What makes U-he Zebra so loved?

[yellowmix]

what libraries did you get? I just bought it again and looking

Check out the classic from Joseph Hollo, the Padsheaven series.

[ATN69]

I originally didn’t think all that much of zebra until I purchased some third-party libraries for it actually. I never realized how powerful zebra was and what could be done with it until then.

what libraries did you get? I just bought it again and looking

If you like pads check out Pads heaven 1, 2 and 3 from Joseph Hollo. These also contain other nice and useful sounds besides pads,
http://sound.artenuovo.com/padsheavena.html

Edit: UPS! Yellowmix beat me to it

[hivkorn]

The most difficult things with zebra is the GUI , i own it 2 times in the past , i dig it a lot but everytime I don t understand how the GUI works... Something like softube modular is more easy to understand. Yes the sound is neutral , it is great to make THE sound you want. I hope Zebra 3 will have a more understable GUI.

[ATS]

I originally didn’t think all that much of zebra until I purchased some third-party libraries for it actually. I never realized how powerful zebra was and what could be done with it until then.

what libraries did you get? I just bought it again and looking

If you like pads check out Pads heaven 1, 2 and 3 from Joseph Hollo. These also contain other nice and useful sounds besides pads,
http://sound.artenuovo.com/padsheavena.html

Edit: UPS! Yellowmix beat me to it

man I should of bid again in the charity auction. I won his bundle last time but did not pick these.

[ATN69]

I originally didn’t think all that much of zebra until I purchased some third-party libraries for it actually. I never realized how powerful zebra was and what could be done with it until then.

what libraries did you get? I just bought it again and looking

If you like pads check out Pads heaven 1, 2 and 3 from Joseph Hollo. These also contain other nice and useful sounds besides pads,
http://sound.artenuovo.com/padsheavena.html

Edit: UPS! Yellowmix beat me to it

man I should of bid again in the charity auction. I won his bundle last time but did not pick these.

Maybe you get a break on the upcoming black Friday. Fingers crossed

[Urs]

The most difficult things with zebra is the GUI , i own it 2 times in the past , i dig it a lot but everytime I don t understand how the GUI works... Something like softube modular is more easy to understand. Yes the sound is neutral , it is great to make THE sound you want. I hope Zebra 3 will have a more understable GUI.

The thing about Zebra's UI is that it requires an "a-ha moment". I've heard this many many times, people saying "I stared at it for some time and didn't get it, but suddenly, from one second to another, it became all clear!" - once this moment has happened the UI is perfectly understandable, and you will not want any major change to it.

I think we need to figure out a way to speed this process up. Maybe we need Dan Worrall for Zebra 3.

[Stollmeister]

The most difficult things with zebra is the GUI , i own it 2 times in the past , i dig it a lot but everytime I don t understand how the GUI works... Something like softube modular is more easy to understand. Yes the sound is neutral , it is great to make THE sound you want. I hope Zebra 3 will have a more understable GUI.

The thing about Zebra's UI is that it requires an "a-ha moment". I've heard this many many times, people saying "I stared at it for some time and didn't get it, but suddenly, from one second to another, it became all clear!" - once this moment has happened the UI is perfectly understandable, and you will not want any major change to it.

I think we need to figure out a way to speed this process up. Maybe we need Dan Worrall for Zebra 3.

Yeah, this pretty much describes my experience with it. Now I love it! I still haven't gelled with Diva's interface yet. Having learned to love Zebra, the fact that Diva feels so different from Zebra makes things difficult. Zebra has become my baseline. I know Hive is described as your "fast" synth, but I am much faster on Zebra (so far, only have the demo of Hive).

[recursive one]

Actually Zebra was the first synth I bought (based on the KVR praise mostly), it was in 2013. Still, it is one of my least used synths, which always puzzled me - it gets a lot of love here and Hans Zimmer uses it and all that. I admit that I never get fluent with programming it as I am with some other synths (Spire and Virus TI are what I use the most, also I made a lot of patches for Dune2 at some point) but TBH the sound never motivated me. The factory patches show excellent prorgamming, they are made by people who can program synths far better than me and know all the ins and outs of Zebra, but still these presets sound thin and uni-dimesional, "soft-synthish". I may find some preset which makes me think "well, that's sort of nice" but then I load, e.g., Diva, or Bazille/Repro demos next to Zebra and I'm like "wow, this is how a great synth should sound".

I think the pros may use some complicated processing chains after Zerba to bring the sound to to life, and I also understand that the pros may have some tasks which require the flexibility that Zebra has and the "fixed sweet spot" synths don't, so they deal with not-so-great sound cause they know how to make it great by clever programming and external processing. Also it's good that there are these fixed-sweet-spot synths (some of them also made by U-He) which provide instant gratification for amateurs like me. I guess Zebra wasn't made with bedroom producers in mind

High hopes for Z3 anyway! If it incorporates all the knowledge the U-He team gained over years, I'm sure the sound will be wastly improved.

[gentleclockdivider]

Actually Zebra was the first synth I bought (based on the KVR praise mostly), it was in 2013. Still, it is one of my least used synths, which always puzzled me - it gets a lot of love here and Hans Zimmer uses it and all that. I admit that I never get fluent with programming it as I am with some other synths (Spire and Virus TI are what I use the most, also I made a lot of patches for Dune2 at some point) but TBH the sound never motivated me. The factory patches show excellent prorgamming, they are made by people who can program synths far better than me and know all the ins and outs of Zebra, but still these presets sound thin and uni-dimesional, "soft-synthish". I may find some preset which makes me think "well, that's sort of nice" but then I load, e.g., Diva, or Bazille/Repro demos next to Zebra and I'm like "wow, this is how a great synth should sound".

I think the pros may use some complicated processing chains after Zerba to bring the sound to to life, and I also understand that the pros may have some tasks which require the flexibility that Zebra has and the "fixed sweet spot" synths don't, so they deal with not-so-great sound cause they know how to make it great by clever programming and external processing. Also it's good that there are these fixed-sweet-spot synths (some of them also made by U-He) which provide instant gratification for amateurs like me. I guess Zebra wasn't made with bedroom producers in mind

High hopes for Z3 anyway! If it incorporates all the knowledge the U-He team gained over years, I'm sure the sound will be wastly improved.

Zebra 3 will have analogue modelled osc's

[Haraldator]

I think the Zebra was the first softsynth that truly made me go WOW. The fun thing is that after all these years it still does. It still truly fascinates me. I love synths that are so complex that they seem to have this big, mysterious world inside of them, and Zebra is just like that. And of course it sounds great. And you can of course treat it as a simple synth if you want - especially to begin with. And then build from there. So how could you not love it?

[Urs]

Zebra 3 will have analogue modelled osc's

Will it?

[elassi]

It was just the "feel" I missed when using Zebra. Like when you say that something doesn't work between two people because of the "chemistry" that unfortunately interferes. For sure a very personal thing because I don't mind somewhat 'peculiar' synths (i.e. ABL Pro) as long as the challenge is fun and rewarding.

On top of that this synth was and is so much favorited and u-he's transfer policy is so kind that I eventually sold it (market-place deal was sealed within minutes).

Still have and use Bazille regularly, so u-he didn't lost me as a happy customer.

[egbert101]

<delete>

[pdxindy]

Zebra has something that none of the other u-he synths have... that is why I am glad to have most of them!!

[Krakatau]

New word: Zebraholics.

+1 (billion)