Zebra 3 Public Beta (final beta)

[Benjamin923]

I’d be genuinely curious to hear a couple examples from your own setup that you find compelling, not as a placebo caller, just to see if I can hear something, subtle or otherwise

Knowing KVR though this runs a heavy risk of making this thread the AVX vs SSE tribers

[KBSoundSmith]

I call bullshit on differences in sound between AVX and SSE

You know what? As long as they keep the switch in the release version I don't give a damn whether you call bullshit or not. You probably learned what those things even mean today.

Perhaps you ought not to be so quick to say such things? Recently, it has seemed new accounts are in a rush to prove themselves fools.

[EvilDragon]

You probably learned what those things even mean today.

Not really, I know very well what they are.

[werter318]

I’d be genuinely curious to hear a couple examples from your own setup that you find compelling, not as a placebo caller, just to see if I can hear something, subtle or otherwise

Knowing KVR though this runs a heavy risk of making this thread the AVX vs SSE tribers

Alright thanks for the respectful comment! I rendered 2 versions in 44.1kHz 32 bit FP, but to make it a little more fun I didn't label them (yet). I literally picked 2 random presets and played them alternating. Let me know any thoughts!

https://1drv.ms/u/c/746d75e7c27bfe8e/IQ ... U?e=Rm9tFq

[Benjamin923]

Can anyone point to me some good examples of CPU heavy/melting patches that showcase the quality? I want to get a good sense of how Z3 fares on my CPU and also what kind of quality comes with the increased load

Just use the Yellow filter on one or two oscillators. I think it sounds amazing, but the price in terms of CPU is steep.

If you want a reference, compare modules of Zebra 3 to modules of Zebra 2. Every single comparable module in Zebra 3 is at least twice as expensive on CPU, but offers objectively better sound quality, sometimes higher temporal resolution etc. Filters from Zebra 2 that can't do audio rate modulation can do so in Zebra 3. Envelopes can be modulated dynamically in Zebra 3 while in Zebra 2 the modulation was always "frozen" during stages. The ModMatrix in Zebra 3 is a completely different thing with its modifiers, and so are FMOs which are now dual oscillators.

The main culprit of excessive CPU usage in Z3 are heavy oscillator effects when run at high resolution, and Diva-quality filters, which are stereo in Z3. People wanted Diva-quality filters, and they got them. So here we are

What’s the rub on the Yellow filter? Have there been significant advancements in circuit modelling since the Diva-era or is it “just” a Diva-style filter in stereo?

It’s funny. I was a very active producer about a decade ago, I remember heavily the zero-delay feedback marketing as a selling point of the cutting edge in digital filter design. It was associated with being expensive on CPU but bringing a sonic quality unavailable previously. It’s not obvious to me as a consumer if there has been a similarly marketable technology advancement in the DSP filter space since. This is somewhat off-topic, but do you have any feelings on this? I.e. what most distinctly is the ‘best’ filter today doing that wasn’t being done by the ‘best’ filter 10 years ago?

[EvilDragon]

Yellow filter is EDP Wasp filter, modelled by the one and only Vadim Z.

[wagtunes]

I don't know what AVX and SSE are but I doubt I could hear the difference.

[werter318]

I don't know what AVX and SSE are but I doubt I could hear the difference.

I posted the examples, my advice would be to play it in your best monitoring daw and try to feel it more than hear it.

[Urs]

Yellow filter is EDP Wasp filter, modelled by the one and only Vadim Z.

Hehehe, while Vadim is doing the heavy lifting here, it is a team effort, and having an electronics engineer has proven invaluable.

For instance, we have our own super high impedance probe that gives us more precise readouts from inside the filter than anything we could buy:

Parrot Counter.jpg

[swilow11]

Unfortunately that's pretty much where it ends for me. The workflow is brutal. Why a separate routing interface for both Oscs and FX, with the same things in both, instead of just one matrix where unlimited instances of any module can be added? Why the fixed (slider-based) envelope positions? The popup filter configurator/matrix makes absolutely no sense. Also, why not just show us graphically what the filter is doing?. You can't sweep the EQ filters en masse without individually assigning them (or alternatively there's supposedly workaround hack that can be done with the pitch?).

Maybe this kind of workflow appeals to someone like Hanz Zimmer who has all day to experiment with different routings options that ultimately produce relatively similar results, but for people who have a general target sound in mind and want to get there fast, Zebra is like the anti-workflow. It's a shame. I spent 3 hours getting lost into building 2 patches and spun a few mudpies out of each, but that's like a deathmarch pace of work. I'm trying to get out of the business of spending hours lost in sound design, so at this point, I'll probably put this one aside and maybe check in on this thread from time time to see how things are progressing.

I'm kinda with you. Zebra3 is probably one of the most interesting, versatile and honestly deep synths I've used. The sound design possibilities are unlike anything else. The FX are amazingly sweet.

But for me, I'm also trying to wind down the time I spend noodling away at a patch. I love doing it but also feel like my very finite time for music gets eaten up massively. I've got Serum2, Phase Plant, Massive X, FM8, Hive 2,Reaktor, Bitwig all of which are complex beassts that havr taken me years to even approach mastery of. I would love to have the time to spend on Zebra 3 but I can't really justify it. It makes sense to me and maybe isn't a perfect workflow but I get it. It's just that it's very different to what I'm used to and not necessarily different in a way that opens up new possibilities. I'm constantly trying to find analogous techniques that serve me just fine in Serum or Phase Plant and when I discover them, it's usually more complex and fiddly in a not so useful way.

But I want that awesome additive oscillator and so I've decided that the extent to which I'll go (for now) is Zebralette 3. This alone has enough capability to really stretch my skills while still pushing my music forward. In truth, this single oscillator is probably the most versatile thing I've got. Just learning what this can do is likely many months of applied effort. But this is also where I've had to make the call- if one oscillator is as complex/versatile as this, add 3 more, and then everything modal/FM/etc and the complexity of routing/fz assignation/etc- the learning curve here is just too much for me right now.

In short, I'd say that this is probably the best synth of the moment and can do things that are utterly unique. I am in awe of UHE and how effectively they've been able to create something super unique wile still being usable but I just can't justify the time I would need on it.

I'd love a slightly more complex Zebralette 3. Maybe the architecture of Hive2 which I love and use always, but with the Zebra 3 additive oscillators. Like a Zebra 3 lite. I would snap this up instantly. And there's still a huge likelihood that I'll ultimately pick up Zebra 3 but right now, it's aimed at a user base that I'm trying to step out of.

Kudos to the team for bringing this amazing thing to life. I'll keep monitoring development and hope that Hive 3 emerges with Zebra 3 oscillators.

[Urs]

Hehehe, I'd argue, Zebra 3 is its own Zebra 3 light.

Nobody prevents anyone from just using it for the oscillator + MSEG alone, with an occasional filter, a mapper or the extra LFO added to the patch.

[wagtunes]

I don't know what AVX and SSE are but I doubt I could hear the difference.

I posted the examples, my advice would be to play it in your best monitoring daw and try to feel it more than hear it.

Okay, I played them both. I don't hear or feel any difference.

[sunthief01]

I'm definitely showing my ignorance here, but ive also heard that some "analog modeled" filters in other synths are actually based on Impulse Responses. I'm personally not any kind of DSP whiz but that makes a kind of sense to me - especially after recent experiments in EXPs FilterTable for instance

No idea how common that implementation is or how it would work but it makes sense to me as a way to try to accurately capture certain characteristics of analog filter response

[EvilDragon]

Finite/Infinite Impulse Response (FIR/IIR) filters, you mean. That's old-style DSP, good if you want your plugin to sound like early 2000s

[Urs]

I'm definitely showing my ignorance here, but ive also heard that some "analog modeled" filters in other synths are actually based on Impulse Responses. I'm personally not any kind of DSP whiz but that makes a kind of sense to me - especially after recent experiments in EXPs FilterTable for instance

No idea how common that implementation is or how it would work but it makes sense to me as a way to try to accurately capture certain characteristics of analog filter response

Impulse responses make no sense to me. Filters are a highly dynamic system of interacting parts. One needs to math this out, and the maths of electronic circuits is a pretty well studied topic.

Sadly, I've heard that some people create models from hardware that they do not have in front of them. They just listen to samples and hope for the best. Bizarre.