Zebra3 Info

[pitchdrifter]

Back on Z3.

Is it done yet?

[pdxindy]

TBH, i'm not much into presets. At least all three S-synths have velocity and AT as modulation sources.

Anyway, even if these assignements are omitted in the facotry presets I fail to see how it may positively influence someone's bying decisions

First, the discussion is about tendencies, not absolutes.

If someone makes a preset that is not meant to be used with any CC controllers, then they are more likely to build in some automatic modulation. So one might have a preset where an LFO slowly raises the filter cutoff and another preset where filter cutoff is modulated by expression pedal. Someone 'playing' some notes who has no expression pedal may find the first preset more interesting because it changes over time and the second preset less interesting because it seems more static. The second preset is not more static, but is designed with the expectation that the person using it will control the dynamics in realtime.

Serum does not support expression pedal as a modulation source and none of the S-synths support note per midi channel controllers. Expressive playing (or classic musicianship) is not their focus.

I recently purchased a Linnstrument. Using Logic, the u-he synths (Zebra not until v3) work beautifully with it and it provides a whole new level of expressive playing.

[Cyoon]

lol

I think kvr needs private chat rooms.

There is an irc channel on freenode btw. A group on slack would be cool as well actualy. We could speak about zebra there as well.

[pdxindy]

lol

I think kvr needs private chat rooms.

There is an irc channel on freenode btw. A group on slack would be cool as well actualy. We could speak about zebra there as well.

Ryver... it is like Slack, but does not cost money regardless of how many users

[Nutrinoland]

What by the way is S Synths and O synths ?

[omiroad]

For those who go off-topic: take it somewhere else.

[omiroad]

What by the way is S Synths and O synths ?

Serum, Sylenth1, Omnisphere? ...MaSSive?

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

On the topic of Aftertouch assignments, I don't have a controller with Aftertouch, but I do have an expression pedal. If there was some way to globally reassign one parameter to another without having to go in and manually reassign them in every patch, it would be a time saver. Sure, the patch may not work as expected if expression was used elsewhere, but it would still be better than nothing for someone in my situation.

[mholloway]

What by the way is S Synths and O synths ?

It started in this thread as short-hand for Serum, Sylenth and Spire.

O would be Omnisphere, I believe.

[pdxindy]

On the topic of Aftertouch assignments, I don't have a controller with Aftertouch, but I do have an expression pedal. If there was some way to globally reassign one parameter to another without having to go in and manually reassign them in every patch, it would be a time saver. Sure, the patch may not work as expected if expression was used elsewhere, but it would still be better than nothing for someone in my situation.

You can use Pizmidi VST midi utilities to remap...

[Der Tatortreiniger]

Thank you Urs for involving yourself in the user community and actually listening to user feedback (regardless of how misinformed it may be). I have grown to dislike NI over the years because they seem to care very little what the user community has to say... everyone has been looking forward to significant updates for FM8, Absynth, Massive, etc. for a while now, but all NI seems to be interested in is Maschine, Kontakt libraries (not even Kontakt itself!) and low-risk commercial Reaktor ensembles (Form, Polyplex, Rounds)... I have full confidence that u-he will not go down this path.

To the point: I have used Zebra, Massive, and Serum side-by-side for a few years now, Zebra for the longest. It needs to be pointed out: Zebra's filters, even the old pre-ZebraHZ ones, are the best! Serum especially is hamstrung by its filters (cranking their resonance and drive is almost guaranteed to make me cringe regardless of what I'm sending through them). Actually, I find Zebra to be superior to the other two in just about every way but one: the raw oscillator "sound quality". I know very little about the technology involved, but there seems to be a clarity to the oscillators of Massive and Serum (incidentally, also Diva and Hive) missing from those of Zebra, even with settings tweaked for best quality. My single-oscillator leads in Zebra always seem to be just a little more thin than they would be if I were to have made an equivalent sound in Hive, and when I make single-oscillator wavetable DnB/dubstep bass sounds in Zebra, it seems I can never get the sort of control over the frequency spectrum which I need to make sounds which are comparable to those which Massive and Serum excel at. It's like the oscillator resolution just isn't high enough or something (even with resolution at maximum), no matter how much I sit there and try to tweak waveforms or partials. The problem may just be, as you suggested earlier in the thread, the current interface, or the limit to 32 handles in GeoMorph mode. (It's pretty much impossible to recreate some of Serum's factory oscillator waveshapes in Zebra with only 32 handles.) Or maybe it's actually user error, and Howard Scarr could make fully satisfactory imitations of Massive/Serum easily if he felt like it But whatever it is about Zebra that seems to be lacking for me, it does often result in me turning to Massive to create the bass sound I was looking for or Hive to create the VA lead I wanted.

[Urs]

More handles are certainly going to happen, and more control over the curve shape in-between. Apart from the smooth vs crisp setting, the biggest drawback of Zebra currently is its limitation to 128/64 partials in the drawable waveforms. This was state of the art back then, but it obviously isn't today anymore. Oscillator effects can add more partials, but maybe not as "controlled" as when they're already there.

[Synthman2000]

these days DAW can be considered as is an instrument

Precisely. Brian Eno used the recording studio as an instrument. That studio has become virtual. I think in any time, the results should be judged, not the method.

Depends what you are doing. Also Brian Eno's music might have been considered "not real music" cause it used synths. I heard it was initially frowned upon by many. There was a video on YT where he spoke about loss of humanity in modern music, but it now seems to be "private".

https://avantmusicnews.com/2016/08/03/b ... ern-music/

When I make music I make it for humans, but to sound pretty much not of human hands. I want it sample locked to be the tightest I possibly can to warp peoples brain with hypnosis inducing rhythm. To take the listeners ability to judge timing to the edge of human timing perception.

So, all depends what you are doing and what your goal is.

There is endless subjectively "bad" music played on guitar, bass and drums and repeated over and over and over again. Many people still love it.

So the only thing wrong or right is your own perception in a moment and that is not even consistent over time and it is certainly never universal.

Make what you want and enjoy what you want.

[HunterKiller]

What by the way is S Synths and O synths ?

Serum, Sylenth1, Omnisphere? ...MaSSive?

Not being able to mention other synths or go off topic for a bit, reminds of me of Hitler, Stalin, Mao and North Korea currently.

[Urs]

What by the way is S Synths and O synths ?

Serum, Sylenth1, Omnisphere? ...MaSSive?

Not being able to mention other synths or go off topic for a bit, reminds of me of Hitler, Stalin, Mao and North Korea currently.

[...]there is a tradition in many newsgroups and other Internet discussion forums that once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned Hitler has automatically lost whatever debate was in progress.