Massive vs. Zebra

[4damind]

Originally Posted by ksandvik

You should ask Hans Zimmer about Zebra, unless you are no big fan on the music of Inception.

You should not forget he got a lot of help from Urs and Howard Scarr. Afaik Urs also build a special version only for Hans with some of the Diva filters included. This is for U-He a big marketing thing to have the name of Hans Zimmer as a prominent user.
You can expect that Hans would make the same with every other synth. Give him Arturia Moog Modular or stuff and he would use it and make a big score

[EvilDragon]

...and that Zebra version with Diva filters is hitting the market next week.

[ksandvik]

Yes, I would think Hans Zimmer could use any HW or SW synth on this planet and he's pretty much exclusively using Zebra for his synthetic needs.

As for Dubstep, Massive has its moment but it's Razor and its friends now that seem to rule.

I would not rule out Diva as a serious contender, you can't go wrong with its classic sounds.

[ChristianRock]

Originally Posted by Synthpark

If someone would say, the filter in Zebra is much better than Massive, ok, a valid point. But then you can also go with Diva. I would take Diva over Zebra anyways. For a faster work flow, and for that more analogish character.

The next version of Zebra will have Diva's filters and enhancements. In fact there's an upgrade for Zebra that already adds some of Diva's functionality to Zebra before the full-on release which should happen next year.

Ok the reason a lot of people use Massive is they get it with Komplete. I bought Komplete for Kontakt so I see Massive as a freebie I got and if the NI synths work well for me (and they should), then I don't need anything else.

[ChristianRock]

Originally Posted by 4damind

You should not forget he got a lot of help from Urs and Howard Scarr. Afaik Urs also build a special version only for Hans with some of the Diva filters included. This is for U-He a big marketing thing to have the name of Hans Zimmer as a prominent user.
You can expect that Hans would make the same with every other synth. Give him Arturia Moog Modular or stuff and he would use it and make a big score

Yeah but these Zebra upgrades were not used in Inception. It was one the movies he did more recently, I forgot the name.

[ksandvik]

Originally Posted by ChristianRock

Yeah but these Zebra upgrades were not used in Inception. It was one the movies he did more recently, I forgot the name.

Batman the Dark Knight.

The extensions are nice but you could do a lot of good stuff in Zebra as it is today. Just need to read the manual and learn how the various patches available at The u-he Patch Library. Note you could even download to Zebra oscillator sources (let's say you really want the Virus oscillators, or the Massive oscillators :-)...), MSEGs, all kinds of effect settings, arp settings, you could spend years going through all that.

[samsam]

Originally Posted by ChristianRock

Ok the reason a lot of people use Massive is they get it with Komplete.

I'd imagine the main reason most people use Massive is for its sound/features, not the fact that it can be bought as part of a bundle.

[Grummy77]

Originally Posted by samsam

I'd imagine the main reason most people use Massive is for its sound/features, not the fact that it can be bought as part of a bundle.

I wouldn't have gone out to of my way to buy massive on it's own as I already had Zebra but getting it within Komplete was a very nice bonus indeed. FM8 is the one that surprised me the most as far as added bonus that I find myself pulling out more than most. I honestly didn't expect to even really like FM8 when I bought Komplete for Kontakt, Battery, Guitar Rig & Reaktor primarily. But out of the softsynths in Komplete FM8 gets the most use for me. They all do get use though and I'm glad to have them. If you can afford it Komplete is a no brainer.

If you can't afford it and have to choose between Massive and Zebra for me it's Zebra. But seriously if you can't get interesting musical sounds out of either than don't quit yer dayjob fer sher.

[spaceacademy]

Originally Posted by lysander

Really ?
So basically you know nothing about the synth but you still don't like it and don't recommend it.
Thanks for clearing that up.
Don't know where your wishy ambient soundscapes come from but if that's all you've heard you really haven't been looking very far.

Well, I can only go by what I heard on their demo page of the synth. There was nothing there with bite and it was wishy washy soundcapes. There was nothing there to encourage me to try the demo. If thats the sound it comes out with which is perfectly fine if your in to that sort of thing then go for it. I only stated my opinion based on what I heard on the products site. If its sound palette is much wider then why not demonstrate that?

Heres one back at ya!

[spaceacademy]

Originally Posted by Synthpark

Based on the demos on the webside, I would never buy Zebra. Cheesy trance sounds, ambient sounds etc. Not for me. Why is there not a single convincing sound demo, something chic sounding?

Massive is used by a lot of producers in the music business, for Rap, for Dubstep, Techno etc. It has proven it's value. And it can do way more than Sylenth, although Sylenth is a nice basic synth.

I completely agree and like I said I can always get something out of Massive even when my track is begging me not to add anything else. Doing that with some other synths is like pulling teeth The amount of FX and EQ I need to use on XXXX synth to get it to cut through is ridiculous and that actually includes my Moog RME. Thats my hunch with Z'Bruh

[Grummy77]

What's with all the posts dissing Zebra from guys who've never used it?

Trust me, Zebra does a hell of a lot more than "washy" sounds. There's so much under the hood there you can pretty much get any sound imaginable. I haven't spent too much time on Zebra's website listening to demos. I just decided to buy it based on rave reviews on forums and do not regret it at all.

I actually own and use both fairly regularly. Zebra more than Massive because to me it's more intuitive for designing a sound from scratch. I use it for music and sound design for TV, movies and theatre.

The one advantage massive has over Zebra is if I don't have time to build a patch from scratch and I want to just grab a preset and go. If the sound I want is in the Massive sort of mindset I can open that synth and use the internal search engine thing. That's the dogs balls for sure in a hurry.

But seriously if you like getting hands on with your patches both can be great. Zebra is more flexible. For me I can cover a wider range of sounds with Zebra. More options and more flexibility.

I can't speak for U-he's marketing or what audio samples they put on thier website but from owning and extensive hands on playing & working with both Zebra (to me) is superior in flexibility and options. I think so far the only folks on here that said they prefer Massive over Zebra have been people that haven't actually used it. That says something. But like I said earlier you should be able to get great results with either. If you're the kind of person who just uses presets and doesn't want to tweak then Massive might be for you (although there are some great Zebra presets out there already). Me personally I like being able to mold and create the sound I need at the time. That said there's plenty to tweak in massive too.

Another consideration is genre I suppose. If you are looking to only do DubStep Massive will have more patches ready to for you out of the gate. But for one soft synth to rule them all Zebra is more synth for your buck (to me anyways).

[LotuZia]

Massive can sound the way you want it, but always with its own identity, and if I did not say the following demos are from our Wave Grooves soundbank for Massive, my guess is that very few people would have deciphered it.

So for me, its a very versatile synth, with a stellar simple UI, and true Wavetable synthesis.

http://www.lelotusbleu.fr/catalog/mp...elotusbleu.mp3

http://www.lelotusbleu.fr/catalog/mp..._separate3.mp3

More details on these instruments if anyone interested :

Wave Grooves - NI Massive Soundbank -

LtZ

[EvilDragon]

I'd really like to see what you'd come up with Zebra, Lotuzia.

[Urs]

Hee, very strange indeed (in response to Grummy77)

There's one trance-ish song on our Zebra page and that's actually well produced, and 5 completely different songs/examples. These are all great demos IMHO and I'm very happy that we didn't revert to just a single style. We used to have about 80 demos on the page, but those six turned out to be just fine.

Further audio examples are on the page with preset packs btw.

Zebra2 Patch Banks

OTOH there's no "law" or rule that says one has to like our stuff. We're synth geeks, we do stuff we love, we don't do things to cater a specific market. No offense taken if other synths or concepts cater certain markets better than ours. We will however not do anything we're not fully committed to in order to reach more people.

Urs

[spaceacademy]

Put up a demo with a big fat Dub Step, Electro House, and Tec House tune with Zebra playing the parts (except the drums) and Ill be looking at your synth a lot more closely as I suspect a lot of others will.

I looked at Zebra before a few times and I thought if that's its core sound I will just go for sylenth. This was about a year ago. It wasn't downloading a demo that decided it for me. It was simply hearing what both synths could do and it was the audio demos that forced my choice. The Sylenth demos I heard had Electro House,Dub Step, Tec House, trance written all over them. The sort of thing I and many others are in to. It was quite obvious straight away what that synth was all about. I'm not saying its better than Zebra but I wasn't going to buy the synth which didnt seem to represent any of the styles of music I'm interested in. Surely this is just basic marketing.
And dont forget some of us do this for a living. We cant download every synth and tweek away endlessly. There are many (no offence intended whatsoever) who are synth tweekers. This is not my part time hobby. Music is how I make a living.

[4damind]

Originally Posted by spaceacademy

There are many (no offence intended whatsoever) who are synth tweekers. This is not my part time hobby. Music is how I make a living.

I agree. There are a lot of guys more interested with synth programming and they will find a dream synth with Zebra (but also with Ace, Arturia Modular etc).
People more focused to writing songs/arranging will find with Massive IMO a better tool.

[EvilDragon]

Originally Posted by spaceacademy

I wasn't going to buy the synth which didnt seem to represent any of the styles of music I'm interested in.

Synths are not supposed to "represent a style of music". Just because there's no demo that fits your particular style of interest doesn't mean the synth is bad at doing such sounds, you know.

[Grummy77]

Originally Posted by 4damind

I agree. There are a lot of guys more interested with synth programming and they will find a dream synth with Zebra (but also with Ace, Arturia Modular etc).
People more focused to writing songs/arranging will find with Massive IMO a better tool.

Good point.
Although once you really learn a synth like Zebra you should be able to build a ballpark sound prettyquick. I too earn my keep from music and sound. But depending on what I'm working in and what deadlines I have will determine what I softsynth I grab. I do a lot or scoring and sound design. If I'm looking or need a specific sound sometimes it's quicker to grab something like Zebra and make it, than browsing through hundreds of presets to find one I need. That said you can learn your presets too. Same could be said for learning Massive inside and out though too.

As I've said earlier i like bothand both are powerful. I just find Zebra more flexible. For my workflow and purposes I find it more intuitive also. That's a little more subjective and a personal preference thing though. You might personally find Massive more intuitive.

[lysander]

Originally Posted by spaceacademy

Put up a demo with a big fat Dub Step, Electro House, and Tec House tune with Zebra playing the parts (except the drums) and Ill be looking at your synth a lot more closely as I suspect a lot of others will.

I looked at Zebra before a few times and I thought if that's its core sound I will just go for sylenth. This was about a year ago. It wasn't downloading a demo that decided it for me. It was simply hearing what both synths could do and it was the audio demos that forced my choice. The Sylenth demos I heard had Electro House,Dub Step, Tec House, trance written all over them. The sort of thing I and many others are in to. It was quite obvious straight away what that synth was all about. I'm not saying its better than Zebra but I wasn't going to buy the synth which didnt seem to represent any of the styles of music I'm interested in. Surely this is just basic marketing.
And dont forget some of us do this for a living. We cant download every synth and tweek away endlessly. There are many (no offence intended whatsoever) who are synth tweekers. This is not my part time hobby. Music is how I make a living.

If you re interested in what it sounds like in these musical styles you should take a listen at the freshly squeezed samples zebra essential collections demos.

[spaceacademy]

I might just do that. Thanks

[ohmicide]

apples and oranges IMO

they might overlap at some parts but they're completely different synths, it really depends what you're looking for

[Kindred]

I am not sure what the point of comparing these two is - they are completely different synths - both awesome - but completely different

[oobwa ee]

I hate massive - stupid dubstep crap synth

haha, not really, but that's what so many peoples uses to show there dubsteppy sound.
Zebra is like a fine wine - a high class quality drink whereas Massive is like Budweiser - generic p*ss drunk to only vomit it up later

[LotuZia]

Originally Posted by oobwa ee

I hate massive - stupid dubstep crap synth

haha, not really, but that's what so many peoples uses to show there dubsteppy sound.
Zebra is like a fine wine - a high class quality drink whereas Massive is like Budweiser - generic p*ss drunk to only vomit it up later

Very stereotyped comment. Hating an instrument because you dislike the music some oher people make with it is eventually not the way people should look at synthesizers imho, and talk about musical instruments, or music overall.

[Synthpark]

Think like this: Massive has a lot in common with the Virus TI. Complrex wavetable synthesis, two filters, massive routing capability, not so bad effects. (Although the virus has yet more synthesis options). Does anyone diss the Virus as cheap Budweiser? Does the Virus have its own distinctive sound? Yes, so what?

[subhertz]

Seems no-one has mentioned that Massive is a closed system, last I read you cant add new wavetables ; whereas Zebra's oscs are open to drawing new waveforms or importing wavetables with a third party utility available on the forum.There are also wavetables from other synths available in the user library.

Zebra seemed more flexible when I demoed them both..

[studiobysbox]

Originally Posted by lysander

If you re interested in what it sounds like in these musical styles you should take a listen at the freshly squeezed samples zebra essential collections demos.

Unfortunately the Freshly Squeezed Zebra soundsets are not a good repesentative of todays music. To me they sound old and dated even though it's only been out for a 6 months.

I seldom post out here, but I had to chime in on this one.

My partner and I both work with EDM music, and we have both used Zebra, Massive, and Sylenth1 in club tracks. All are 3 great synths. But to me they lend themselves to different applications.

Zebra has tons of programing options and it has very deep features. And I that's great because you can create some very wild sounds with it. Those extensive sound design options lend itself well for songwriting and producing songs for Film. It's so feature rich you could use Zebra alone for a film project and never pick up another synth (I think Hans Zimmer only uses Zebra as a soft synth) I think that's why Zebra excels at ambient, soundscapes and it also emulates other instruments very accurately due to it's extensive sound design features.

But I would never use it for today's popular EDM being played on the dance floor. To me, no matter how much grit, color, or distortion you give it, the oscillators and filters always continue to sound smooth and rounded out. Everytime I hear an EDM track in the club with Zebra used it just never fits right. Smooth is not a bad thing, just not good for today's EDM.

Massive's performance and stepper features work great for Dubstep or Complextro, and no matter how much some may dislike Dubstep, the truth is it's become the current mainstream right now. Sylenths Unison and Oscillator detuning creates better Supersaw sound way better than either Zebra or Massive, and that's critical for Trance or Progressive styles. Also The lack of features in Sylenth and the closed system of Massive makes them quicker and easier to use so you get the job done faster. And that's important in today's EDM with tight project deadlines and songs are being written and released the same day on laptops.

But I personally would never use either Massive or Sylenth to do what Zebra does. I mean they can both do it, but I just don't think the sound of Massive or Sylenth fits well with ambient, chill, soundscapes, filmscapes, etc. They have too much edge. Zebra's smooth sound just seems to fit better for more mellow styles of music.

Also, listening to soft synth samples either in the studio or on the internet is no match to actually getting the synths in tracks AND playing songs using the synths in the club. My partner and I have run tests with all 3 synths in various clubs and it always appears both Massive and Sylenth have "that" sound that cuts through todays club music better. Part of that may be because those are the two synths used a lot for EDM. But I think another part of that is the sound of both Massive and Sylenth work better with today's EDM than Zebra.

Anyway, those are my observations on the 3 synths. All 3 are good, they just have different uses.

[lysander]

Interesting write up.
I am not a professional producer but I would perfectly understand the need to get "today's sound" quicker with a synth that has that kind of sound out of the box if you write that stuff for a living.

But I would also say that to me supersaw stuff tends to sound cheesy and dated, and I would never want to try and emulate the current sound of dubstep, complextro or trance - because as much as I enjoy some of it, it all sounds very samey to me and I would rather try and innovate a bit.
But this comes back to a debate about writing commercial music ( which is perfectly respectable ) versus trying to write something more personal and thus a bit off topic.

I am convinved however, that between the option to import waveforms in Zebra, and the possibilities of adding grit and aliasing with some tricks( see Howard Scarr's tutorials ) and other bits of sound design it is possible to make it sound very close to the Virus/Sylenth/Massive territory.
Clearly this is a lot more sound design work, but you could build a template that could be the basis of these type of sounds.

edit: I will also state that I have no experience whatsoever of having my music played in clubs so I will trust you on that one

[studiobysbox]

Originally Posted by lysander

I am convinved however, that between the option to import waveforms in Zebra, and the possibilities of adding grit and aliasing with some tricks( see Howard Scarr's tutorials ) and other bits of sound design it is possible to make it sound very close to the Virus/Sylenth/Massive territory.
Clearly this is a lot more sound design work, but you could build a template that could be the basis of these type of sounds.

We thought so too, but it was not even close. Even importing the waveforms from Sylenth or Massive in Zebra it did not sound the same. I think it's because of the filters. I would think I was close in the studio but when we would play it in the club it would not have that wow factor. In the end, I opted for Sylenth.

Ironically, a synth that gets used a lot for EDM is Omnisphere. I know a lot of big progressive and trance guys use it. It compliments Sylenth and Massive really well and stands out in the mix. I always thought Omnisphere was more of a film composition tool than Zebra was. But the sound just fits better for EDM than Zebra does.

This is not a knock on Zebra because it definitely has it's place. If I was not doing EDM, I would still have Zebra and not have Sylenth1. And Zebra makes some of the most realistic instrument sounds I have heard for a pure software synth (check out the Michael Kastrup banks). I wanted it to work because I wanted to be that guy that did it different. But there's a reason why so many EDM guys use Massive and Sylenth1.

[ksandvik]

Originally Posted by 4damind

I agree. There are a lot of guys more interested with synth programming and they will find a dream synth with Zebra (but also with Ace, Arturia Modular etc).
People more focused to writing songs/arranging will find with Massive IMO a better tool.

I'm more of a songwriter than synth programmer nowadays, and as I mentioned I used Zebra 2x more than Massive. Massive's UI is bizarre.