Zebra 3 Public Beta Revision 20399

[Andreya_Autumn]

Here's a little feature request: cents/fine tuning in the pitch bend ranges! So we can tune pitch bends to JI intervals or quarter tones etc etc. Shift-drag for decimals like elsewhere would be (no pun intended) fine.

[NAD]

Here's a little feature request: cents/fine tuning in the pitch bend ranges! So we can tune pitch bends to JI intervals or quarter tones etc etc. Shift-drag for decimals like elsewhere would be (no pun intended) fine.

As an imperfect workaround you can set the pitch bend range to zero and use the pitch bend as a source for the modulation section in the Pitches tab. Of course then it would have to be symmetric.

[Andreya_Autumn]

Yup, for up/down symmetry that works indeed.

[Q-Bass]

I don't think I ever had so much fun with a plugin!

Yesterday I finally had aha moment with the "spectrum interpretation" mode of oscillator and made really nice bell patch from scratch - hand drawn and using guides for sculpting the sound in OSC FXs.
Today I tried the waveform import - five single cycle waveforms and made really dirty keys/organ (with the help of FMO). It is fun to experiment with those different morphing types. The movement between two frames can have very diverse results depending on the type you choose.
Project for evening is to make some morphable beat with MSEGs. Already have some kick with four rhythmic variations going on first lane..

For the scrolling dilemma. I usually like adjusting parameters with scrolling. But the first time I opened Z3 I was navigating only with trackpad and accidentally scrolled rapidly through one of those primary mod source windows - which induced crash of the plugin. But except this single incident, it is stable here. However, I don't think you should be able to scroll through these.

Will there be chance to try some improved beta before the presale discount ends? I would like to know/test how much (and if) the final 3.0 release will be CPU optimized. It is not real disaster here - only maybe 2 or 3 of those included patches were too much for my processor (almost 6 years old Ryzen 7 type). However clearly I am not able to use the synth to its full potential at the moment. Not sure if it could be improved later with the mentioned multi-core support - i.e. less instances with more complex patches..? (The multicore option on Diva don't work on my system, quite opposite. Bitwig on Windows..)
But on the other hand I was pleasantly suprised how many instances of Z3 I can run. I opened the same patch twice and noticed that the CPU meter in DAW didn't move. So I kept adding it and the meter stayed almost same until 8 instances - yeah, the Ryzen has 8 cores. Only after ninth instance was added, the CPU jumped to twice of the previous value. So this is cool. But single instance effectivity would be appreciated of course.

On another note, I would like to mention I was charged additional 21% of the price as well. It is the VAT amount, so I somehow thought the prices on your site is without VAT. I found it strange as I live next to you in EU, but didn't have time to think about it more as I was buying (Diva) on the last day of the sale. Didn't know there is some currency switch..

[crimclark]

I'm loving the beta, it sounds awesome.

Is there any plan to allow MSEGs to be triggered by sources other than midi notes?

On a related note, I'd love it if modulators could output triggers in addition to regular modulation signals. For example, envelopes could output triggers at the beginning of each stage, so you could trigger a different modulator when an envelope reaches it's decay or sustain stage. This seems like it may be a complicated feature request though, so I totally understand if it won't be happening.

Some other feedback -

It would be nice to get a waveform visualization on the Mod Math modulator to get a better idea of what it's doing. If this would increase CPU too much maybe it could be disabled by default?

I agree with some earlier comments that it would be nice to be able to disable direct modulators, without setting the value to "none." It's especially helpful be able to quickly turn things on and off when dissecting a complicated preset.

I also agree with others that the dropdown menus aren't always ideal. For example, when changing the unison value on an Osc it's nice to quickly scroll through values to hear the sound, and kind of tedious to have to keep opening the dropdown. The same goes for the "tempo" dropdown on the delay.

Overall it's awesome and I can't wait to play with the final release!

[Q-Bass]

You can patch the Math into the scope and see what is on its output.

[crimclark]

You can patch the Math into the scope and see what is on its output.

Ah! I missed that in the manual. Thanks!

[atticmike]

When Zebra 3 releases, will this overwrite the Beta or will be the Beta it's own plugin instance / installation path and later on co-exist with Zebra 3?

Will there be more Beta releases?

[sm909]

Is it possible to set up custom feedback loops in the main grid and or FX /OUT somehow?

Unfortunately no, there would be latency around such feedback loops. We had that in Zebra 1.5 and it simply wasn't usable enough...

OK thanks for the clarification. Zebra 3 sounds amazing!

[rockmachine]

Hey guys, I got Zebra 3 right away, being a Zebra 2 user for many years, and though I did not have a lot of time to experiment, in this piece, all the patches that I used in the 7 instances of Zebra 3 I used in this piece underwent editing, sometimes a fair amount. It also has 2 instances of Zebra 2, and 1 of Zebra HZ. There are many other VSTs in here too though. I'm not sure it'd be possible to identify anything, but feel free to ask and hope posting this is okay. There's no money in it for me, just a love of composing. https://soundcloud.com/raven-2741/the-m ... ly-heights

[Urs]

When Zebra 3 releases, will this overwrite the Beta or will be the Beta it's own plugin instance / installation path and later on co-exist with Zebra 3?

Will there be more Beta releases?

So future versions of Zebra 3 will overwrite previous ones. From experience, sometimes different versions can exist in parallel, sometimes not.

As of now we will have at least one more beta before release. So we hope to fix most of the crashes, and if there are more crashes, we'll probably have yet another beta.

We won't release anything unless all crashes are gone. We already fixed 2 or 3 or so internally, but we won't have chance to post another beta until January.

[atticmike]

When Zebra 3 releases, will this overwrite the Beta or will be the Beta it's own plugin instance / installation path and later on co-exist with Zebra 3?

Will there be more Beta releases?

So future versions of Zebra 3 will overwrite previous ones. From experience, sometimes different versions can exist in parallel, sometimes not.

As of now we will have at least one more beta before release. So we hope to fix most of the crashes, and if there are more crashes, we'll probably have yet another beta.

We won't release anything unless all crashes are gone. We already fixed 2 or 3 or so internally, but we won't have chance to post another beta until January.

Thank you for the info

Does Zebra 3 beta come with an uninstaller? I wouldn't want to have dead remnants of a Beta release.

[eclipse_soundlab]

I can't figure out what these blue, green, and salmon-colored curves do. No matter how I try to change them, they don't affect the oscillator's sound.

So we call them "Guide Curves" because they can be used to edit the normal curves. But as they are there, we thought we might as well use them for some OscFX or the frequency warping in the additive renderer.

However, their main goal is to cut, scale or limit points in another curve, as a sculpting tool in a truely CAD fashion.

Can they evolve into something more in the future? like for example guide for stretching the MSEGs?

[tasmaniandevil]

Does Zebra 3 beta come with an uninstaller? I wouldn't want to have dead remnants of a Beta release.

On Windows, there is an uninstaller included. The uninstaller is also automatically started and will remove any unneeded files when you run the installer of the next beta.
On Mac, there is no uninstaller, but the installer usually takes care of removing any unneeded files. Apart from that, there are detailed uninstall instructions in our FAQ section.

[jnchristp]

I don't get the EQ at the moment...

Firstly, the initial display is way off. Changing to resonator and back to spectral resets the display. I think, this is a known issue...

More importantly: It's not really intuitive to use. Double-clicking a dot should turn a band on or off, like in Zebra2. At the moment one needs to change the band to off in a pulldown menu, loosing the type of the band doing it. But sometimes it's just a good way of working with an EQ to turn a band on and off to hear the differences it makes. At the moment double-clicking resets the gain of a band. I don't think that's intuitive or necessary.

Using the mousewheel on a dot should increase or decrease the q-factor.