Zebra 3 Public Beta 3 Revision 20977

[eclipse_soundlab]

Been late to the party and only demo'd Zebra 3 today. It sounds phenomenal and has massive potential. But I personally find the UX highly unsatisfactory.

Is there still time left for UI/UX suggestions?

The UI is okay (for me), but I'm not a fan of the aspect ratio. It should be more 16:9 than 4:5. There’s a lot of unused space. Even having the mod matrix on the side would help. Of course, I don’t expect this anytime soon since there are other priorities.

[Urs]

Been late to the party and only demo'd Zebra 3 today. It sounds phenomenal and has massive potential. But I personally find the UX highly unsatisfactory.

Is there still time left for UI/UX suggestions?

The UI is still being worked on. We have completely reworked the layout of every module and devised new colour schemes, alongside a plethora of UX improvements. Those will be in the next beta (which might be the final version).

[Urs]

Congratulations, I think this is the synth I'm going to be using as my main workhorse for the next decade once it's done! The OSCs and Filters sound fantastic. I just have a few thoughts and ideas..

OSCs:

There needs to be an easier way how to add basic/ saved waveforms after you have deleted them from the top view, having to manually draw a sine wave in after it's deleted is a pain in the ass lol.

There's a lot of copy and paste and stuff, but for 3.1 we'll probably add individual waveform presets and presets for the whole set.

For context overview whilst making some Dubstep/ Neuro/ Cinematic wobble basses, it would be nice if there was a function where you could set a level of randomisation between the curve morph so that by modulating an LFO or MSEG between the windows you get a bit more unpredictability. Note in Serum I understand that wavetables are setup in such a way where this quite easy however it can sound thin, overly digital and metallic so I assume this would be a similar result with if each window had that. Just something that makes it easier to set up rather than programming 16 different windows and using the morph function in each one. You already have your cleanup, beauty and simply functions so hopefully with these algorithms, it would mitigate some of the 'thiness' of some of these user friendly sounds to make in other soft synths.

I don't quite follow what you mean... passing it on to the team.

Phase Rotation I think needs to be a visible function. When I was trying to make the big CS-80 blade runner leads (or a more authentic recreation of Rufus Du Sol Innerbloom Lead) I kept running into phase issues even when stacking just two oscillators with high un-calibration like in your Youtube video. Given how warm the Osc and filters sound I feel something like this in the OSC editor needs to be addressed.

Oscs will have a Phase parameter on the UI in Wavetable Render Mode.

Detune knob need a logarithmic function the shift key is fine but with modulation it becomes a mess for programming.

So we have the same scaling here as in any of our other synths... can you name a specific synth and application where this has advantages when done differently?

I look forward to your import wavetable functionalities more and hope that these will be more detailed and fixed it the release.

I will look it not this down the road, but it's not a priority at the moment.

User Guide:
The Posterize function I can't seem to set up correctly or not using the right modulation path in Zebra or Zebralette this needs much more detail or a tip note like you do in other sections.

Will pass it on, ask for examples.

Modal: I think it would be amazing if the modal had a self oscillating function built in. Something where I can use all the cool built in FX like creating synth based robot FX without hearing the sound of the OSC, FMO or Noise before it.

Modal synthesis by definition works with an excitation signal. The oscillator itself can however do similar things (Additive Renderer, Spectral Decay)

Distortion/ foldback are a little bit strange in terms of dialling the settings and the sound quality of these might need to be improved.

I'll pass it on.

GUI: I'm sure lots will have suggestions on this but for me the most obvious fix needs to be a right click function on the right side below Envelope 1 to add LFOs MSEGs etc.

Hah! That's a difficult one. Chicken and egg problem. We hide Modulators that are not in use. So if we make an unused Modulator visible, it'll immediately disappear, kind of.

Also: If the rack is full, where do you click?

Hence, the convention in Zebra has always been, Modulators are instantiated "on target", which makes them visible.

This is why at the bottom we have that bar with draggable modulation sources, so that a) it's easy to see which modulator is active and b) any modulator can be dragged and instantiated even if currently unused.

In the preset menu it would be great if there is the optionality to rename the favourites categories also make an easier way to add and remove tabs from the sidebar. For context I'd like to be able to make sounds on the fly with my laptop and have an easy way to import my own banks and presets to another computer. Have customisable categories by user (in my case myself) and sub categories eg. Category: Basses into set sub category folders 'FM Donks' 'Reese Bass' 'Neuro/ Complex' etc. It's quite annoying if I was to set a sound in a category that I would have other artist banks and sounds lumped in their as well.

While saving presets I want to be able to save it to a category, name a sub category, tag, features, character like you have in the tag section and a way to modify these tags to fit in the tag editor directory to organise all my sounds.

I know this is a lot and quite specific to my circumstances but I would love if you could implement some of these changes in the next revision.

^^ passed on to the team

[mindlessgenius]

I still struggle a bit with some things on Linux, e.g. "copy curve as SVG" does only work inside one instance of Zebra3, but not between instances or outside of the host. Does anybody know if I have to set some permissions for programs to have access to the same memory slots?

[ThoughtExperiment]

... in the next beta (which might be the final version).

I latched onto this little comment Looking forward to v3.1 release, because then we'll be getting loads of u-He video tutorials. What can I say - I'm getting old, I need my hand holding sometimes

[krans]

This is not a suggestion or a request, more a thought that comes to mind now and then when using Zebra3 a lot these last months, and during my years of working a lot with Zebra2/HZ:

The one design choice I've been wondering the most about with Zebra, is the strict distinction between the Main grid and the FX grid. It's rather usual for me to get in a situation where I'd wish I could drop a compressor in the Main grid, or when using Zebra3 I've quite a few times wondered how this would sound if I could put a Delay before the Modal module. Things like that.

I'm not really questioning the design choice, it's part of what makes Zebra Zebra. But CPU wise I guess it wouldn't do much difference if any module could be dropped anywhere, and it would just make the semi modular synth a bit more modular.

Is there a particular reason for this clear distinction?

[loctune]

Been late to the party and only demo'd Zebra 3 today. It sounds phenomenal and has massive potential. But I personally find the UX highly unsatisfactory.

Is there still time left for UI/UX suggestions?

The UI is still being worked on. We have completely reworked the layout of every module and devised new colour schemes, alongside a plethora of UX improvements. Those will be in the next beta (which might be the final version).

Glad to hear that improvements are going on! This is the first time I use a synth from u-he, and I fall in love with the sound and flexibility almost immediately.

However, I do find there are quite a few “old school” UX designs that could use some improvements. I’ll try to write down my thoughts and post it here (gonna be a long post), and hopefully my perspective as a new Zebra user may be of some use for you!

[benmason]

Congratulations, I think this is the synth I'm going to be using as my main workhorse for the next decade once it's done! The OSCs and Filters sound fantastic. I just have a few thoughts and ideas..

OSCs:

There needs to be an easier way how to add basic/ saved waveforms after you have deleted them from the top view, having to manually draw a sine wave in after it's deleted is a pain in the ass lol.

There's a lot of copy and paste and stuff, but for 3.1 we'll probably add individual waveform presets and presets for the whole set.

For context overview whilst making some Dubstep/ Neuro/ Cinematic wobble basses, it would be nice if there was a function where you could set a level of randomisation between the curve morph so that by modulating an LFO or MSEG between the windows you get a bit more unpredictability. Note in Serum I understand that wavetables are setup in such a way where this quite easy however it can sound thin, overly digital and metallic so I assume this would be a similar result with if each window had that. Just something that makes it easier to set up rather than programming 16 different windows and using the morph function in each one. You already have your cleanup, beauty and simply functions so hopefully with these algorithms, it would mitigate some of the 'thiness' of some of these user friendly sounds to make in other soft synths.

I don't quite follow what you mean... passing it on to the team.

Phase Rotation I think needs to be a visible function. When I was trying to make the big CS-80 blade runner leads (or a more authentic recreation of Rufus Du Sol Innerbloom Lead) I kept running into phase issues even when stacking just two oscillators with high un-calibration like in your Youtube video. Given how warm the Osc and filters sound I feel something like this in the OSC editor needs to be addressed.

Oscs will have a Phase parameter on the UI in Wavetable Render Mode.

Detune knob need a logarithmic function the shift key is fine but with modulation it becomes a mess for programming.

So we have the same scaling here as in any of our other synths... can you name a specific synth and application where this has advantages when done differently?

I look forward to your import wavetable functionalities more and hope that these will be more detailed and fixed it the release.

I will look it not this down the road, but it's not a priority at the moment.

User Guide:
The Posterize function I can't seem to set up correctly or not using the right modulation path in Zebra or Zebralette this needs much more detail or a tip note like you do in other sections.

Will pass it on, ask for examples.

Modal: I think it would be amazing if the modal had a self oscillating function built in. Something where I can use all the cool built in FX like creating synth based robot FX without hearing the sound of the OSC, FMO or Noise before it.

Modal synthesis by definition works with an excitation signal. The oscillator itself can however do similar things (Additive Renderer, Spectral Decay)

Distortion/ foldback are a little bit strange in terms of dialling the settings and the sound quality of these might need to be improved.

I'll pass it on.

GUI: I'm sure lots will have suggestions on this but for me the most obvious fix needs to be a right click function on the right side below Envelope 1 to add LFOs MSEGs etc.

Hah! That's a difficult one. Chicken and egg problem. We hide Modulators that are not in use. So if we make an unused Modulator visible, it'll immediately disappear, kind of.

Also: If the rack is full, where do you click?

Hence, the convention in Zebra has always been, Modulators are instantiated "on target", which makes them visible.

This is why at the bottom we have that bar with draggable modulation sources, so that a) it's easy to see which modulator is active and b) any modulator can be dragged and instantiated even if currently unused.

In the preset menu it would be great if there is the optionality to rename the favourites categories also make an easier way to add and remove tabs from the sidebar. For context I'd like to be able to make sounds on the fly with my laptop and have an easy way to import my own banks and presets to another computer. Have customisable categories by user (in my case myself) and sub categories eg. Category: Basses into set sub category folders 'FM Donks' 'Reese Bass' 'Neuro/ Complex' etc. It's quite annoying if I was to set a sound in a category that I would have other artist banks and sounds lumped in their as well.

While saving presets I want to be able to save it to a category, name a sub category, tag, features, character like you have in the tag section and a way to modify these tags to fit in the tag editor directory to organise all my sounds.

I know this is a lot and quite specific to my circumstances but I would love if you could implement some of these changes in the next revision.

^^ passed on to the team

Thank you for such a quick response back! I'll just go through your replies.

OSC: I could be wrong on this but in Serum 2 you can cycle through a waveform which produces different wavetables as snapshots. This differs to the curve morph of A and B where you have two different waves and it's morphing between each other. I was wondering if there was a way you could have a mode like this in the OSC section? Alternatively, I thought it would be cool to have a way to create some randomness or morphing that behaves like wavetable snapshots.

The detune after 15/20 cents sounds completely inharmonic and quite useless unless you want to do some really crazy stuff. I tried various soft synths and they don't go as high as 100 cents for their detuning so it makes modulation of the detune a little bit more finicky by using the shift key and editing in real time. This is why I suggested a log function for the detune.

With the GUI I 100% see your point, maybe just a revised GUI for the bar where it has perform, matrix etc. to have an easy view of LFOs. I know there isn't a lot of space but it's really useful when I can set up an LFO before applying the modulation. Maybe a way of compacting the task bar like for the MSEG easy view for example a double click to close all the MSEG or Mapper views or in that bar, Two MSEGs, Mappers, LFOs. I'm not 100% sure on this because I know you guys might also put a functionality for an arp on that bar as well.

One more thing on the distortion I know you have the soft/ hard clip functions but it would be cool to have 'natural' transformer modes similar to Kazrog True Iron or modelled synth (eg. juno, jup, prophet) circuitry as saturation inside the distortion module.

Oh and I forgot to add for the EQ maybe an expanded view like the OSC and MSEGs so that modulating the bands inside the EQ can be easier to be frequency specific when modulating. Could add functionalities to make it even crazier like Morph EQ by Minimal Audio automated pathway functions which can be modulated with the CRTL parameters/ a record pathway set by the frequency, volume and Q point inside the EQ.

Thank you so much and for your teams hard work. I should note I already bought your synth in the beta $179 euros is an amazing price and it shows you really care about your customers!

[Tracewidth]

Urs et alia,

As part of my working process I often set a keyboard transpose. With regard to Zebra 3's transpose functionality:

A) Thanks for including this incredibly useful feature and putting it in an intuitive and accessible location in the UI.

B) I consistently have difficulty navigating the tall dropdown menu as implemented, particularly in that it starts the user at -24 semitones and the majority of the list runs off the bottom of the screen (for me on my MacBook).

If there were a way to type in the value (this avoiding the dropdown) or if the value could be set by a mouse click-and-drag it would represent a substantial workflow improvement.

Thanks!

[pdxindy]

I'm not really questioning the design choice, it's part of what makes Zebra Zebra. But CPU wise I guess it wouldn't do much difference if any module could be dropped anywhere, and it would just make the semi modular synth a bit more modular.

Is there a particular reason for this clear distinction?

It would make a big difference for CPU because up in the main grid it is per voice and down in FX it is global.

[JoeLowery215]

Urs, as a "beta tester" I wish it was easier to make things start clicky. I noticed the Attack on the envelopes have a .10ms limit. They should be able to go down to 0. For instance, I'm trying to replicate the CR-78 cymbal and it's impossible without a click at the start on the white noise.

From the user guide:

Faster attacks
Although setting the attack to zero can still create clicks, especially with pure tones, it is not
extremely fast by default. For maximum click, set V1 to init and turn the knob up to maximum.

Thanks, I've tried that and it still doesn't produce a click with noise. Does it work for you?

[pdxindy]

If there were a way to type in the value (this avoiding the dropdown) or if the value could be set by a mouse click-and-drag it would represent a substantial workflow improvement.

Thanks!

Mousewheel scrolls the value.

[JoeLowery215]

All modulations can be positive or negative, in the Matrix as well as in the direct mods. So you can modulate pitch up and volume down...?

Right but the only way to modulate pitch down but from starting at the current pitch you already have set is by inverting the MSEG (so it goes from the bottom to the top) and then having negative modulation set.

[krans]

I'm not really questioning the design choice, it's part of what makes Zebra Zebra. But CPU wise I guess it wouldn't do much difference if any module could be dropped anywhere, and it would just make the semi modular synth a bit more modular.

Is there a particular reason for this clear distinction?

It would make a big difference for CPU because up in the main grid it is per voice and down in FX it is global.

Ah, yes of course!

[benmason]

Urs I'm sincerely sorry for the spam.

For the OSC section I figured out you can get similar wavetable snapshots to Serum. By randomly drawing shapes and patterns and then modulating with the 'Delta X' in OSC FX and my god hats off because it sounds my smooth but also exactly the right edge and texture.

A couple of suggestions on this:

Hidden X/Y Axis controls of individual points can be mapped via CRTL, LFOs or DAW Automation for record. Using Warp functions eg. linear, expo, cubic inside the OSC editor and in the morph editor you could really get some wild results in conjunction with OSC FX.

A 3rd OSC FX? At the moment I'm using Delta X and Map-O-Matic to get some sick growls but then it would be helpful having another OSC FX for a window mapping parts of volume to a guide and then syncing depth to an LFO or MSEG.

And just an expanded window option for that EQ. Don't worry about my other jibberish about the minimal audio EQ, I can just record automation from my DAW.

EDIT: A re-trigger function on the noise generator would be helpful. I know by design noise is designed to be random but if I'm doing drum design like in Microtonic it has it so that the noise re-triggers the same every time. Maybe a randomness function or something similar like for the OSCs.