Zebra 3 Public Beta (final beta)

[sQeetz]

still... If Control A-D were not bound to MIDI CC but freely assignable.... one can dream....

[Caine123]

Created with the first public Beta version of Zebra 3, a patch using a noise oscillator, two modal filters and an LP filter with FM.

uhhhhhhhhhhh thats absolutely my taste, will you put it in a ffuture pack?

[Urs]

still... If Control A-D were not bound to MIDI CC but freely assignable.... one can dream....

Yeah, this is probably where we're heading. We'll probably just make them automatable...

I'd love to post a rant at this point, but... sigh... platforms that are not fully compatible with (or committed to) industry standards like MIDI

[Sampleconstruct]

Created with the first public Beta version of Zebra 3, a patch using a noise oscillator, two modal filters and an LP filter with FM.

uhhhhhhhhhhh thats absolutely my taste, will you put it in a ffuture pack?

Absolutely, the collection is growing.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

still... If Control A-D were not bound to MIDI CC but freely assignable.... one can dream....

Yeah, this is probably where we're heading. We'll probably just make them automatable...

I'd love to post a rant at this point, but... sigh... platforms that are not fully compatible with (or committed to) industry standards like MIDI

I do work on the Control Surface Integrator (CSI) extension for Reaper and it is a huge pet peeve of mine too. My take on it is obvious but: larger control surface manufacturers want to lock users into their walled garden. They are usually companies that also make plug-ins, or that make DAW's. So they're going more and more in the direction of proprietary systems for use in their own DAW, or their pre-approved list of DAWs. We've got standards like MIDI (+sysex), and MCU, which has limitations, but companies want to lock their surfaces down to their DAW or pre-approved DAW, or their plugins/pre-approved plugins. It's annoying. They won't even post the technical details for sysex displays on otherwise MCU surfaces. The bigger companies all want to be Apple or do their own NKS-like things. I hope MIDI 2 stops this trend and moves things in the direction of an open standard again as the interoperability capabilities will be much higher.

If you're looking for a control surface for your DAW, and one has no idea what MIDI is, that's not the surface you should be buying IMO. That's just the manufacturer trying to lock you into their DAW for life so you never switch. That was their priority, not making a great control surface. That part was clearly secondary.

That said, because so many DAW's, and extensions like CSI, use parameter automation for control surface linking, it's always a good idea on the plug-in inside to make any on-screen controls available for automation.

My rant over.

[Fannon]

still... If Control A-D were not bound to MIDI CC but freely assignable.... one can dream....

Yeah, this is probably where we're heading. We'll probably just make them automatable...

I'd love to post a rant at this point, but... sigh... platforms that are not fully compatible with (or committed to) industry standards like MIDI

I'd be interested in your thoughts on this, especially where this should go.

I was also confused by this. I like the idea to simplify having CRTL A-B AND then also Macros. But I would have expected to just go with regular Macros as they are more flexible and more obvious in how they are used. Maybe I'm missing background and think it too simplistic, but if you just have automatable macros, then you can also use them easily via DAW automation AND you can still MIDI map then, just like any other automatable parameter. The CRTL was always awkward for me to setup / work with.

Regarding Controllers not supporting proper MIDI: I think this misses that some controllers work not just via MIDI, but via controller scripts. This makes them much more flexible as they can control any param of any plugin that I setup in the DAW (e.g. the Bigwig Device Pages). With this you can avoid mapping MIDI controls with every plugin (some don't even support it). So I think this is actually more convenient than just using standard MIDI.

[synworks]

Hi Urs!
Really awesome to see a Ratio control for the FMO finally!
This was always a missed opportunity in the past as it was almost impossible for me to tune these in using the regular tuning knobs. Many thanks for adding this now!

Still I see a bit of room for improvement even now. As Zebra 3 is beta, I have some suggestions which I hope could help to further improve Zebra to retire every Dinosaur.

Regarding the read out values, I would have prefered it if value 1 would be ratio 1, value 2 would be ratio 2 and so on.

The current implementation is like this:

0.00/0.00 = ratio 1
-1.00/1.00 = ratio 2
-2.00/2.00 = ratio 3
-3.00/3.00 = ratio 4
-4.00/4.00 = ratio 5
...

When using it for the first time, I first thought it didn't not sound right as I wasn't aware that the numbers were lying. IMO it's a better approach when the numbers match with what they do.

If this could be changed this would be really better IMO.
AFAIK, this would allow to dial in the ratio 0.5 which is also pretty useful and is supported by all Yamaha FM synths - professional ones like the DX7 and TX ones as well as the OPL soundchips for soundcards.

Visually, I have to admit, it is a great idea that the ratio knob is for two different targets (carrier and modulator) resulting in less controls and hence a simpler interface. As Zebra is not a HW device with limited space and the regular Oscillator has extended size in Additive Synth mode, I would argue that here the Form Follows Function paradigma is more suitable: Both carrier and modulator would really benefit of having their own ratio knob. Otherwise, the user has to apply unnecessary workarounds to solve this, slowing down the workflow.
Additionally, having two targets for one knob is also not very good when it can be modulated. Although it's not very typical to modulate the ratio, I can imagine with fine modulation depth it could make sense as well. In the current implemention both carrier and modulator ratio are modulated alternately, depending on the angle of the LFO wave.

I hope it's not too late for a little bit of evolution of the FMO which is already much better now but for a Zebra 3 it could be improved even more given the importance of FM.

[sQeetz]

I'd love to post a rant at this point, but... sigh... platforms that are not fully compatible with (or committed to) industry standards like MIDI

I believe it was gol (Didier Dambrin), former FL Studio developer who really hated MIDI. Said it was antiquated and hindered progress? I might be wrong, though...

[jtsterays]

I'd love to post a rant at this point, but... sigh... platforms that are not fully compatible with (or committed to) industry standards like MIDI

I believe it was gol (Didier Dambrin), former FL Studio developer who really hated MIDI. Said it was antiquated and hindered progress? I might be wrong, though...

U ain't wrong, us FL users are struggling here, probably 2 more years till we see MPE.

[ffx]

What about an option to "render fx into wavetable", so it would take the output and fill it into the wavetable, disregarding any automation?

Hmmm... what would the purpose be? Just to save CPU or to stack more FX?

Yes, for example I would like to use the fx in a "destructive"/rendered way to smooth out some texture, and use that as base wavetable then, for the actual modulatable processing. At least I have that need quite often, e.g. I load a wavetable from another synth, but it sounds quite raw, then i smooth out this to a very nice sounding wavetable using Zebra 3's additive renderer, but then, after having a good base sound now, I would actually throw in those nice osc fxs on top. Same is possible for example in Tone2 Icarus, and in some other wavetable synths, too. I mean, seems to me (not understanding what you are programming) a low hanging fruit

So the discussion of direct modulations vs. ModMatrix is a bit of a surprise to me, as this is what we have always had in several synths, and I do not recall it ever being discussed as much as in the past few days.

Direct modulations are super high resolution modulations at a quarter of the sample rate. We add them only "where it counts", and wherever modulation is typical. So Curve Morph has it for being typical, FM Depths have them because it counts, Filter Cutoff for both.

Direct modulations also save space. But they do not have any modifiers, because that would cost extremely much CPU due to the high resolution.

Ok, then I understand those decisions much better, also didn't know that the direct modulations work at such an high refresh rate. Then I still miss curves in the ENVs

Regarding the mod matrix, this also is the first synth with unlimited (?) / at least expandable mod slots, so I wouldn't mind, if direct mods also were visible here, for sake of overview (maybe color coded whatever). But you already explained that it's a different type of modulation, so this makes sense like it is.

[ffx]

Could there also be an option "none" or "constant" available, under Pitch Source? Maybe that would make things much easier, e.g. for drum sounds.

[Urs]

Could there also be an option "none" or "constant" available, under Pitch Source? Maybe that would make things much easier, e.g. for drum sounds.

That's what the Pitch modules are for. You can decouple them from the keyboard.

[adash123]

Urs, not really a feature request, more of just a question out of cusirosity. Are there any plans to introduce any kind of sample handling in the future? Maybe something like Instruo Arbhar or even just basic sample playback? Whetether its a Zebra 3 module or another synth? Happy either way but hope you dont mind me asking

It's a difficult topic. I don't mind samplers, but I don't think the concept fits within Zebra. I prefer for Zebra to remain solely a synthesiser.

I am well aware that sample playback would probably make Zebra a lot more attractive, but I can't shake off the feeling that it would also take something away from Zebra, paradoxically its authenticity as synth.

And also, I'm fairly sure that a sampler only ever makes sense commercially if it comes with a library. And for that we neither have the means nor the expertise. We'd have to start from scratch.

I understand. Thanks for taking the time to respond. Much apreciated.

[glokraw]

How about a sample import module for ACE? (...2027 is coming fast!)

[aMUSEd]

Urs, not really a feature request, more of just a question out of cusirosity. Are there any plans to introduce any kind of sample handling in the future? Maybe something like Instruo Arbhar or even just basic sample playback? Whetether its a Zebra 3 module or another synth? Happy either way but hope you dont mind me asking

It's a difficult topic. I don't mind samplers, but I don't think the concept fits within Zebra. I prefer for Zebra to remain solely a synthesiser.

I am well aware that sample playback would probably make Zebra a lot more attractive, but I can't shake off the feeling that it would also take something away from Zebra, paradoxically its authenticity as synth.

And also, I'm fairly sure that a sampler only ever makes sense commercially if it comes with a library. And for that we neither have the means nor the expertise. We'd have to start from scratch.

I agree - Zebra 3 has some of the most advanced oscillators in any plugin synth right now. Sample playback or trad wavetable would be a shortcut and everyone would be focusing on things like sample and wavetable import to quickly come up with new sounds rather than using the existing tools which can already do a heck of a lot - which a gazillion plugins have already. I prefer to keep Zebra vector based.