u-he

Sendy · Post by **Sendy** » Fri Jan 07, 2011 10:56 pm

Ok, I took a couple of hours today to pluck together a collection of bare wavetable presets for Zebra. Here's the link: http://www.kvraudio.com/banks.php?s=author&id=236000

If anyone makes anything out of these, I'd love to hear them. They're quite nice as starting points by mixing them together, adding Osc FX and modulation, etc.

If people like them, I'll do more. Readme text follows.

This pack consists of 30 oscillator presets for Zebra, which are all custom wavetables which default to having the modwheel step thru the wavetable, and no other significant settings. This is for easy auditioning of the effect of each preset.

The theme of these wavetables is exotic oscillator functions. If you like things like sync, PWM and waveshaping, you may enjoy these. I was always frustrated to find that the pulse wave is the only versatile waveshape on most synths. I used to dream about variable width sawtooths and triangles, pulse trains that shrunk to a one-sample-big spike, and various arbitrary schemes for bending waveforms.

The 30 wavesets here are pulled from my waveform experiment laboratory, the most musically interesting ones were taken, tidied up, and given a short explanation. They all sound like weird mixes between filtering, sync, PWM, phasing, serial waves (i.e. sticking a pulse to a triangle to make a double wave), and waveshaping. If you don't like that kind of sound, tough

Many of the waveshapes make a funky sound when you sweep them. Others are a little dull, but come into their own with an Osc FX applied. No Osc FX are assigned as these are intended to be raw oscillator presets. I will expand the set when I get more time/ideas.

Tables with a predominant sound are given waveshape prefixes such as SAW, TRI, etc

All tables are given a pre-prefix of 00 to keep them at the top of my personal preset list and keep them seperate.

mcnoone · Post by **mcnoone** » Fri Jan 07, 2011 11:04 pm

Thanks a lot for sharing these.
I'll check them out sometime today.

Urs · Post by **Urs** » Fri Jan 07, 2011 11:07 pm

Gawd... no chance to listen before Sunday... seriously looking forward to these!!!

bluedad · Post by **bluedad** » Fri Jan 07, 2011 11:09 pm

hmm, only 15 minutes before I have to leave..will barely have time to find the uhe/zebra/osc path in that time...looks good for tomorrow! thanks!

nominil · Post by **nominil** » Fri Jan 07, 2011 11:53 pm

Thanks much! I like 'em!

bmrzycki · Post by **bmrzycki** » Sat Jan 08, 2011 12:23 am

Very nice Sendy, thank you. I'll explore these over the weekend

(also added to the patchlib)

Bronto Scorpio · Post by **Bronto Scorpio** » Sat Jan 08, 2011 10:54 am

Wow! These wavetables are very nice! Thank you!

Cheers
dennis

Sendy · Post by **Sendy** » Sat Jan 08, 2011 12:46 pm

That's cool.. Wasn't sure how these were going to be recieved, but I'm glad people are enjoying them! Remember if you click on 'info' and flick through the presets, you get a brief text on the preset and what it does. I also recommend grabbing an oscilloscope and trying OSC FX on all of them. Phase Dist, Wrap, Symmetry and Choplist are among my favourites

Incidentally, semi related to this, I'm contributing a lot of patches to the next version of TAL Noisemaker, so if you enjoy my approach to sound design (which starts with trying to make complex and varied waveforms under the restrictions of the oscillator architecture of a given synth), you may like those when they come out.

EDIT: Here's my freeware oscilloscope of choice: http://www.kvraudio.com/get/971.html

hakey · Post by **hakey** » Sat Jan 08, 2011 1:07 pm

You've obviously got way more patience than I.

Some interesting wavetables here, thanks!

Howard · Post by **Howard** » Sat Jan 08, 2011 1:13 pm

Nice one, Sendy!

I've just been tweaking the first waveset... used Fin instead of triangle, and smoothed out the transitions around the saw.

Sendy · Post by **Sendy** » Sat Jan 08, 2011 2:45 pm

Howard wrote:Nice one, Sendy!

I've just been tweaking the first waveset... used Fin instead of triangle, and smoothed out the transitions around the saw.

Cool! It's worth noting that I arranged the transitions to create as much spectral movement as possible. I hate those waveform 'morphs' in osc designs on some synths that are basically a crossfade, so I tried to get as much horizontal movement as possible in the points (where relevant).

Fin? Like a parabolic kinda triangle? Or...

*jaws theme plays*

JackD · Post by **JackD** » Sat Jan 08, 2011 3:23 pm

Thanks Sendy. I did a quick check-em-out and really liked the PWM wave. Someone (me?) should use it in the Zerbalette patch contest. Anyways, kudos to you.

Howard · Post by **Howard** » Sat Jan 08, 2011 3:56 pm

Sendy wrote:Fin? Like a parabolic kinda triangle? Or...*jaws theme plays*

No and yes i.e. it looks like a shark's dorsal fin and sounds wonderfully silky.

BTW: I made a new "initialize" patch that includes a Fin ( bundled with the beta of the new manual: http://www.mediafire.com/?d2ip9lteaewgns9 )
You can also get the FMOs to do Fins: Set the mode to FM self2(+) and FM amount to about 25.

Howard · Post by **Howard** » Sat Jan 08, 2011 4:00 pm

Sendy wrote:I arranged the transitions to create as much spectral movement as possible.

Yes, good. But I thought the transition to and from the pure saw was a bit *too* abrupt for the job i.e. PWM effects.

Sendy · Post by **Sendy** » Sat Jan 08, 2011 4:27 pm

Howard wrote:
Sendy wrote:I arranged the transitions to create as much spectral movement as possible.
Yes, good. But I thought the transition to and from the pure saw was a bit *too* abrupt for the job i.e. PWM effects.

Oh, gotcha, yes. I tried balancing some of the tables, with varying degrees of success, but I'm sure there's room for improvement.

Will have a play with the fin shape tonight... I'm a sucker for a sweet triangle, such a delicate sound when it's done right.

u-he

KVR Audio

30 Zebra oscillator presets