Massive vs FM8 vs Zebra 2?

[beats me]

The latest roundup from MusicRadar: http://www.musicradar.com/tuition/tech/ ... day-262145

Massive, FM8, and Zebra are listed, which can give you an idea of how they compare to each other, and to many others.

Yeah, that list of 39 BEST softsynths really helps you narrow it down.

[dazzer]

For questions like this where one of the options is Massive, that's the one I pick.

[joefrost01]

I really wanted to like Zebra but I always feel it sounds a little sterile to my ear... I'll give it another try maybe.

The Ableton synths are good but I find that similar offerings from third parties sound better and are often lighter on CPU e.g. DUNE and Sylenth sound better than Analog and are generally lighter on CPU, FM8 (to me at least) sounds better than Operator and is also lighter on CPU.

If you want a good all rounder then Zebra certainly has quite decent potential, might also be worth considering SynthMaster.

Personally I'd also consider taking a look at Omnisphere as it can be tweaked to be as light on CPU as Zebra, is as easy to program and comes with a very rich pallet of sounds and raw waves. Alchemy is another option if you have plenty of CPU.

If you're looking at bang for buck then consider the Korg Legacy Collection which can now be had for $99 plus the cost of a Nano device, has finally made it to 64bit and includes 5 quite different and very nice sounding synths.

Joe

[Not_Elba]

I`m loving Zebra. Together with Diva, my favorite softsynth.
Just get the demos of all synths you can get your hands on, spend some time with them, and decide which one is for you.

[glitchrock-buddha]

Zebra 2 is the most underrated VST of all time, in my humble opinion. Barely anyone ever mentions it but it is so tremendously powerful, yet simple and intuitive at the same time. The overall idea behind the UI is genius. You can make it be as simple and as complex as you want it to be. Honestly though, I wish they provided more comprehensive resources on how to use all of the modules. The modules are very deep and can be extremely complex--but again, only if you desire that level of complexity. I wish more people used it and there were more beginner friendly tuts out there for it. The NI stuff is a lot better in this area.

Was this entire post sarcastic? Sorry my sarcasm meter has been off lately on the interwebs.

In case you're serious, Zebra 2 is probably the most talked about and praised soft synth ever. Massive may be big in the Dubstep crowd, but go to any music production forum like KVR and Zebra 2 is the most highly recommended commonly talked about synth.

There is also a ton of tutorials out there for it. U-he's guys have posted youtube videos now numbering over 40 I believe for individual module tutorials and lessons geared towards beginner sound design. The manual is also pretty comprehensive.

[mholloway]

dumb poll is dumb.

looking forward to follow-up thread where everybody collectively lists every soft-synth ever released.

[XSIMan]

In June
U-he DIVA gets a modelled JP-8000 module and an ARP / Sequencer and an Oberheim filter for free!


For Zebra demoing you need to listen to the third party preset packs.
The presets incuded in Zebra are by Howard Scarr he makes a lot of well made vintage sounding sounds theirs no EDM trance stuff.
If you like EDM check out this preset pack for Zebra http://www.adamszabo.com/zebra2-soundset/

Full Zebra commercial preset list http://www.u-he.com/PatchLib/commercial.html

[beats me]

dumb poll is dumb.

looking forward to follow-up thread where everybody collectively lists every soft-synth ever released.

I only skimmed but I also didn’t see any “Live Suite is all you will ever need EVER!!!!!” responses yet.

These are the same people who never work outside Live's box who chime in with "Live has never crashed on me ever. I don't know why you are having problems."

[XSIMan]

Live crashes from out of memory issues which is fixed with the 64bit version.

[444pio]

I just bought Zebra2 and luv it!! plus you can get tons of free presets.. I got over 4000..
ALthough, I noticed Suite 9 crashing and giving zebra2 as the reason??
Any one else encounter this??

[deva]

I just bought Zebra2 and luv it!! plus you can get tons of free presets.. I got over 4000..
ALthough, I noticed Suite 9 crashing and giving zebra2 as the reason??
Any one else encounter this??

I've been using Zebra with the Live9 beta for months without issue... I am still using 32 bit though... if you are using 64 bit, you might try the latest Zebra beta available on the u-he forum at kvr...

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=376933

[Not_Elba]

Me too. Never had any problems with 9 (or 8 ) and Zebra 2.5. And I normally use many Zebra instances.
Only when I have a Zebra(Automapped) in a track and the Automap server hasn`t been started before, Live crashes. But that`s an Automap issue.

[XSIMan]

Zebra 2.6 runs perfect on Live 8 64bit and Live 9 64bit. But then again I'm using the Hans Zimmer custom Zebra that he used for the Bat Man movies music.

In June U-he Bazille comes out some sort of vintage modular FM capable synth based on the Roland 100M.