u-he

stevechristian · Post by **stevechristian** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 1:42 pm

ttoz wrote: Secondly, to answer the general "create your own presets " comments, i will make this very simple. This, creating my own sounds from scratch, will never happen. I work very fast and like to have a huge palette of sounds to choose from, once i have found CLOSE to what i need, then i tweak it to make it sit right for my mix...sometimes but rarely a preset is just perfect as is...but yes, i do tweak, quite a lot, but not create, and do not intend starting to.

I've never understood this thinking because isn't the whole point to "create" music? I mean that sound in your head can only be created if you know how to do it. I have friends like this as well and what I tell them is that if they actually knew how to use a synthesizer, they'd stop wasting time trying to find and tweak a preset that works in their track. For me, I've always strived to take that sound in my head and recreate it using the tools I have. Zebra2 allows me to do that better then any other synth out there.

beej · Post by **beej** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 2:12 pm

Different strokes for different folks.

For some people, designing and building the piano is every bit as much part of the music making process as playing the notes.
But others have no interest in creating sounds or instruments, and just want to compose and arrange.

It's all good...

stevechristian · Post by **stevechristian** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 2:17 pm

You're right. I guess for me I enjoy building the synth patch as much (maybe even more sometimes) as I do arranging and composing.

dln · Post by **dln** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 7:56 pm

ttoz, zebra is a modular synth (needing external inputs

). It's power comes from it's flexibility and open-ended-ness. Any presets you find are more like tutorials or starting points for you to shape the sound you need for your composition. Or experiment to find something new.

I can honestly say that I have yet to find an unachievable timbre or character in Zebra - It has some niggles, of course, but it's basically just a newborn still, and (to me at least) there are no showstoppers, just a few inconveniences / openings-for-improvements.

Z2 is mean on bass if you want it to be. I use it for subbass all the time. And the XMF filter is just massive, especially combined with others. Or it can go absolutely bonkers with modulation using MSEG's and step-LFOs.

That being said, what kind of sounds are you looking for? Perhaps other users on here can help you get going with programming the beast? I'd be happy to share some of my own programs.

zircon · Post by **zircon** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 8:37 pm

Yeah, this synth is sick. I wish I had a Virus so I could play with it and reproduce it using Z2. I've already coaxed Zebra into making the same kinds of sounds that a certain other sample-based synth beginning with "N" makes...

Howard · Post by **Howard** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 11:24 pm

zircon wrote:Yeah, this synth is sick. I wish I had a Virus so I could play with it and reproduce it using Z2.

For me, Zebra2 is serious competition for the Virus, which had always been my favourite. Zebra2 beats the Virus TI in (to me) all the most important "disciplines". I hear strong similarities in sound character. I will take requests to clone Virus sounds

(Now if Zebra2 were a 4-multimode, 4-octave keyboard with 4 x/y pads featuring hold and decay modes, and USB to receive patches from PC/Mac... wow)

ObsoleteAcc99 · Post by **ObsoleteAcc99** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 6:44 am

[DELETED]

spaceman · Post by **spaceman** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 10:12 am

ttoz wrote:
dln wrote:ttoz, zebra is a modular synth (needing external inputs ). It's power comes from it's flexibility and open-ended-ness. Any presets you find are more like tutorials or starting points for you to shape the sound you need for your composition. Or experiment to find something new.

That being said, what kind of sounds are you looking for? Perhaps other users on here can help you get going with programming the beast? I'd be happy to share some of my own programs.
See this is the thing, we are talking about me creating my own sounds again, no use beating a dead horse.....You yourself are talking about the presets being tutorials or starting points..i want WOW instant gratification that I didn't find yet, that's all..for example like I would find with Albino3, Blue, Sonik Synth 2, FM8, Absynth etc..i like ALL kinds of sounds as I write everything from new age, classical, to pop, techno, rock... Anyway I have just noticed there is a commercial zircon bank I am going to check out and lots of goodies in the preset thread, I am sure I will find something.

p.s. everyone says this thing can actually do a virus, seriously, and some say more powerful. I dont want to get into a virus thread but you asked "what type of patches do i want", well the factory nord lead and virus ones are good examples, they just have unbelievable presets

you've mentioned a few synths with excellent default preset banks, but you'd be hard-pressed naming many others because most synths come with bad to mediocre preset banks.

I really like Albine for instance and it comes with a million presets, but to be honest, most of them are pretty dodgy in my humble opinion, or to put it an other way they are far from having a wow-factor. Many of them are usable though, just like many of the Zebra one's are usable and plenty of them are pretty darn cool. The same goes or almost any synth I've ever owned.

You either wait for some great sound designer to come along and build a great preset bank or you make them yourself.. and that's not specific to Zebra, that goes for 99% of synhts.

beej · Post by **beej** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 10:20 am

Howard wrote:I will take requests to clone Virus sounds

There is a guy (Jeremy from Nucleus Soundlab) that sells Virus sound sets, and offer a few sounds as a demo (Viral Free). One in particular had a really nice filter character, and a while ago (before 2.1) I tried to see if I could get close in Z2 and just couldn't. The filters just had a really nice character.

So, if you want a challenge, I can dig out the sound (if I can find the download) and details and post it up - I would be interested to see how close you could get...

Edit: Ok, here we go. It's from the Virual Free edition of NS's Viral Outbreak - http://www.nucleus-soundlab.com/viraloutbreak.htm

http://bj.angeltowns.com/audio/vo_galsweep.mp3

Listening to it again actually I'm sure I could get much closer now with the XFM filter - but by all means give it a go and see what you can do...

dmacintyre · Post by **dmacintyre** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 10:50 am

Howard wrote:
zircon wrote:Yeah, this synth is sick. I wish I had a Virus so I could play with it and reproduce it using Z2.
For me, Zebra2 is serious competition for the Virus, which had always been my favourite. Zebra2 beats the Virus TI in (to me) all the most important "disciplines". I hear strong similarities in sound character. I will take requests to clone Virus sounds

(Now if Zebra2 were a 4-multimode, 4-octave keyboard with 4 x/y pads featuring hold and decay modes, and USB to receive patches from PC/Mac... wow)

Sold my Ti because my Zebra is so close to what it can do that it wasn't worth having all that money sitting on my desk doing nothing (and Zebra can be updated unlike hardware, resides on my laptop for mobile creation, no issues with arp sync, doesn't take up a USB port, etc, etc, etc). Sold it and bought a lovely blonde, flame topped Gibson 335 (called Scarlett

) which gives me more pleasure AND I've still got all the lovely Virus-ey sounds that Z2 can do when I want them. And more.

Probably a few high profile sound designers signature sets to add to the HS ones might appease some users but I really have learned more trying to recreate sounds than using preset patches.

D.

Tarekith · Post by **Tarekith** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 11:48 am

Funny, but I've seriously been considering selling my TI too since using Zebra2 so much lately. I just can't find a controller keyboard with the same lovely action. If only I could find a new Fatar SL161 somewhere...

But yeah, Zebra2 can do anything the TI's can sonically IMO. You might not get the exact timbres of the TI's wavetables, but you can get really close. Zebra2 is the first synth hard or soft that has made me like my TI a little less.

Howard · Post by **Howard** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 12:18 pm

beej wrote:
Howard wrote:I will take requests to clone Virus sounds
http://bj.angeltowns.com/audio/vo_galsweep.mp3

More precisely - if I'm sent Virus patches (MIDI files) I'll try to clone them. Analyze and reconstruct...

dmacintyre · Post by **dmacintyre** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 12:21 pm

Howard wrote:
beej wrote:
Howard wrote:I will take requests to clone Virus sounds
http://bj.angeltowns.com/audio/vo_galsweep.mp3
More precisely - if I'm sent Virus patches (MIDI files) I'll try to clone them. Analyze and reconstruct...

AT Mini HS was my favourite before I sold it.

D.

dmacintyre · Post by **dmacintyre** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 12:23 pm

There was also a patch called Pensive which I likes but I can;t remember who did that one.

Howard · Post by **Howard** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 12:25 pm

Tarekith wrote:Funny, but I've seriously been considering selling my TI too since using Zebra2 so much lately. I just can't find a controller keyboard with the same lovely action. If only I could find a new Fatar SL161 somewhere...

I had an SL-161 that died on me. Replaced with an Emu X-board - more robust, better aftertouch, 16 knobs and display.

u-he

KVR Audio

any new zebra 2 commercial or otherwise banks available?