Zebra 3 Public Beta Revision 20399

[gassle]

Not sure if this was mentioned but the GUI in Bitwig is very slow when you switch between tracks and Bitwig is set to automatically show the GUI of the plugins of the selected tracks. If I switch between two tracks with Zebra3s one takes several seconds to close while other takes several seconds to show up and often Bitwig just gives up and gets stuck with one GUI of Zebra that was not of the selected tracks. All other plugins I use open and close instantly in the same situation. M2 top of the line mbp.

[jrwaltb]

There is for sure something interesting about this Synth (honestly a hive update would of been fine for me) but its cool you guys are really excited about building this. This is more of a me problem but the learning curve is fu$%ing really high for Zebra 3 and for some reason Zebralette 3 confuses me even more. This is not a dig or does not mean I am not getting this thing but it feels like I am missing something fundamental when I use it. If anything some documentation that discusses the theory and background with context and reasoning and does not just describe how to do and modify the "complex-scientific-sounding function" which popup hints already do would really go a long way. TLDR: help!

[mgeni]

I've just installed and uninstalled Z3 for the third and final time. I find the quality of included presets depressingly low (my own attempts having similar results). If this is the best they could have come up with, then there's something wrong with the underlying concept, which frankly feels dated and would be fine maybe in 2015, both from the UI/UX perspective and sound wise. Presets could be summarized in two categories: either some retro/classic synth stuff from the past century or SFX sounds that are mostly musically unusable (in the sense that you can't "play" them harmonically, only press single key and let them warble automatically). I only felt my heart sink lower with each new preset. Maybe my expectations were unreasonably high. Maybe I put too much hope of Z3 becoming my next go-to synth, as I sincerely did. Currently I'm perplexed what other users are gushing about. Of course, I respect the amount of work put into it and don't think it is because of any lack of knowledge or effort from their side why the synth is so underwhelming. The technical craftsmanship is undeniable. But it's the soul of Z3 that feels stale, old-fashioned, overly technical, nerdy and lacking in imagination and joy. It's an engineering tour de force, which (sadly) doesn't inspire me to make any music with it. I'll be skipping this version and waiting for Z4, cca. 2040.

[PieBerger]

Currently I'm perplexed what other users are gushing about.

overly technical, nerdy...It's an engineering tour de force

One man's trash is another man's treasure

[nusound mind]

wishing you all a lovely start of 2026.

95% Zebra3 (love this thing)_enjoy

https://exmat.bandcamp.com/album/2026

Really dig this! A worthy showcase for Zebra 3 for sure, it's the best thing I've heard yet posted online featuring Z3 that I can recall.

A healthy and blessed new years yall

[nusound mind]

^ I mean it's just an overall well arranged and produced track in it's own right, Z3 or no, but don't tell me Zebra 3 cannot / doesn't sound phenomenal for the type of sounds it's suited for. I find it great for basses too so far.

[jtsterays]

When will the beta license expire?

[Urs]

the learning curve is fu$%ing really high for Zebra 3

Yes.

We will do our best to make the UI more readable in its final version. The concept itself is probably easier to follow for people who have used Zebra 2, and many of those will just upgrade. Which makes me hopeful that within the next 1-2 years there'll be widespread expertise and numerous tutorials that help people who are initially overwhelmed. But that resource has to build over time.

[Urs]

Not sure if this was mentioned but the GUI in Bitwig is very slow when you switch between tracks and Bitwig is set to automatically show the GUI of the plugins of the selected tracks.

Yes, we still have some excessive CPU consumption on UI open, which I hope we can address soon!

[Urs]

When will the beta license expire?

So I think the current beta (and thus the license) will expire in April or May 2026. The beta license will not work in the final release version, but we'll probably post another beta beforehand which will work with the license.

So when the final version comes out and you would like to continue to use the beta license till April/May, you have to stick to a beta version.

[jarenas]

the learning curve is fu$%ing really high for Zebra 3

Yes.

We will do our best to make the UI more readable in its final version. The concept itself is probably easier to follow for people who have used Zebra 2, and many of those will just upgrade. Which makes me hopeful that within the next 1-2 years there'll be widespread expertise and numerous tutorials that help people who are initially overwhelmed. But that resource has to build over time.

As a counterpoint I'm finding Z3 very easy to understand and use, but I'm coming from a Max/MSP background, it all depends on where you're coming from. I have the feeling it may be more inspired from modular environments than previous Zebra versions (I find some similarities to Bitwig too), which makes sense to me as we're not in 2006 anymore, but I can't say as I never user previous versions. I can totally understand how a subset of previous users will not get it, but at the same time I'm happy it's more aligned with what newer users may want (here is a new totally convinced user as an example).
BTW I think I read Urs on this thread talking about maybe not doing your typical arp/sequencer for next versions, that got me excited.

[Fannon]

Not sure if this has already been brought up, but I would find it very useful if the "value display" could also show the ms equivalents of some values, e.g. ADSR attack / decay / release times. In many cases, those values are documented or explained in ms. and it would be nice to understand where the value between 0-1000 lands in terms of time in ms. There are probably other values where something similar could be done, where at least showing it in different measures (like halftones) could help understand the effect better in more musical / common terms.

[Urs]

We have whole API for this, but it lived on the Uhbik branch of things. We only recently merged it back into Zebra, as we wanted top release the beta first. So yeah, ms readouts may be possible...

[ralfcoenen]

I've just installed and uninstalled Z3 for the third and final time. I find the quality of included presets depressingly low (my own attempts having similar results). If this is the best they could have come up with, then there's something wrong with the underlying concept, which frankly feels dated and would be fine maybe in 2015, both from the UI/UX perspective and sound wise. Presets could be summarized in two categories: either some retro/classic synth stuff from the past century or SFX sounds that are mostly musically unusable (in the sense that you can't "play" them harmonically, only press single key and let them warble automatically). I only felt my heart sink lower with each new preset. Maybe my expectations were unreasonably high. Maybe I put too much hope of Z3 becoming my next go-to synth, as I sincerely did. Currently I'm perplexed what other users are gushing about. Of course, I respect the amount of work put into it and don't think it is because of any lack of knowledge or effort from their side why the synth is so underwhelming. The technical craftsmanship is undeniable. But it's the soul of Z3 that feels stale, old-fashioned, overly technical, nerdy and lacking in imagination and joy. It's an engineering tour de force, which (sadly) doesn't inspire me to make any music with it. I'll be skipping this version and waiting for Z4, cca. 2040.

Freedom of endless possibilities is obviously not everybodies piece of cake. This plugin gives us endless playgrounds for every thinkable sound idea. As always presets are just starting points for one's own music. As with synths in general you can produce one person's nightmare which is other man's happiness. Focusing on things and being not distracted by features which are still not grasped will also be a good way to go. And playability is of course possible as long as the sounds are built to play. Beside of that, one should not forget that it's Beta and WIP and the long testing period is really fair. So IMHO no need for such overdone bashing.

So Thank you Urs and u-He

[atmelcool]

Hello Urs, this may seem strange, but I felt there was a lack of ability to bind the exciter pulse to the keys, so that the height of the pulse would change along with the keys. How do you look at this?
Look at this patch and imagine if there was such an opportunity, what would it sound like?

I hope that I did not misunderstand you but you can drag they "Key" function onto the "Numbers" from the exciter so you have keyfollow on the numbers of impulses.

Key1.jpg

No, that's not what I meant. I meant changing the pitch (frequency) of the sound itself.