This is a video I made in preparation for NAMM 24, to bring our team and our beta testers up to date with the current state of Zebralette 3. Much has changed since, but the information therein should still be pretty valid. We're currently evaluating a candidate for a public beta version which may or may not pop up in our company forum on KVR in a few days or weeks.
Cannot wait for this!! Thanks Urs and team for wroking so hard on this. Truly blown away by some of these features! MPE + Zebra 3 should be life changing!
What you've done with the curve editors is outrageously cool! Regarding circular membranes like timpani, is your harmonic editor able to support non-standard harmonic frequencies, like the 1.59 and the 2.14, 2.3 harmonics? I've been looking for a synth that can decently imitate a circular membrane. If Zebra3 has this capability, then can I pre-order it?
@@scottk3292 You can edit the harmonic tuning rather freely, but atm we don't have a way to enter precise values. I'm sure we can figure out a definitive answer during the upcoming beta phase.
"This is going to be the most powerful synthesizer ever made" Everybody says that when a new synth is release, but do music composers want to spend hours making waveforms or actually create music?
@@PedroMiguel-if3ll I know a lot of people say that about a lot of synths not everyone knows what they are talking about, and many people are simply just excited albeit naive however, this time it's true, this really is going to be the most powerful synthesizer ever made onto your second point: "but do music composers want to spend hours making waveforms or actually create music?" no, they also don't want to practice singing, or build concert halls, or design instruments this is the job of a sound designer, the sound designer spends hours making waveforms for the composer to use when making music
@@PedroMiguel-if3ll That's fair, though Zebra 2 famously had a lot of incredible presets designed by some of the best sound designers, and I'm personally thrilled to have a multiple waveform fx for directly controlling the shape of the waveform as compared to presets on most wave table synths. I do love sound design and making my own presets.
@@PedroMiguel-if3ll actually, the most power synthesizer ever made already exists: It's called "Bitwig 5.1.3" It's the most powerful, endlessly reconfigurable synthesizer masquerading as a daw.
instant love after using one night. the more traditional/organic sounds are very rich and compelling but it's the newer more-complicated sounds which really deliver. simply amazed at what this can do and just how good it sounds. also extremely happy to report that the interface is absolutely stable on mac os 10.13.6...thanks for keeping us older systems in the loop. thank you Urs for a most wonderful gift!!!
Cool stuff. And I want to say thank you for your work with the CLAP format. I've been using a few CLAP plugins in Reaper and it's fantastic. It's made VCV in the DAW work nicely. I really appreciate your work as well as the fact your release Linux versions of your plugins.
@@boimesa8190 im not too in touch with why exactly but tldr steinberg has monopoly over the vst format so some people made clap which is supposedly less annoying to work with
How absolutely incredible to get an in-depth introduction by you personally, dear Urs! 🙌 Congratulation on the advancements. Can't wait to fiddle with this personally. 😍
This is absolutely brilliant and very exiting! Zebralette 3 has to be the best sounding and intuitive free synth out there. Very happy using this alongside my Hive 2! Many thanks to Urs for this great gift. Looking forward to the final version!
Thank you for making this brief overview video, this is marvelous work you and your team has done on this synthesizer! The waveform editor is really something to behold, I'm greatly looking forward to trying it out. I can see why it's been years in progress now, certainly worth the wait!
Oh nice! Was just watching the NAMM interview some minutes ago again for some details. Thank you for this extensive walkthrough 🌻 Cheers from Kreuzberg
Just got the beta and wow! Loving it already. Gonna be along night tonight haha Great work and congrats to you and the team. I’m a developer myself so I know the struggle all too well.
Congratulations on this masterpiece. This is truly a next gen synth compared to every synth released in past 10-15 years. I love the workflow and UI. Double LED screens look really nice and makes sense. Best oscillator and MSEG ever.
Having programming background I am in awe about what is going on here. Now I why understand why it took years to build a framework under the hood that can do this insane stuff. Kudos!
I'm excited to see you're still developing software synthesizers. I read that VCV Rack had you questioning if it's still worth developing VST instruments. As somebody that uses both VCV Rack and VSTs all the time I can assure you that your products are still worth developing and most importantly...paying for! Bazille is my all time favorite synthesizer, and I used a beta version of it for what felt like years before happily shelling out for it a decade ago.
I like VCV. My initial reaction to it was negative, because I was afraid it had a negative impact on certain hardware. But after talking to people I changed my mind quickly. Now we have some VCV modules for internal use that we might even release at some point.
@@UrsHeckmannBerlin I would happily pay for your VCV Rack modules since I already use your synthesizers inside of the Host module. Being able to use individual modules from your synthesizers would be a no-brainer purchase for me.
This is so cool! Love the look and all the possibilities! I do wish you'd release all synths as standalone too. Sometimes it's just fun to sound design and not open your DAW.
Amazing synth and more amazing is your generosity to the sound making community! One question: I'm new to this instrument. How do you make a looping envelope as in the preset Zorch UK? I'm sorry if I missed this somewhere? (Anyone can answer of course:)
Beautiful gift to share thank you Urs! I’m curious if there is any significant CPU performance advantage automating Zebralette’s parameters via host automation vs for example MIDI CC inputs to Zebralette?
Looks great. I’m imagining using multiple instances on separate layers in something like the Unify VST or in a container device in Bitwig. Sound design heaven!
I've downloaded the beta and gave it a try. This synth is already amazing, Zebra 3 will be the dogs bollocks! I'll need a new laptop though... @Urs: this synth can do absolutely anything, but it's a steep learning curve. Have you spoken to Magnus Lidström? Zebra(lette) is probably too complex to parametrise compared to Synplant 2, but maybe adding a Synplant-type algorithm/AI can help get users a bit closer in the direction to certain sounds/samples, so you'll only need to do the last bit of tweaking and polishing manually.
Synplant was built on the idea of genetics, so it lends itself to the AI algorithm Magnus chose. The strength of Zebralette is meant to be the precision it offers *humans* to think up and realise a vast array of waveform and sonic transitions, fast. The center part of this is the tool chain we developed. I do not see much need to replace the human component here, it would feel strange to me to feed Zebra oscillators some audio examples to copy, instead of using the tool chain.
@@UrsHeckmannBerlin Thanks, Urs, makes sense. I guess I'm just a bit lazy. Both the UI and sound of Zebralette 3 are really good, can't stop playing around with it. So I'll probably be well prepared when the full Zebra is released. Thanks for making a great musical instrument!
Man, I love u-he. Got to talk to them at NAMM 2023. Hard to hear because it was so loud in there but nice group. Cant wait for potentials like Diva 2 etc...
Arturia developers could learn a thing or two hundred from u-he, and make vector GUIs, so their synths don't consume 10 GB of RAM with all those PNGs. 😉
no less than great! Wirklich super - ich warte mit großer Spannung drauf. Werde ich ganz sicher einsetzen. Mein persönliches Highlight der letzten Synthshows was auch immer so kam.
cant wait to sink my teeth into this one, but word of advice if you make another video like this...use a larger cursor and make it like red or something, cursor often disappeared and couldnt tell where you were clicking
Off topic: but I would love if Tyrell got a makeover as a paid for version. It no longer runs well on my silicon Mac and I’m kind of sad because there’s something incredibly unique about the sound of the filters in that thing. It’s lush like no other synth I’ve got. Possible?
Heh, this is a nice preview of what's coming for Zebra 3, too. ;) Oscillators are kickbum. :) All there is left for U-he to make is a kickbum physical modeling synth, and a kickbum sampler! d= ;)
@@UrsHeckmannBerlin May I ask what the difference is between Diva and Zebra, and Repro? I'm very new to synths... I can recognise a Moog, but don't know too much about the internals. :) Which would be good for starting out and learning?
@@galgogergo The first analogue synth I learned was a Pro-One. Repro-1 is inspired by it. And Repro also has a polyphonic synth, Repro-5. I think those are very good starting points to get an understanding of synthesizer architecture and basic components (oscillators, filters, LFOs, envelopes...)
pls work more on gui on windows its pretty laggy its need to be more smooth. i wish there gonna be features were you can right click to reset parameters and double click to type values.
It would be great if you could send your Windows specs (CPU, screen resolution, framerate etc.) via email to support at u-he dot com because we do not have any reproducible case where the UI is laggy. Resetting parameters usually works via double click whereas typing values works by simply clicking the parameter and typing away. We have recently improved this a lot, so the next beta will have a dedicated "key control" button which enhances these features greatly.
@@BFHPET I hope so, too! - We're super busy with this and there's been so much feedback, we do hope to have the majority of tasks and issues done in a few weeks or so. Once that's all done, we'll check if a new beta is good to go.
This is a video I made in preparation for NAMM 24, to bring our team and our beta testers up to date with the current state of Zebralette 3. Much has changed since, but the information therein should still be pretty valid.
We're currently evaluating a candidate for a public beta version which may or may not pop up in our company forum on KVR in a few days or weeks.
I am beyond excited
Cannot wait for this!! Thanks Urs and team for wroking so hard on this. Truly blown away by some of these features! MPE + Zebra 3 should be life changing!
What you've done with the curve editors is outrageously cool! Regarding circular membranes like timpani, is your harmonic editor able to support non-standard harmonic frequencies, like the 1.59 and the 2.14, 2.3 harmonics? I've been looking for a synth that can decently imitate a circular membrane. If Zebra3 has this capability, then can I pre-order it?
@@scottk3292 You can edit the harmonic tuning rather freely, but atm we don't have a way to enter precise values. I'm sure we can figure out a definitive answer during the upcoming beta phase.
This is going to be the most powerful synthesizer ever made. Beyond excited to make sounds that no one has heard before!
"This is going to be the most powerful synthesizer ever made"
Everybody says that when a new synth is release, but do music composers want to spend hours making waveforms or actually create music?
@@PedroMiguel-if3ll I know a lot of people say that about a lot of synths
not everyone knows what they are talking about, and many people are simply just excited albeit naive
however, this time it's true, this really is going to be the most powerful synthesizer ever made
onto your second point: "but do music composers want to spend hours making waveforms or actually create music?"
no, they also don't want to practice singing, or build concert halls, or design instruments
this is the job of a sound designer, the sound designer spends hours making waveforms for the composer to use when making music
@@PedroMiguel-if3ll That's fair, though Zebra 2 famously had a lot of incredible presets designed by some of the best sound designers, and I'm personally thrilled to have a multiple waveform fx for directly controlling the shape of the waveform as compared to presets on most wave table synths. I do love sound design and making my own presets.
@@PedroMiguel-if3ll actually, the most power synthesizer ever made already exists: It's called "Bitwig 5.1.3" It's the most powerful, endlessly reconfigurable synthesizer masquerading as a daw.
instant love after using one night. the more traditional/organic sounds are very rich and compelling but it's the newer more-complicated sounds which really deliver. simply amazed at what this can do and just how good it sounds. also extremely happy to report that the interface is absolutely stable on mac os 10.13.6...thanks for keeping us older systems in the loop. thank you Urs for a most wonderful gift!!!
Cool stuff. And I want to say thank you for your work with the CLAP format. I've been using a few CLAP plugins in Reaper and it's fantastic. It's made VCV in the DAW work nicely. I really appreciate your work as well as the fact your release Linux versions of your plugins.
What makes CLAP so good then?
What makes CLAP so good then?
What makes CLAP so good then?
@@boimesa8190 efficiency, designed for modern CPUs, better communication between plugin and DAW.
@@boimesa8190 im not too in touch with why exactly but tldr steinberg has monopoly over the vst format so some people made clap which is supposedly less annoying to work with
How absolutely incredible to get an in-depth introduction by you personally, dear Urs! 🙌 Congratulation on the advancements. Can't wait to fiddle with this personally. 😍
Your plugins really deserves every cent. U-he never disappoints in quality and innovation.
The upgrades and New Ui are so Good! new zebltte sounds amazing. CAN'T WAIT FOR ZEBRA3!!! I love you Mr. Heckmann 🌚
This is absolutely brilliant and very exiting! Zebralette 3 has to be the best sounding and intuitive free synth out there. Very happy using this alongside my Hive 2! Many thanks to Urs for this great gift. Looking forward to the final version!
This thing is great and the way a lite version was released was smart. I will be getting the full version when it's out.
Playing with the beta and this is absolutely bonkers. It's a brand new thing. Well done on pushing things forward.
Amazing work. Love it! Played around last night and found very interesting results, excited to play around and learn more :)
Thank you for making this brief overview video, this is marvelous work you and your team has done on this synthesizer! The waveform editor is really something to behold, I'm greatly looking forward to trying it out. I can see why it's been years in progress now, certainly worth the wait!
You can try it today as the public beta is available in our support forum on KVR (I can not post links on TH-cam...)
You earned even more stripes, team Zebra. As expected, this already is a HUGE GAME CHANGER!
Given the surgical precision of the new waveform/MSEG editor, I think Z3 was well worth the wait.
Oh nice! Was just watching the NAMM interview some minutes ago again for some details. Thank you for this extensive walkthrough 🌻 Cheers from Kreuzberg
Congratulations on the release!
I really like the GUI. it has a bit of a retro feel, but at the same time it's very fresh
Cannot wait for the beta! Great work to you and your team 👏
I spoke with your team in early Jan about this. I’ll be keeping my eye out on the forums
Just got the beta and wow! Loving it already. Gonna be along night tonight haha
Great work and congrats to you and the team. I’m a developer myself so I know the struggle all too well.
Top of the list of favorite music software : u-he , TAL , Arturia , Apple , Sonible , Fabfilter , izotope , etc
u-he is on another level when talking about music technology. I have only two favourites: 1. u-he 2. Fabfilter
Yes! Absolutely incredible to see this out in the wild!
OMFG! Instant love. If this is any indication of what Zebra 3 might become, I'm already in, wallet is ready.
About to make an album with just this thing
It makes Dubstep sounds very nicely.
Absolutely stunning. I am looking forward to Zebra 3 a lot! Thanks for releasing Zebralette.
I Have NEVER EVER been anticipating a vst synth more than this ! I’m buying a fresh new laptop tomorrow to go with this .
today I downloaded the beta and is simply amazing. What a incredible synth and it's free? I can't wait for zebra 3 to come out. Instant buy!
Congratulations on this masterpiece. This is truly a next gen synth compared to every synth released in past 10-15 years. I love the workflow and UI. Double LED screens look really nice and makes sense. Best oscillator and MSEG ever.
I'm going to make a drum sample pack as soon as I get my hands on this, should be able to do crazy percussion
Very cool improvements to the UI to tweak synth sound design =)
Zebralette + Ableton Live instrument layering = 😎
This is really beautiful!
Can't wait to try it! Love all your synths. Thank you for providing Linux versions btw !
Wow, amazing...thank u. Just tried a few patches and I'm definitly into this...
Damn...this could be nobrainer of the decade!
I’ve never been this excited for a free vst
Having programming background I am in awe about what is going on here. Now I why understand why it took years to build a framework under the hood that can do this insane stuff. Kudos!
This beta runs really nice under Linux, Bitwig and CLAP! Thanks for this great Synthi!
Jesus christ Urs you have knocked this one out of the ball park. I cant wait for Zebra 3
Great Prototype.
I'm excited to see you're still developing software synthesizers. I read that VCV Rack had you questioning if it's still worth developing VST instruments. As somebody that uses both VCV Rack and VSTs all the time I can assure you that your products are still worth developing and most importantly...paying for! Bazille is my all time favorite synthesizer, and I used a beta version of it for what felt like years before happily shelling out for it a decade ago.
I like VCV. My initial reaction to it was negative, because I was afraid it had a negative impact on certain hardware. But after talking to people I changed my mind quickly. Now we have some VCV modules for internal use that we might even release at some point.
@@UrsHeckmannBerlin I would happily pay for your VCV Rack modules since I already use your synthesizers inside of the Host module. Being able to use individual modules from your synthesizers would be a no-brainer purchase for me.
This is so cool! Love the look and all the possibilities! I do wish you'd release all synths as standalone too. Sometimes it's just fun to sound design and not open your DAW.
we do have a project to do a stand alone version, but it isn't finished yet.
You got me excited that there was a public release, haha. Still, very cool video. I love seeing anything about this upcoming technology.
finally a harmor competitor
jawdropping
Awesome! ❤
Amazing synth and more amazing is your generosity to the sound making community! One question: I'm new to this instrument. How do you make a looping envelope as in the preset Zorch UK? I'm sorry if I missed this somewhere? (Anyone can answer of course:)
SO EXCITED!!
My most anticipated piece of tech of the year!
It’s awesome!🤩
I think I'm in love😅😍
Looks very powerful and fun. Cant wait to give it a go. 👍
Beautiful gift to share thank you Urs! I’m curious if there is any significant CPU performance advantage automating Zebralette’s parameters via host automation vs for example MIDI CC inputs to Zebralette?
I don't think there's any performance impact.
Very nice, I spoke to Viktor at length at the show about it. I can't wait to start patching it.
many thanks!
Very excited to get hands on with this. The new Zebra is going to be wild.
Looks great. I’m imagining using multiple instances on separate layers in something like the Unify VST or in a container device in Bitwig. Sound design heaven!
Very nice!
Knocked it out of the ballpark with this one, Urs! Amazing job to you and the team at U-he!!
Hi there! I´m an alien too. Greetings from Guadalajara Mexico, life here is awesome and sounds so nice too. I make big and cool noises.
I can't believe my eyes
Vielen lieben Dank an dich Urs und alle die dieses kleine Schmuckstück von einem Softsynth programmiert haben.
I’ve never met Urs but we need more Urs in our life. Good vibes. Thank you for what you provide for the community. Stay safe.
I've downloaded the beta and gave it a try. This synth is already amazing, Zebra 3 will be the dogs bollocks! I'll need a new laptop though... @Urs: this synth can do absolutely anything, but it's a steep learning curve. Have you spoken to Magnus Lidström? Zebra(lette) is probably too complex to parametrise compared to Synplant 2, but maybe adding a Synplant-type algorithm/AI can help get users a bit closer in the direction to certain sounds/samples, so you'll only need to do the last bit of tweaking and polishing manually.
Synplant was built on the idea of genetics, so it lends itself to the AI algorithm Magnus chose. The strength of Zebralette is meant to be the precision it offers *humans* to think up and realise a vast array of waveform and sonic transitions, fast. The center part of this is the tool chain we developed. I do not see much need to replace the human component here, it would feel strange to me to feed Zebra oscillators some audio examples to copy, instead of using the tool chain.
@@UrsHeckmannBerlin Thanks, Urs, makes sense. I guess I'm just a bit lazy. Both the UI and sound of Zebralette 3 are really good, can't stop playing around with it. So I'll probably be well prepared when the full Zebra is released. Thanks for making a great musical instrument!
@@mvv1408 preparing people for Zebra 3 is indeed a major motivation for this release :-)
Man, I love u-he. Got to talk to them at NAMM 2023. Hard to hear because it was so loud in there but nice group. Cant wait for potentials like Diva 2 etc...
bro made adobe illustrator in a vst
Arturia developers could learn a thing or two hundred from u-he, and make vector GUIs, so their synths don't consume 10 GB of RAM with all those PNGs. 😉
10gb of ram?! Slight exaggeration!
@@andywatts8654no
Yeah, this literally makes no (well, very little) sense without wavetable import, as it is now. Exceedingly strange.
no less than great! Wirklich super - ich warte mit großer Spannung drauf. Werde ich ganz sicher einsetzen. Mein persönliches Highlight der letzten Synthshows was auch immer so kam.
Freut mich!
Mr. Heckmann, could your future self tell me what are the black thin traces in the middle of the keys in the keyboard for ?
Thank you Urs for the very friendly Zebralette and the outstanding Filterscape!
I've always wanted to spend hours fiddling with a waveform in a super advanced editor only to make it sound like any other square wave 😏
then make it sound like something else ;-)
okay !!! :)
Thanks very much
I am a designer and I love synths GUI, my dream is to design one some day.
@Urs Heckmann *when will the beta be available to all users? I have been waiting for your creation for more than two years, I am very excited!*
Soon, in our company forum on KVR... should be no later than a week if all goes well.
@@UrsHeckmannBerlin I'll make sure to pick it up and beta test in Linux Debian.
can't wait to try it
So beta is ready for upload? When available for download?
soon, see my latest comment :)
TOP!!!
cant wait to sink my teeth into this one, but word of advice if you make another video like this...use a larger cursor and make it like red or something, cursor often disappeared and couldnt tell where you were clicking
omg thank you for committing to such a well designed UI
I want to test but i will wait. Zebra 3 is going to be the best synth.
Off topic: but I would love if Tyrell got a makeover as a paid for version. It no longer runs well on my silicon Mac and I’m kind of sad because there’s something incredibly unique about the sound of the filters in that thing. It’s lush like no other synth I’ve got. Possible?
we'll eventually refurbish Tyrell N6, too
@@UrsHeckmannBerlin Amazing 🙏🙏🙏
Sounds great! are 32 bit OS supported?
Sorry, we had to go 64 bit only with this.
Consider bringing your synths to iPadOS?
Can't wait for this 😍
Heh, this is a nice preview of what's coming for Zebra 3, too. ;) Oscillators are kickbum. :) All there is left for U-he to make is a kickbum physical modeling synth, and a kickbum sampler! d= ;)
This will be pretty insane 🤘😊
the name urs comes from ursus right ? anyway hope zebralette stays free.
When Zebra 3.......
can't wait!
Richtiges Kaffe und Kuchen.....G A N Z L E C K E R
Is Zebralette 3 the successor to Zebra 2? Or are they different things?
it's the successor of Zebralette 2, which comes with Zebra2. We are also working on Zebra 3, but this is still far from beta testing.
@@UrsHeckmannBerlin May I ask what the difference is between Diva and Zebra, and Repro? I'm very new to synths... I can recognise a Moog, but don't know too much about the internals. :) Which would be good for starting out and learning?
@@galgogergo The first analogue synth I learned was a Pro-One. Repro-1 is inspired by it. And Repro also has a polyphonic synth, Repro-5. I think those are very good starting points to get an understanding of synthesizer architecture and basic components (oscillators, filters, LFOs, envelopes...)
pls work more on gui on windows its pretty laggy its need to be more smooth. i wish there gonna be features were you can right click to reset parameters and double click to type values.
It would be great if you could send your Windows specs (CPU, screen resolution, framerate etc.) via email to support at u-he dot com because we do not have any reproducible case where the UI is laggy.
Resetting parameters usually works via double click whereas typing values works by simply clicking the parameter and typing away. We have recently improved this a lot, so the next beta will have a dedicated "key control" button which enhances these features greatly.
@@UrsHeckmannBerlin sounds great when will it be released? I hope you can give us some information soon.
@@BFHPET I hope so, too! - We're super busy with this and there's been so much feedback, we do hope to have the majority of tasks and issues done in a few weeks or so. Once that's all done, we'll check if a new beta is good to go.
First
This is going to be hughe. ❤️
this is gen splicing for audio :D
Sowas geschenkt. Wahnsinn. 😀
A Catan player with a WASP in his desk... What else?
There's a Minimoog from 1971 and a pristine Jupiter 4, first revision with discrete filters
Does it have a random function?
No.
Diva 2? Ever?
Zebranlette in french
Et un son de temps en temps ??????? 👎
thank you for this fantastic update and news and icredible work you do! i think this synthesizer is a must have 😃👍🏻 @UrsHeckmannBerlin