Zebra Legacy (Zebra2) has been replaced by: Zebra 3

I agree its great. Actually, I just don't like the pricing politics from u-he. I have purchased the version two like 10 days before version three was announced. I agree that they had put this in the pricing policies that there would be no special upgrade price, but I also think they should've implemented some kind of grace perion. Like I think pretty much any other software app producer does. Even if the version two had a great price, I think it's a difference if you have used that for some years with these great features or 10 days only before you then kind of double pay the synth to have the new version. But anyway, it is what it is.

I just picked this up a week or so ago, and i agree with the sentiment here that this at the top of the list of synths I've researched (dozens - but for music tech research more so [unfortunately] than spending time to master them creatively), and I couldn't be happier. It has a certain quality about it that transcends the divide between the more digital and more analog synths, with a pleasing warmth but at the same time potentially having a cutting edge precision.

Kudos to the people who came up with its signal flows and interfacing and filters and algos. (There should be a documentary about its development really. I'm not clear on whether They really knew what they were doing.

Really the only thing I can find about the history of its development comes from this article:

https://www.attackmagazine.com/features/long-read/u-hes-urs-heckmann-on-synths-celebrity-endorsements-hardware/

I personally own over 20 softsynths, and have been toying with some lesser-known ones because innovation always fascinates me.

But nothing in the Zebra package would be particularly obvious to me as a programmer. I'm sure there synths with bits of brilliance that could be mentioned as excelling in one element or area or another, but Zebra is particularly unique in that it never loses the high standard of musicality from the beginning of its signal flow to the end. I know recently musicians have begun to be impressed by more organic and analog processes, while being also spoiled by some very good well-crafted digital softsynths. Exploring the confluence of these two evolutions in taste and creativity seems to be at the heart of our current electronic music scene. At the time I made my purchase of Zebra I was considering purchasing Diva first. This was because I had watched some of the few Zebra tutorials out there, and the synth didn't really look "familiar" or directly compare with the common and basic synth flows I had worked with. I've experimented with ANA 2 (very good), Serum and Massive (and a few of the other Komplete synths) and the Image Line product line, Dune 3, Phase Plant (as a demo for 14 days - really loved it), Omnisphere (somewhat of a hybrid rompler synth but some well-worth-it features IMHO despite its price tag), Spire, Adam Szabo's Viper (a phenomena and over-looked synth really), Cycle (Amaranth - an orphaned synth unfortunately), Quik Quak's Glass Viper, Auddict's Hexeract (a disappointment since it seems to have been abandoned, along with Fxpansion's Geist 2, lol), AIR and KV331's synths, the Madrona Labs stuff (very good for "unexpected and artsy"), IK Multimedia's Syntronik (nice), etc. So much variety, and a lot of interesting specific features in here for most of these, that I can't go into for lack of time.

But frankly I wish I had tried and learned Zebra long ago.

Zebra actually seems worthy to focus on more so than any of these, because I literally can not make it sound bad or uninviting. I can make it sound dangerous, ugly, menacing, and so on, but it creates such a steady illusion that I'm playing with organic electric juice, that it, more than any other synth, reminds me of playing with high end electric guitar gear. Expressive. Musical. Often stunning.

So I was just going to write a short review to go along with what's already here. This is not a new product - but I had to add my two cents and I hope the developer knows how much I appreciate the fine thought process and heroic standards, and I most definitely look forward to Zebra 3. Good work U-he.

As an aside, Plugmon Neumann (as more than a skin really) looks incredible and I'm checking it out - to make understanding and working with Zebra easier. $35 at the moment. Interesting.

https://plugmon.jp/product/neumann/

I love it. Just bought it and spent this whole weekend playing with it.

The manual is great to but would like to know more about the Resolution parameter. It not really clear how it interacts with other parameters. Which parameters does it interact with? What are the downsides of turning the Resolution parameter up or down? In which cases should I turn it up and when to turn it down?

Thanks in advance.

I just simply wanted to say this is the most outstanding VST synth I've ever played and I was totally blown away by the sounds of this virtual instrument. Very versatile and the sound quality is beyond normal for importing even your own wavetables just in case if your using the right separate utility for importing your own waves. The sky's the limit you can only imagine what you can do and what unusual sounds you can come up with. Price wise it's kind of high but you'll soon realize you'll be quite happy that you've made the purchase after all.

Compared to other u-He synths, this thing is unusable.

The competition that it has (Bazille, Repro-5, Diva etc.) is really a strong one tho.

I know that this thing is really versatile but I can't find the use in the sound quality that it doesn't deliver.

I hope that Zebra 3 will actually sound good.