not that anyone asked) I personally am not sure I do. I kinda agree with Urs' take tbh. Those animations can be nice sometimes, but there are so many cases where they don't help... a kick drum envelope moves too fast to pick up any detail visually, modnoise would be a nightmare, etc etc... And the cases where the animations provide the clearest info are often also the ones where it's easiest to hear what's happening anyway.

Doesn't mean I would mind seeing what U-He could do with it. But if I may add a humble voice to the mix I wouldn't say it's the highest priority.

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