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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nBecause 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<\/a> with patch cables and these usually leave me stone cold. Nope, not interested. Zebra<\/em> does it right – enough that Melda even copied it.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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<\/em> is free and why don’t you have it already?<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you do pay for the full Zebra<\/em>, 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<\/em> over other cable based modulars. Start with just the basics. If you need more load it into Zebra<\/em>. If you don’t need something there, it’s not shown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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<\/em> (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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n