UHe Zebra 🧻🧻🧻💩

The BatSynthesiser

Can I start by saying the best thing about Zebra is that it comes with Zebralette, which represents only one module of the parent software. There is enough complexity in that one module to make most the noises you had in mind without even diving into the whole famdamnily. And it also makes this review a hell of lot easier.

Because no matter how you design a modular system they are a challenge. Load a patch, wonder how it is made, open the cupboard and a whole bunch of tubing and guts falls into your lap. UHe also makes a traditional modular with patch cables and these usually leave me stone cold. Nope, not interested. Zebra does it right – enough that Melda even copied it.

You start with a simple oscillator which can be drawn with a few points as a graphed waveform or as the peaks of a spectrum. This can be morphed with 15 other graphs by an envelope, LFO etc.

So a very simple example – a saw wave blended over only 2 shapes to a sine. Already this is sufficient to emulate the majority of Roland synthesisers – but with spectral charts, complex filter sweeps, phase modulation et. al. are not far behind.

Further to this you may add two modulated deformations (often of exotic name and unknown purpose) to the result – filters, scatters, smears etc. at which point you have more sounds than you know what do with and should be happy with what you paid for it – which is nothing – Zebralette is free and why don’t you have it already?

If you do pay for the full Zebra, you get more optional kit. You might want different envelopes or LFOs for each of the morph and the amplitude. You might need a touch of filter, frequency modulation, arpeggio, effects and so on. It becomes a case of ‘Damn I really wish I could do this as well … oh look’ and that’s the advantage of Zebralette over other cable based modulars. Start with just the basics. If you need more load it into Zebra. If you don’t need something there, it’s not shown.

Every synthesiser is a kind of story – the sound sets out from the oscillator and makes its way through the filter on the way to the amplifier etc. Knowing this story and being able to re-tell it is the virtue of analogue synthesis, and why many people prefer limited hardware. The four pathways of Zebra (now there’s a Young Adult title) are at the edge of that story telling, like a complicated TV series with many  characters. I can follow the general idea of a patch but get a bit lost about which OSC met a FMO and decided to go to an XMF together – these modules are not the single purpose ones you get in a traditional modular.

But it’s a hell of a lot easier for me than UHe Bazille. The moment those cables are there I draw a blank. It seems to be many people’s idea of heaven – so try the demo.

You could compare Zebra to Tone 2 Icarus which attempts slightly less (i.e. most of what you’ll ever need) with a more familiar interface. This is large and animated, more likely to please performers. It is tweakable, where Zebra is more planned. Both are capable of very complex tonality, but I think perhaps Zebra will better suit the chess player.