Zebra 3 - Sound design, tips & tricks

[NAD]

Thank you very much! Haven't tried it yet but judging from the video it sounds not half bad. I appreciate the other profiles as well.

I would love for Urs to release the official tool for this though.

He mentioned they might eventually but I'm not holding my breath!

[joradn]

Thank you very much! Haven't tried it yet but judging from the video it sounds not half bad. I appreciate the other profiles as well.

He mentioned they might eventually but I'm not holding my breath!

I was curious to see if I could also grab a profile of the attack stage and put them in parallel to get a closer sound. The result is not too audibly convincing, but it looks quite similar on the spectrometer.



I'll stop spamming this thread with videos now.

[stippenstoh]

A question...I made a simple Low Pass Gate using an MSEG as trigger for both amp and LP filter. A curve morph acts as controlling decay time. The problem I run into is: when it's opened up, so sounds have a longer decay, and then I quickly close it down, already created decays are also affected by the closing filter and disappear.

How do I get around that, so that already generated sounds act like in real life and ring out unaffected, while newly created notes are affected by the LPG control?

I attached the preset, turning Ctrl-A up for long decays and then abruptly turning it down illustrates the problem.

simple low pass gate.h2p.zip

[NAD]

How do I get around that, so that already generated sounds act like in real life and ring out unaffected, while newly created notes are affected by the LPG control?

One option is to control the curve morph with velocity rather than Ctrl A. Not a perfect solution but at least the the MSEG curve won't morph in the middle of a note.

[stippenstoh]

Thanks NAD, that solves the problem but I'd like to keep control of the decay.
Making a realistic LPG isn't as straight forward as I thought.

[stippenstoh]

I'm trying to emulate the Behringer Edge (Moog DFAM clone). It has an 8 step sequencer and each step has its own pitch and velocity control knobs.

I have a MIDI controller with 8 knobs and thought about assigning each step of an 8 step Mapper in Zebra to those knobs to control velocity but I fail to understand how, or even if, this is possible

02.jpg

[Urs]

Not possible until we add a sequencer...

[NAD]

I have a MIDI controller with 8 knobs and thought about assigning each step of an 8 step Mapper in Zebra to those knobs to control velocity but I fail to understand how, or even if, this is possible

Long story short I don't think that's gonna work. For one thing, Zebra 3 can only accommodate 4 freely assignable CCs (i.e. Ctrl A/B/C/D). The other thing is that Mapper steps cannot be a modulation target. Can't think of any way to get around that.

Edit: I take back the first point. Of course there's MIDI learn! Second point still stands though.

[stippenstoh]

Thanks guys!

[samgreening]

Thanks NAD, that solves the problem but I'd like to keep control of the decay.
Making a realistic LPG isn't as straight forward as I thought.

You could put the notes with different decays on different MIDI channels (but all going to the same Zebra3 instance) - then only the Control-A CC for the matching channel will affect those notes. Slightly painful to setup in some DAWs, but it does work.

This doesn't solve it for playing live though! For that it would be useful to have some kind of mod-matrix or mod-math option that samples the CC at the start of each note.

[NAD]

Thanks NAD, that solves the problem but I'd like to keep control of the decay.
Making a realistic LPG isn't as straight forward as I thought.

[...] it would be useful to have some kind of mod-matrix or mod-math option that samples the CC at the start of each note.

That IS possible! That had not occurred to us, dude . Try this:
1. Start with the default patch
2. In Envelope 1 set the Trigger to One Shot, then attack decay and sustain to zero
3. Create a modulation from CtrlA to Env1 Decay with Depth all the way up
4. In the matrix slot for the modulation you just created, click the Sample & Hold modifier menu ("SH"—second from right on the bottom of the matrix slot) and select Gate
5. Go to town!

You can achieve this with an MSEG as well by controlling the Curve Morph but you have to use the Matrix rather than the direct modulation on the MSEG panel. Neat!

[samgreening]

Thanks NAD, that solves the problem but I'd like to keep control of the decay.
Making a realistic LPG isn't as straight forward as I thought.

[...] it would be useful to have some kind of mod-matrix or mod-math option that samples the CC at the start of each note.

That IS possible! That had not occurred to us, dude . [...]

Ahhh amazing! Should have actually checked if that existed before replying ahaha.

[jrgillam]

Has any clever person created a utility to convert tradition Hive/Serum-style wave tables to Zebra3 oscillator presets?

I’m sure I wouldn’t be the only grateful one were such a tool to appear…

[Urs]

Zebras oscillators work differently. Our work on this prove to be very hit and miss, we do not think it is worth following up.

[Igro]

Has any clever person created a utility to convert tradition Hive/Serum-style wave tables to Zebra3 oscillator presets?

I’m sure I wouldn’t be the only grateful one were such a tool to appear…

I think for just ordinary standard wavetables a dedicated module would serve way better (without editing possibilities, just for playing them). I think it would be much easier to implement and as a result to have the best of both worlds in Z3 (and attract more people who are used to those standard and "import" friendly wavetables).