Our third 80s-inspired feature in a month… safe to say we’re fully immersed at this point. But when a synth nails that balance of nostalgia and forward-thinking design, it’s hard to resist. In this edition of Synth Secrets, we’re diving into Zebra 3. A long-time favourite among sound designers, Zebra has earned its reputation for its depth, flexibility, and unmistakable character. The latest incarnation builds on that legacy – refined, expanded, and still just as inspiring to explore.
From Madonna and Gloria Estefan to film scores like Predator and Romancing the Stone, the 80s saw a sudden explosion of marimba-esque, tuned percussive sounds in music. The reason was simple: mainstream adoption of FM synthesis and sampling. Because, as amazing as analogue subtractive synths sound, they’re pretty poor at sounding like anything in the real world – especially hollow things being hit with sticks.
When you hit metal tubes, hollowed-out wood or glass bells, there are huge numbers of cascading resonances at play, both harmonic and inharmonic. FM synthesis lets you get pretty close to this with complex overtone structures. And sampling makes a playable copy of it. But the new Modal modules in u-he’s Zebra 3… they actually employ physical modelling to recreate these resonances. And they sound awesome.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about the Modal modules is that the actual sound you run through them is almost incidental to the tonality of the resulting sound. To prove this, let’s turn some white noise into a dancefloor-ready percussive arpeggio.
The vibes of our example are quite minimal tech, but the pattern can easily be tweaked for more tropical, Latin, or Afro vibes.Also, for now, Zebra 3 is in public beta, so you can simply download the installer and a beta license card here.
Before we start, though, here’s a little before and after…
Basic white noise source
Zebra 3 physical modelling
Step 1
Load Zebra 3, open an INIT preset, and look to the centre panel. Replace the default oscillator it added with a ‘Noise 1’ module. Now set the Envelope 1 Attack, Sustain and Release to 0 and set the Decay to about 400ms. Draw in a single one-bar-long note on C2, hit play, then change the Noise Shape to Single Hit and listen to our tight little volume envelope profile, like a stick hitting a hard surface.
Noise source hit
Step 2
Add a Modal 1 module right afterwards. This module will calculate realistic physical resonances using the dynamic volume profile of our white noise. Click Suppress Dry to remove the source signal (the noise), and now play it. Already sounds almost like a tuned drum, right? Listen closer, and you’ll notice that each hit is slightly different from the one before. This is the joy of Modal modules – they naturally impart an organic variation in sound.
Modal module added
Step 3
It might already sound like a tuned drum, but so far, it only sounds like a tuned synth drum. To breathe physical life into it, we’ll need to actually apply a physical model, and they’re hidden behind the little + symbol. Click it now, and you’ll see two modelling slots: A and B. You can load a model into both and blend between them (and, of course, modulate that blend balance), but for this one, just load ‘Punched Can’ into slot A. Now it’s sounding like a physical object.
Physical model added
Step 4
Before we go on, to help understand the relationship of the Noise oscillator and the Modal physical modelling module, quickly set the Noise Shape back to Constant briefly to compare the result. This demonstrates that, while the harmonics and tone come from the Modal module, the volume envelope and percussive characteristics are shaped by the source sound. It’s actually arguably more realistic now, in fact, but we’ve lost control of the envelope, and we can add that realism back later if we want by opening the sustain and release, so switch it back to Single Hit.
Looser noise envelope
Step 5
Zebra 3 has plenty more tricks up its sleeve, so let’s start creating a rhythmic pattern using the MSEG (Multi-Step Envelope Generator). First, load the audio files 909_Kick.wav and 909_Hat.wav for timing reference. Then set your project tempo to 126 BPM and click on the MSEG window to open it. Let’s also change our Trigger Source for the Noise and Envelope from Gate to MSEG to make sure it’s linked to them. Now you can just draw in any pattern you like – we’re going with a skippy vibe with a little looping section at the end for energy.
Zebra lets you load settings for individual modules, so you can grab our pattern below.
5a_Percussive_pattern_Release_0.
5b_Percussive_pattern_Release_323ms
5c_Percussive_pattern_Release_0_with_beat
5d_Percussive_pattern_Release_323ms_with_beat
NOTE: As you can hear on audio file 5a, our Release time of 0 creates a click at the end of the pattern, which sounds a bit rubbish when played alone. But, as audio file 5c shows, this actually sounds quite cool with the kick as it becomes part of the percussive groove. Listen to 5d to hear how much less jacking it is without that click. 5b shows a version with a longer release, which we can use for sections where the pattern plays without drums.
Step 6
We’re going to use a Mapper module to convert our fixed pitch pattern into a riff. But first duplicate this whole channel as it is now, as we’ll use this version later. Now, back to the original channel. CTRL-Click / Right-Click Modal 1 Tuning to assign the Mapper 1. Then go to the Mapper setting in Modal 1 and set tune Modulation depth to 16. This means the Mapper is controlling the tuning of the Modal module. You can program your own riff or, for simplicity’s sake, load up our module preset.
6_Melodic_riff_added
Step 7
Let’s add another layer to the patch. Start by duplicating our current channel, so we now have three versions. In the latest copy, we’re only tweaking the Modal settings. First, select the Metal Bowl modelling preset. Next, disable Suppress Dry, set the Tune to +12 and then CTRL-click / Right-click the Tuning to set the range to -24. Set the Position to 100, the Decay to 19 and pull disperse to 0. Finally set the Stereo Tune to 32 cents. Now it’s a really clackety and powerfully driving patch.
7_Clackety_layer
Step 8
Finally, let’s add some more excitement to our MIDI part. Load up Busy.mid into all three channels and check it out. This pattern uses layered notes and different note lengths to trigger the loop point in our patch in different ways. Try out different combinations of this pattern and the previous simple riff and the three channels and percussive parts. You can even try panning the channels left and right and play with the Sustain and Release on the Zebra parts.
Below is a short jam using a bunch of these options. Not bad for a tiny little burst of white noise, eh?
8_Assorted_combinations
Zebra 3 is in public beta, so you can simply download the installer and a beta license card here.
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