Massive vs Zebra

gerard · Post by **gerard** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 7:34 pm

While searching I found this thread: http://www.ableton.com/pages/forum and this sound:
http://www.garyboozy.f2s.com/basswarble.mp3
that was made by garyboozy (I hope you don't mind that I posted this here mate).

Until now I have used Live for classical songwriting and for my sounds I used mostly presets. So now I'd like to get more deeply into things to build my own sounds in order to compose more electronical stuff.
So is Zebra capable to produce sounds like the garyboozy (sorry I forgot to mention it was made with Massive)? I guess my question is naive and the answer must be yes. But how do I learn how to do that. Zebra patches are welcome if anyone wants to share, or tutorials links. I'm sure there are a few Zebra-Jedis here.
May the force be with you

dcease · Post by **dcease** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 10:12 pm

i don't have the full version of zebra, but i can tell you it is easy peezy to create sounds in massive, i usually don't use the presets, i just tweek until it sounds good to me...

blank · Post by **blank** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 10:17 pm

Zebra is in my opinion more versatile than massive but I didn't get in touch that much with massive.

gerard · Post by **gerard** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 11:56 pm

dcease wrote:i don't have the full version of zebra, but i can tell you it is easy peezy to create sounds in massive, i usually don't use the presets, i just tweek until it sounds good to me...

That's exactly the impression I had the last days when I tried it. I like the GUI very much and it's more intuitive. Zebra on the other hand gives me the impression of being completely overwhelmed and I don't know where to really start and how to get to the sound that I want to get to.

Tarekith · Post by **Tarekith** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 12:11 am

Zebra2 comes with a slimmed down, fixed layout version of itself called Zebralette, perfect for learning what it can do without feeling overwhelmed.

I think they're both class synths, but slightly different approaches. Massive will get you a power synth with a nice searchable preset system, though since it's a fixed architecture (at least compared to Z2), it also means you lose a little flexibility overall. Massive does seem to be more CPU intensive as well, at least when making similar sounds to Z2.

Finally, the most important aspect IMO, is the fact that URS is known for how quickly he does updates and squashes bugs for Zebra2. He's a very easy guy to get ahold of (try his forums at kvraudio.com), and if you have any issues with the synth, you know he's going to be working asap to correct them.

Sadly, the same cannot be said of NI, who are known for taking a long time between updates, often requiring people to buy the latest version to (hopefully) fix confirmed bugs.

Cue EW in 3...2...1....

blank · Post by **blank** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 12:37 am

Tarekith wrote:
Cue EW in 3...2...1....

polyslax · Post by **polyslax** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 1:01 am

I have owned, and sold, both Massive and Zebra. Both powerhouse, feature packed synths. I would give Massive the edge in UI, and Zebra the edge in overall sound.

If customer service is the tie-breaking deciding factor, well, Urs easily takes the prize.

Machinesworking · Post by **Machinesworking** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 1:34 am

Zebra over Massive, but they lend themselves to different sounds I think.

Zebra is much less of a CPU hog. Massive can bring any system down with as little as 6 instances if the right CPU pig patch is used.

I would rather have Zebra and Reactor or Absynth myself. Massive is cool, but I get along better with Zebra.

Winston · Post by **Winston** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 6:33 am

Completely different synths workflow-wise.

The sounds you can get in Massive quite easily would be a pain in the ass to get with Zebra, but there are also a lot of sounds that are much harder to get with Massive that you can easily get with Zebra 2.

For the gnarly phat bass/lead sounds ala Nine Inch Nails of late etc. Massive delivers quite easily. But Zebra's modularity is bound to give you some very different sounds, especially because of the additive element.

jeskola · Post by **jeskola** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 10:12 am

Massive is super easy to make sounds with.
The modulation possibilities are ridiculous (though you cant modulate the rate of a modulator yet...).

CPU wise - you can turn massive to Eco mode and brign the voices to 4 and it almost quarters the cpu load on average.

to be fair ive never used zebra yet...i use massive exclusivly now on everything from drums to pads to leads. love it!

gerard · Post by **gerard** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 12:16 pm

Overall I agree with all you've said people as I have tried both synth. But my question was if somebody could tell/show me how to achieve this sound http://www.garyboozy.f2s.com/basswarble.mp3
with Zebra. It's really easy with Massive, but right now I don't have the cash for it. So I'll try to dig further with Zebralette for starters but still a patch that goes there would be very much appreciated.
Thx for all the input!

edit: Just to clear things, I own Zebra already. I bought it because I loved the presets.

siliconarc · Post by **siliconarc** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 1:52 pm

i appreciate that you err .. appreciate that sound, but it was just an example i knocked up of how to do a certain sound without the use of lfos in massive - it probably doesnt translate to zebra in the same way, but i'm sure zebra could do a very similar thing with a bit of basic knowlegde on the users' part. both synths have huge sound creation potential, its just what you can get your head around quicker, i suppose.

Tarekith · Post by **Tarekith** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 2:59 pm

http://www.u-he.com/Messe08PaperHigh.pdf

ewistrand · Post by **ewistrand** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 3:20 pm

blank wrote:
Tarekith wrote:
Cue EW in 3...2...1....

ew

leedsquietman · Post by **leedsquietman** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 3:28 pm

I own both. I think Zebra is better at certain sounds and Massive at others, but I would buy BOTH. Massive is a CPU hog but it has an ECO mode that helps a lot, keep it on ECO and turn it to BEST just before you render and the CPU issue goes away.

I like Massive's preset menu and find it easier to do weird routings but Zebra is a great synth, relatively good on CPU and with some effort you can get it to do complex things. I would toss a coin or buy BOTH. There's so little to choose between them quality wise.