Zebra 3.0 - out now

[Urs]

If you come up with a better solution for something, that’s always welcome. Serum’s drag and drop solution for modulation assignments was a breakthrough that few people criticized, if any. If you come up with a different solution that is just different for the sake of being different, you will find yourself at the end of a lot of criticism.

The good news is, people only bother to be critical of something they care about.

What's been really neat with Serum is the indication that something has some modulation going, even if the modulation is not selected. That was a very constructive point when we posted the first beta, and we did that, along with a whole lot of other things that Serum doesn't even have, such as swap modulators, the target finder and some on target features.

I'm not talking about the modulation assignments at all, I think we're pretty good with that now. I'm more frustrated with people who think that everything has to have wavetables, has to have infinite numbers of X or Y, has to work in certain ways, must have this feature or that feature and needs to work just like whatsoever. That's hardly ever constructive.

[TechHaus]

Watching:

Zebra 3 Has No Sequencer. Here's How I Sequence in It Anyway from Marula Music.

[ThoughtExperiment]

I would not love to be a sw developer making a great plugin and people pick it apart due to personal preferences. Every plugin I have I use it as it is and learn to live with the workflows, features and UI designs. Life is simpler that way.

Z3 is awesome. And it will even get moar awesome. Mostly because of the awesome dev's and for a little part because of user feedback. Go with the flow is perfectly fine. Perfecting the flow can result in an even better flow

Absolutely agree, but there's feedback which is constructive and well-informed, and then there's the other kind...the kind which has caused my 'foes' list to grow to database proportions

[MrJubbly]

KVR Foesrum*

[Teksonik]

Watching:
Zebra 3 Has No Sequencer. Here's How I Sequence in It Anyway from Marula Music.

The thing is I'd just reach for another synth in my collection that has actual built in Seq(s) rather than faff about with all the modulation gymnastics shown in that video.

At any rate, I'm very much looking forward to Zebra 3 getting a built in Arp/Seq such as the one found in Hive 2 since it's fairly well featured and dead easy to use.

I'd love to see the Arp from DIVA (since the code already exists) used as a module in Z3 that could be dropped on any or all of the four lanes. That would follow the Modular paradigm of Z3 very nicely.

Different Arps running at different speeds and in different directions triggering different sounds can create some very wonderful patches.

Having some Oscs running through an Arp while others bypass it also yields some interesting results so I'm hoping any Arp/Seq in Z3 will not be a play mode but instead a module for more extensive routing options.

[TechHaus]

Watching:
Zebra 3 Has No Sequencer. Here's How I Sequence in It Anyway from Marula Music.

The thing is I'd just reach for another synth in my collection that has actual built in Seq(s) rather than faff about with all the modulation gymnastics shown in that video.

At any rate, I'm very much looking forward to Zebra 3 getting a built in Arp/Seq such as the one found in Hive 2 since it's fairly well featured and dead easy to use.

I'd love to see the Arp from DIVA (since the code already exists) used as a module in Z3 that could be dropped on any or all of the four lanes. That would follow the Modular paradigm of Z3 very nicely.

Different Arps running at different speeds and in different directions triggering different sounds can create some very wonderful patches.

Having some Oscs running through an Arp while others bypass it also yields some interesting results so I'm hoping any Arp/Seq in Z3 will not be a play mode but instead a module for more extensive routing options.

I get what you're saying, but also am a little shocked by your reaction. In the video he says this is "like Hive", because many people build Hive sequences just like that! Instead of using the MSEG, folks use the shape sequencer.

One person who teaches to build sequences this way in HIve that comes to mind is Youtuber "S1gns Of L1fe", who builds self-generating ambient sequences.

This is way different than using an arpeggiator. We know Z3 is getting one. But the modular gymnastics are awesome! Makes me love Hive!

[pdxindy]

This is way different than using an arpeggiator. We know Z3 is getting one. But the modular gymnastics are awesome!

It's also not either or... When u-he adds an arp/seq, I would hope it plays well with the various triggering options and sequencing possibilities currently there.

[Teksonik]

am a little shocked by your reaction.

I use Hive's sequencer for note sequencing not rhythmic sequencing so nothing to be shocked about. I don't normally do sounds like he cobbled together in the video so that affects my opinion as does not being a fan of modular synthesis.

It's far easier to simply enter note offsets in Hive than using a Mapper or MSEG in Zebra 3.

As an analogy I can drive a nail in using the butt end of a screwdriver but since I have a hammer in my toolbox it makes more sense to use it for the task.

[loctune]

I don’t know what I’d say about this. My gut feeling tells me that wanting something like notch filters, osc sync or maybe a fully functional spectral wave editor in an expensive synth isn’t asking for Chinese food in an India restaurant, but ymmv. Time for me to have some Chinese food now.

[Urs]

There's nothing wrong with the "Sync" OscFX. It sounds pretty good and works with Osc Unison without messing up phase. So why add a second way to create Sync effects that is probably not gonna sound as good?

As for spectrum stuff, one can do spectrum related things in Zebra 3 that one can't do in any other synth. It is because of how we do things differently, not despite of them. So if we wanted to have a bog standard spectrum editor (or bog standard waveform editor) we might have to give up on the things that make Zebra 3 so special. Why would we do that? This is why we opted for vector based waveform/spectrum editing. We did so because looking at Zebra 2, this was the superior way, and the "other" was the culprit for most of the criticism on sonic quality. Yes, it was easy, but the results were just not that good, kinda boring even. Like everywhere in life and arts, quick results are usually not that good.

Notch filters, yeah, that was something we just did not manage to squeeze into V3.0, but we will add some for, say, 3.1 or 3.2

[exmatproton]

There's nothing wrong with the "Sync" OscFX.

he meant sync between osc's

[loctune]

There's nothing wrong with the "Sync" OscFX. It sounds pretty good and works with Osc Unison without messing up phase. So why add a second way to create Sync effects that is probably not gonna sound as good?

As for spectrum stuff, one can do spectrum related things in Zebra 3 that one can't do in any other synth. It is because of how we do things differently, not despite of them. So if we wanted to have a bog standard spectrum editor (or bog standard waveform editor) we might have to give up on the things that make Zebra 3 so special. Why would we do that? This is why we opted for vector based waveform/spectrum editing. We did so because looking at Zebra 2, this was the superior way, and the "other" was the culprit for most of the criticism on sonic quality. Yes, it was easy, but the results were just not that good, kinda boring even. Like everywhere in life and arts, quick results are usually not that good.

Notch filters, yeah, that was something we just did not manage to squeeze into V3.0, but we will add some for, say, 3.1 or 3.2

Happy to hear notch filter will be added!

The issue with the sync OSCFX is it works only in its own osc and thus it's own waveform. It works nicely when it works, but having a dedicated osc sync function between osc would allow for much more flexibility to do things we use and like a lot on hardware, say something like the FM'ed sync effect on ARP Odyssey. While it might be technically possible to create things like this within a single osc by playing with waveforms, interpolations, and a bunch of OSC FX, having a dedicated sync function between oscs would also make the workflow much easier.

I agree that Zebra 3 has the ability to do many spectral things that others cannot. I have been using them and like them a lot. However, there's a critical thing missing in Zebra 3's spectral editor: it seems that Zebra 3 does not have the ability to transfer a given curve from time domain to spectral, or vice versa. So I can't draw a square wave in time domain and move to spectral to add some simple 2nd partial. I'd have to stay with the initial domain which I draw my curve in: do 500 partials for a square wave so that I can modify the 2nd partial in spectral mode, or use my brain to calculate what the waveform would look like in time domain when I add the partial...

I also have some other minor gripes about the spectral editing mode, like the not-so-pleasant UX for drawing in partials and the bug in precision math mode when you get unwanted partials. But I'd say the curve transfer is what I find the most annoying one.

[Kyunghee]

One thing I noticed that's been bugging me when using the synth : when I hover my mouse over a modulation source, the target finder only finds the destination if it's visible in the interface. So if I have to scroll to look for it, or if it's in another menu the target finder doesn't indicate the destination. Is there a workaround for this issue?
The way Pigments handles this might be a good solution : if there's a modulation destination on a menu that's not currently visible, there's a little dot next to that menu, that's colour coded with the modulation source.

[jrwaltb]

Watching:
Zebra 3 Has No Sequencer. Here's How I Sequence in It Anyway from Marula Music.

The thing is I'd just reach for another synth in my collection that has actual built in Seq(s) rather than faff about with all the modulation gymnastics shown in that video.

At any rate, I'm very much looking forward to Zebra 3 getting a built in Arp/Seq such as the one found in Hive 2 since it's fairly well featured and dead easy to use.

I'd love to see the Arp from DIVA (since the code already exists) used as a module in Z3 that could be dropped on any or all of the four lanes. That would follow the Modular paradigm of Z3 very nicely.

Different Arps running at different speeds and in different directions triggering different sounds can create some very wonderful patches.

Having some Oscs running through an Arp while others bypass it also yields some interesting results so I'm hoping any Arp/Seq in Z3 will not be a play mode but instead a module for more extensive routing options.

But other synths don't sound or have the same tech as Zebra 3. I guess I am missing something because I am confused about what a built in sequencer can do that Ableton cannot, is there a technical reason this is so important?

[Urs]

One thing I noticed that's been bugging me when using the synth : when I hover my mouse over a modulation source, the target finder only finds the destination if it's visible in the interface. So if I have to scroll to look for it, or if it's in another menu the target finder doesn't indicate the destination. Is there a workaround for this issue?
The way Pigments handles this might be a good solution : if there's a modulation destination on a menu that's not currently visible, there's a little dot next to that menu, that's colour coded with the modulation source.

There is supposed to be an indicator that there are more targets down the rack, but we need to fix a bug to make it show. Hope to fix this soon, but we haven't prioritised anything yet.

In a few instances it could work to add another indicator on a tab or in the Grid, but when I worked on this it wouldn't be able to cover all possibilities. I'd prefer to avoid such things because it requires a lot more handling of meta information in the UI. Like, not only what module a control is associated with but even if a part of a control is associated with a module, and then ways to automate the setup.