Ableton Forum

is this synth worth it?
is it possible to use for all duties?
being messing with the demo. Not finding it that easy to be honest

How could something that will 'work for everything' be simple at the begining of your exploration. The fact of its possibilities stops that. Over time you will see its great range as well as come to grips with its ease of use. Zebra can cover a lot of ground. And it gets easier.

Try out a number of synths. The great ones are not typically easy. My favorites are Zebra 2, Massive, Absynth 4, and FM8.
None of them are easy to learn. That's just how it goes.
If you want to learn, mess around with the demo of Operator. I consider that to be an intuitive synth for learning--very good, but maybe overpriced comparatively.

feyshay wrote:Try out a number of synths. The great ones are not typically easy.

I'd have to disagree with this statement. While complex synths can and often do sound good, I don't fine that a synth has to be complex to sound good. Five cases in point:
- Sylenth1 - simplicity of a JP8000, sounds as phat as a Virus
- Zero Vector - kick ass sound, easier than a Virus to program, and emulates Virus B
- Sytrus - easy FM programming, incredible envelopes, prolly the hardest synth in this list, insanely phat sound
- Operator - so easy that even Henke can sound good
- Sampler - sounds great even when you have no clue what you're doing to it

The new age of softsynths brings lots of complexity, and Zebra can be easy or complex...but good sound is not directly proportional to complexity...they are mutually exclusive.

obvious question about the demo: Are the occasional random pitch fluctuations a crippleware function of the demo or does the full version work that way too? Patches get gradually more and more random pitch variations as I use them. If I reload the patch it'll play fine for a few minutes and that start with the randomness again.

Yes, that's a limitation of the demo, not the actual functionality of the synth. Much better than the crack, which melts your screen. That's always good fun.

I think it's worth saying that it doesn't melt 'your screen', but that the interface looks like it's melting. At least that's what I understood - I guess he'd have a riot if people's screens started melting!

I'd say you're splitting hairs, but I don't want to start another hair thread

nebulae wrote: Zero Vector - kick ass sound, easier than a Virus to program, and emulates Virus B

ZV wasn't meant to emulate a Virus; emulation of an existing synth was the last thing on Dave's mind when he developed it. Besides which, a Virus doesn't do vector synthesis...

It's a great synth; one I should use more often than I do.

ew

ewistrand wrote:

nebulae wrote: Zero Vector - kick ass sound, easier than a Virus to program, and emulates Virus B

ZV wasn't meant to emulate a Virus; emulation of an existing synth was the last thing on Dave's mind when he developed it. Besides which, a Virus doesn't do vector synthesis...

It's a great synth; one I should use more often than I do.

ew

Interesting...Dave mentioned to me that he looked at the Virus B when he designed it, including the filter design, the polyphony, the waveforms, so on. At least that's what he told me when I was writing the manual for him. You're right about the vector synthesis, of course.

yes it is worth it

it is possible to use for a wide range of duties and the sound quality is outstanding.

I find it one of the easiest synths to understand, but then I just clicked with it right off. I think the GUI is a brilliant piece of work.

but of course it comes down to whether you like it after giving it a solid test drive

nebulae wrote:

ewistrand wrote:

nebulae wrote: Zero Vector - kick ass sound, easier than a Virus to program, and emulates Virus B

ZV wasn't meant to emulate a Virus; emulation of an existing synth was the last thing on Dave's mind when he developed it. Besides which, a Virus doesn't do vector synthesis...

It's a great synth; one I should use more often than I do.

ew

Interesting...Dave mentioned to me that he looked at the Virus B when he designed it, including the filter design, the polyphony, the waveforms, so on. At least that's what he told me when I was writing the manual for him. You're right about the vector synthesis, of course.

Now that's interesting; I don't remember that coming up on the old WN beta list at all. I can see the filters (sort of) and the unison voice schemes as being sort of Virus-influenced, but not the rest of it.

ew

I wish Dave had kept up with it - fantastic synth, well a head of its time. The filter zipper noise in particular should have been updated.