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The winner: Zebra2

Submitted by Arp on Sat, 04/25/2009 - 10:19
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The synth I have to have for my workhorse is Zebra2.  It's modular and as I found out when downloading a lot of the free banks out there, it can a lot of things exceptionally well - deep & fat basses, bad-ass VA sounds, tinkly (or deep) FM sounds, but what really sets it apart are the pads & textures.  That's where Zebralette (ie 1/4 Zebra) sounded better than the other synths.  If one oscillator can sound that good, what could I do with 4?  I dunno if I'd even need 4, but I like having it.

The big thing that separated my music in the past (and I will eventually get samples up, once I find my tracks) is the sound of the music when I was exploring and enjoying sound vs trying to write dance music, when it became more of a chore.  I want to go back to exploring sound for the pure joy & curiosity of it and figure out how to make some of the creepy cool textures I've heard in other Zebra patches.

Of the other contenders, the only one I plan on buying is Imposcar (hopefully sooner rather than later).  I just love the sound, but Zebra's pads just blow it away.  Buy it's filters are something special - last night I explained a little bit about filters to my 6 year old son and he preferred playing with Imposcar's over Zebra's (to his credit, he's got good taste in music - the kids likes bebop, the Violent Femmes and SAW II-era Aphex Twin).  Since the next version will allow audio inputs, it's a must have.

The remaining two were Twin2 & Predator.  To my friend Chris' credit, Predator sounds nice and has a nice variety of stuff it can do.  But it sounds just like Albino to me (to my credit, I turned Chris on to Albino Wink).  I'm sure it sits as well in a mix as Albino too.  I don't dig the old-school, looks like hardware interface, nor the ass-backward patch management. 

Twin2 sounds about the same as Predator, but it has a much greater fun factor due to the absolutely brilliant GUI.  If Zebra2 had Twin2's gui, it would be perfect.  I love the signal flow action and clicking on stuff to expand screens.  And it uses ALT & CTRL clicks too.  It doesn't sound better than Zebra but it's as good as Predator with a way, way better GUI.  At least Zebra also offers the fun of XY pads too.  Maybe Twin3 will be something I have to have, but Twin2's not there yet.  (Note to Chris - you MUST try Twin2.)

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