Zebralette 3 Public Beta Announcement (Revision 15573)

[Fannon]

Ok, now you got me interested in this randomization / genetics feature.

I've now looked into analyzing the u-he patch format and what type and range those parameters are. Maybe I can write some script that can do some more advanced randomization or "merging" based on an existing patch library. Sounds like an interesting weekend project!

This is interesting. Do you want to try this for Zebralette 3 or another U-he synth?

Yes, I'll dabble at it but cannot really say if it works out. I can imagine that it's not that easy to get good results here. Many parameters make only sense together or are only active if e.g. a module is enabled / in the signal path.

Curious: What would you find useful, or what are you looking for? Is it more the randomization of existing presets or the merging of (multiple?) presets?

[gonzomaster]

Within the other Software (Vyzex/EWI4000s), I found both useful (There were both options). My way was to randomize a preset I like. Then, I merged 2 or max. 4 presets out of the best variations. I very fast got good results.

[Fannon]

Within the other Software (Vyzex/EWI4000s), I found both useful (There were both options). My way was to randomize a preset I like. Then, I merged 2 or max. 4 presets out of the best variations. I very fast got good results.

Ok, got it. When you randomize a preset, to which degree? Is this something you could configure?

I got now some basic random generation of u-he presets. Just tried it with Diva so far. Also I haven
t yet built in control for the degree or style of randomization. With total randomization it's mostly luck to get something usable out of it, so that definitely needs to improve.

But I got some of the more tedious things now out of the way (parsing, analyzing and writing back u-he presets in the h2p format - in a rather generic way that should hopefully work for all u-he synths?). Maybe I can continue on this tomorrow.

[gonzomaster]

You can mix it to a certain degree. Here is a small explanation at 6:30:
https://youtu.be/qC_J9_A7mmI

There is also a morphing feature and a feature to use 4 presets for the new generated presets.

This is a windcontroller synth. When using Zebralette, it would be great when the randomization does not change the adsr or midi settings because they are often essential for windcontrolling. I also tried the old u-he randomizer. There was often a changing in pitch if I remember right. This was also annoying.

[Fannon]

You can mix it to a certain degree. Here is a small explanation at 6:30:
https://youtu.be/qC_J9_A7mmI

There is also a morphing feature and a feature to use 4 presets for the new generated presets.

This is a windcontroller synth. When using Zebralette, it would be great when the randomization does not change the adsr or midi settings because they are often essential for windcontrolling. I also tried the old u-he randomizer. There was often a changing in pitch if I remember right. This was also annoying.

Nice! Yes, those randomization issues you mention are what made me wonder how easy it will really be.

But we should not discuss it in length in a Zebralette Beta thread I guess .

I've now cleaned up and published the current code and made it available as a Node.js based CLI utility. Here is a KVR thread to for the randomizer tool I wrote: viewtopic.php?t=609896

[okmog]

Really great concept of Zebralette 3! The only thing I missed during sound design were ON/OFF switches of the Osc effects to check if the changes are going in the right direction!

[Fannon]

In German schools, kids are already getting prepared to learn Zebra 3. Any special announcements we should know about?

[snattack]

It's a fantastic plugin, well done!

One thing I'm missing is time base for the Delay. I'd like to set it by seconds/ms for doing sfx work. I know there's a hidden feature with time offset, but that's an unnecessary step, it would be better to just be able to choose a different time base than musical on the delay itself.

[dangayle]

IMPORTANT WARNING: Zebralette's audio engine is very flexible and feature rich with few restrictions. This also means it can suddenly get very quiet or very loud at times, especially when using Osc Source "Curve Spectrum" in combination with oscillator effects.
Protect your ears and your gear by always adding a limiter to either the Zebralette track or the master track.

Should this be something built in? It would be an easy toggle, and it could be used for sound design purposes too.

[dangayle]

As a feature request, can we add a button to flip-flop the order of the two osc fx, since they're in parallel? Otherwise, we have to recreate all the modulation settings we set up if I realize I want to change the order of the two.

[robsnjc]

Hi, awesome stuff! A feature request...
It would be great that when you change from Curve Geometry to Curve Spectrum the waveform stayed the same changing the editing curve as needed, so you can edit both ways back and forth.

[Urs]

Hi, awesome stuff! A feature request...
It would be great that when you change from Curve Geometry to Curve Spectrum the waveform stayed the same changing the editing curve as needed, so you can edit both ways back and forth.

That would be nice, indeed, but it would also complicate things in unexpected ways. Small changes in one domain often have big changes in the other. The number of points and segments would vary drastically when switching between both, and thus it would not be possible to retain the morphing information between the keyframes.

I'm also not quite sure if every spectrum curve can actually be represented by a waveform curve and vice versa.

[surreal]

Hi Urs can you please impliment one Analogue multimode filter in Zebralette3 outside the oscillator fx.. I noticed in the video that even you searched for an outside filter before you clicked the oscillator's drop down fx.. itwill improve the work flow tremendously! Also the scope that you demoed that can also possibly render to wave tables.. is that gonning to be a free seperate plugin?

[Urs]

Hi Urs can you please impliment one Analogue multimode filter in Zebralette3 outside the oscillator fx.. I noticed in the video that even you searched for an outside filter before you clicked the oscillator's drop down fx.. itwill improve the work flow tremendously! Also the scope that you demoed that can also possibly render to wave tables.. is that gonning to be a free seperate plugin?

There'll be a filter in the not-freeware-version... that's the whole point of Zebralette: Make people want to buy the full version. Therefore we'd shoot our own foot if we put a filter into Zebralette.

The oscilloscope currently is something we only use for ourselves, mostly for debugging purpose. Whether or not we release it, and if we do, whether or not it will be freeware depends on where we go with it. There's a good chance we simply bundle it with, say, Hive 2 and/or Zebra 3 since it's going to possibly create wavetables for them. In any case, making the oscilloscope competitive to alternatives on the market beyond look and feel would be a lot of work, and I don't think we'd do that for free unless there's a compelling argument for that.

[robsnjc]

That would be nice, indeed, but it would also complicate things in unexpected ways. Small changes in one domain often have big changes in the other. The number of points and segments would vary drastically when switching between both, and thus it would not be possible to retain the morphing information between the keyframes.

I'm also not quite sure if every spectrum curve can actually be represented by a waveform curve and vice versa.

Thanks for the explanation. Very insteresting. Got it.