Performance & Effects:
Here you see the performance pane. - It sports the 4 XY-controls which can "morph" up to 16
synthesis and effects parameters each in realtime.
Each XY can be named individually for each preset, along with a little description what it does...
On the bottom left you can see some global parameters, such as voices used, playmode (poly/retrigger/legato/arpeggiator), Portamento (with Range), global tuning (incl. Microtuning table from .tun files) and a global Swing parameter that puts any modulation and the arpeggioator into a groove!
On the right hand side of the global parameters you can see the freely routable effects. Each effects is worth a plug-in of its own, making Zebra2's effect section one of the most flexible and best quality sound aftermaths ever implemented in a synthesizer!
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top left: the audio modules rack
top center: the Grid, for drag&drop circuit control
top right: the modulators rack
bottom: MultiStage envelopes
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Synthesis & MultiStages:
Well, here's the deep stuff.
You can drag around your modules in the Grid, activate or deactivate them as needed, see the signal flow change, even as
you play a note.
The activated modules show up in the Audio Modules rack, which autoscrolls to the correct position as you click a module
in the Grid. If you have a mouse with a wheel, navigation is even easier.
Each module offers it's set of parameters in a clear layout.
In Zebra, you have all modules, all modulators and the whole connectivity stuff on a single window, everything at a glance within
its distinct context.
It looks overwhelming at first, but after just 15 minutes, you'll be familiar with the interface, and you can start
building patches from classic synthesizer simulations to weird stuff that's been unheard of.
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Oscillator waveforms:
Create your own oscillator wavetables easily in an intuitive fashion: Just draw each of 16 waveforms for each oscillator. Or, instead of directly drawing a waveform, draw each waveform's spectrum (additive synthesis).
You can also create waveforms and spectra with spline-based curves that smoothly interpolate (morph, that is...) between the wavetables, based on a granular method controlled by the Resolution parameter.
A Normalization function helps smoothing the transitions between wavetables for best quality results.
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Arpeggiator:
Zebra2 inherited the infamous Arpeggiator of FilterscapeVA - it just got a bit extended here!
Exceeding typical arpeggiators, you can use a control sequence of up to 16 steps to manipulate the order of notes being played, gate time (including legato to next note), step duration (1x - 4x), transposition, polyphony (i.e. for occasional chords within the arpeggio).
Additionally, two step sequencers follow the rhythmic scheme of the arpeggio. These can be used as modulation source for anything modulatable within Zebra2, which is a lot.
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simply more FMO:
In Zebra2 you have 4 dedicated oscillators for frequency modulation, called FMO. The "more FMOs" page gives you advanced control over these: You can create key- and velocity scalings as well as assigning each FMO one out of 8 different waveforms.
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XY Assignment:
Choose up to 8 out of 100+ parameters for each axis of the XY-controls! - That makes automatable
and non-destructive sound morphs of up to 64 parameters in the 8th dimension!!!
Each parameter can be influenced independently in both positive and negative direction (up/down, left/right) of any axis!
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Zebralette:
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Included with Zebra 2.0 comes another little synthesizer going by the name of Zebralette.
This little gem consists basically of only one Zebra oscillator. It helps you learning and using the oscillators with their wavetables, morphable additive synthesis and innovative Osc FX quite easily.
Of course she's a full blown synthesizer in her own right, and her presets can be imported into the bigger sister for further manipulation!
You'll be stunned to hear what sound a Zebra oscillator can do without even using any filters!
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New: Chronosphere from BigTone Studios!
