The Sound Board

The Zebra 3 public beta is now live and as well pre-orders etc. All info here

https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=625544

Heady days for lovers of complex synths!

But u-he has made Spectrasonics look sprightly in comparison. I struggle to comprehend how it takes so long to do an update, even allowing for re-coding vast swathes of it.

Only been 14 years

I mean... NASA got to the moon in 8...

(yeah, so they spent 4% of GDP getting there, never mind that)

Guy Rowland wrote: ↑Dec 10, 2025 2:48 pmHeady days for lovers of complex synths! (...)

Another one: the brand new Sound Radix Radical1



__

Zebra 3, wow, I never thought I'd live to see the day! (Well, it's not formally released, so I may yet not.)

Piet De Ridder wrote: ↑Dec 10, 2025 3:54 pm Another one: the brand new Sound Radix Radical1

If that sounds half as sexy as it looks ...

Unfortunately Mac only right now.

tack wrote: ↑Dec 10, 2025 9:06 pm If that sounds half as sexy as it looks ...

Unfortunately Mac only right now.

Really not sure if that was meant ironic or not Jason, personally I never considered Zebras convoluted GUIs attractive at all, and at a glance not much changed in that respect. The sound, of course a totally different matter.

As for attractive "modern" GUIs, I consider the innovative synths by Dawesome outstanding, but horses for courses.

Looking at some of these GUIs, I'm having a sci-fi Minority Report type moment. I see a lot of cloud-based browsing or morphing which is great, but I wonder if you could actually "program" a synth entirely by navigating 3D space. Wild colours and shapes that could hint at meaningful changes - clouds become balls forming patterns in space for anything rhythmic etc.

Incidentally, Dawesome have a lovely looking new free granular delay/reverb effect I'll put in the Happy Thread Of Free in a bit.

With names like “Dawesome” and “Radical,” I feel like I need to brush up on my ‘80s Val-speak.

Woah, that’s righteous, dude!



Best,

Geoff

I did just try out Zebra 3, but "try out" is overstating things a little. For whatever reason I've never bonded with Zebra 2 - I just don't find it a fun synth to explore - and of course Zebra 3 is pretty much the same in this regard. However I know Z2 is a) exceptionally capable and b) proper programmers love it, and I happily accept I am an ignorant outlier. And 3 will be better than 2, as sure as 3 follows, um, 2.

There's a decent amount of presets for a Beta to get an initial flavour, which is pretty much all I did. And some nice stuff for sure, but I'm not sure I heard anything with a wow factor of "I've never heard that before". It kinda sounded like Zebra to me, which is great but I'm not sure it lives up to "14 years in development". (what can?)

If you're a Zebra fan then my words are useless and I'm sure there's going to be tons here you will love. But not sure this will win over many truly new converts.

GR Baumann wrote: ↑Dec 11, 2025 1:26 am Really not sure if that was meant ironic or not Jason, personally I never considered Zebras convoluted GUIs attractive at all, and at a glance not much changed in that respect. The sound, of course a totally different matter.

It wasn't meant ironically. I was quoting Piet talking about Sound Radix Radical1 which does look pretty.

tack wrote: ↑Dec 11, 2025 7:43 am It wasn't meant ironically. I was quoting Piet talking about Sound Radix Radical1 which does look pretty.

I thought you meant Zebra.

I have the old Zebra. The ancient "Norton Commander" feels more comfortable to browse files, and of course, they never updated the GUI to be zoomable. I do not understand the notion of sticking with that old design, an odd decision in my view. As Guy, I never clicked with it at all, neither with Hive, which I was lucky to be able to sell on at a small loss. I was about to go for Diva, despite this 70s style file browser, but did not at the end, and decided for The Legend HZ instead which I find "beefier" in some sonic aspects and more pleasant on the eyes.

Ah well, talk about being spoiled for choices.

Somewhat overlooked with this beta hoopla is that Zebralette 3 is actually officially released - and totally free. It's stripped down bits of the full Zebra. https://u-he.com/products/freeware/zebralette/