U-He Zebra Basic Overview Series: The Synthesis Window

Welcome back to our basic introductory video tutorial series for U-He Zebra. This week we look at the Synthesis window, helping you get up to speed quickly so you can elevate your sound design game.

To help ensure you are able to create what you intend to, you first need to understand these basic pieces of U-He Zebra and how they all work together while you design your sounds. The synthesis window is broken up into two main panes. The first is the generators pane, where all active oscillators and modules are managed. The second pane is there to manage all assigned modulators. Since Zebra allows you to assign modulators to just about anything, the list of tools managed in this right-hand pane can become extensive. The generators pane is a bit more selective, as you are in control over what is visible there by way of turning the modules on and off in the main grid (routing matrix) found between these two panes.

The main grid is where you patch and route your generators in U-He Zebra. The audio signal flow is always from top to bottom in the main grid panel, though you can also take advantage of the four columns with horizontal patching as well. It is important to understand that generators do not process audio, the signals are simply mixed. Another important fact is that is there are ever so many modules used that they do not all appear in the pane, a slider will appear to allow you to navigate to them.

The lower bar and lower pane sections of the U-He Zebra synthesis window is where you can set, adjust and manage settings correlated with the two main panes above and the modules listed in them. You can look at various panels here, from global settings to individual oscillators to filters, envelopes and even the X/Y Pads. But we will delve deeper into this area in a future tutorial. For now, you can dive right into the areas covered in this lesson and become acclimated to the interface and functionality of U-He Zebra on a more basic level. This is all you really need to know to start making some simple sounds and begin feeling comfortable.