# Zebra2 vs Kilohearts Phase Plant



## Trevor Meier (Dec 20, 2020)

Zebra2 is revered. Phase Plant seems to be the new kid on the block with a similar modular-style concept and a rave following. Anyone have experience with both?

Looking to add more analog-style sound & tweakability. Already have & love Omni2 but find it a bit opaque when I want to play building patches.


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## Fleer (Feb 12, 2021)

Almost two months later. Finally got Phase Plant. No need for Serum anymore. Maybe Zebra3 in a year or so. But then I’m pretty sure Phase Plant will do granular by then.


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## Pier (Feb 16, 2021)

In a nutshell, PhasePlant has audio rate modulation, better effects, and can load samples. Zebra 2 has better analog filters.

If someone is interested in replacing Serum, Vital is awesome and it's free.


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## Snoobydoobydoo (Feb 27, 2021)

Phaseplant is nice and fresh, but im really dont want to buy additional "modules/FX" one by one
or by a monthly subscription model to get access to new stuff..how annoying is that...
Added little upgrades for a Softsynth should be free...


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## Pier (Feb 27, 2021)

Snoobydoobydoo said:


> Phaseplant is nice and fresh, but im really dont want to buy additional "modules/FX" one by one
> or by a monthly subscription model to get access to new stuff..how annoying is that...
> Added little upgrades for a Softsynth should be free...


You can use them as stand alone effects in your DAW or in KiloHearts effects environments like MultiPass.



I'm not saying I disagree with you, but these modules are definitely not just "little upgrades".


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## Russell Anderson (Mar 5, 2021)

Trevor Meier said:


> Zebra2 is revered. Phase Plant seems to be the new kid on the block with a similar modular-style concept and a rave following. Anyone have experience with both?
> 
> Looking to add more analog-style sound & tweakability. Already have & love Omni2 but find it a bit opaque when I want to play building patches.


Have you made any moves with regard to either Zebra or Phase Plant? I've had an interesting time testing them recently. Two really, really amazing synths.


Snoobydoobydoo said:


> im really dont want to buy additional "modules/FX" one by one
> or by a monthly subscription model to get access to new stuff..how annoying is that...
> Added little upgrades for a Softsynth should be free...


The subscription model seems pretty reasonable as you also get a $100 voucher per 12 months subscribed (non-consecutive months included). I'd be happy if they had Melda's approach in MSF (every effect they sell comes in the synth), but here the effects aren't stuck inside your synth, so. And I certainly don't use every snapin. I believe the now-confirmed granular oscillator type update will be free.


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## Trevor Meier (Mar 5, 2021)

Russell Anderson said:


> Have you made any moves with regard to either Zebra or Phase Plant? I've had an interesting time testing them recently. Two really, really amazing synths.


I ended up getting Diva and going with Phase Plant for my main modular/sound-design synth. I love the interface. It's fantastic to route modulations and play with the sounds, very easy to create complex and interesting sounds. I don't love the oscillators... I'm considering buying some third-party wavetables to load in to get just the right sound, or perhaps making my own using Diva as a starting point. We'll see, but overall very happy with my choice so far!


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## Snoobydoobydoo (Mar 5, 2021)

Trevor Meier said:


> I ended up getting Diva and going with Phase Plant


Yay, good choice.
 I can almost hear your CPU shouting for help


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## Russell Anderson (Mar 5, 2021)

Trevor Meier said:


> I ended up getting Diva and going with Phase Plant for my main modular/sound-design synth. I love the interface. It's fantastic to route modulations and play with the sounds, very easy to create complex and interesting sounds. I don't love the oscillators... I'm considering buying some third-party wavetables to load in to get just the right sound, or perhaps making my own using Diva as a starting point. We'll see, but overall very happy with my choice so far!


Nice, combination attack! Diva is awesome. I was going through basically the same thing you did and, only able to afford one, I went with Phase Plant for the ease/versatility and the coming granular update.

Weirdly I was actually most excited about how "analogue" I was able to get it to sound when I sat down to see if I could do it. Zebra and Diva are both still on my list for sure; Zebra in particular seems pretty arcane but is sparkly precise and can evendo physical modeling.

I actually re-subscribed to Kilohearts in an attempt to convince myself not to get Phase Plant, and instead go with u-he (I wasn't really using Phase Plant much and certainly can't atm afford both Khs and u-he stuff), so I tried to make a convincing analogue sound with Phase Plant and unfortunately (fortunately) was really surprised... because of how deep you can get in the osc section, it’s surprisingly doable to warm up and very slightly destabilize sounds to emulate circuitry behavior, and it ends up being really fun. You can do anything almost, it feels like. Diva would probaby be a smarter plugin to load up for that sound, but just goes to show you Phase Plant’s power. Loading Diva sounds into PP as a wavetable/sample is a good idea, also. There’s even a YT video that demonstrates just that.

New filter types coming, by the way.


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## Pier (Mar 5, 2021)

Russell Anderson said:


> New filter types coming, by the way


This will help a lot achieving more analog sounds.


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## Russell Anderson (Mar 6, 2021)

Pier said:


> This will help a lot achieving more analog sounds.


Ladder Filter is already the take on that; I do see “tube” and “warm” and some other words that do look conducive to that type of sound, but I wonder why they don’t just merge this one with Ladder Filter. Nonlinear, yeah, but... thematically related flavor wise I presume. There are already 5 other filter snapins, lol


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## Fleer (Mar 6, 2021)

Russell Anderson said:


> Ladder Filter is already the take on that; I do see “tube” and “warm” and some other words that do look conducive to that type of sound, but I wonder why they don’t just merge this one with Ladder Filter. Nonlinear, yeah, but... thematically related flavor wise I presume. There are already 5 other filter snapins, lol


Yeah I agree. This would be milking it.


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## sostenuto (Apr 24, 2021)

Fleer said:


> Yeah I agree. This would be milking it.


Good to see your earlier Serum comment, as it has looong been high on list, but never added. Current interest is PhasePlant and Pigments 3.0. Major cost difference and may try PP subscription path .... not my fav. 
Preset / 3rd Pty lib junkie, in terms of way to get close to desired content before tweaking. Assuming you remain pleased with Kilohearts PP as time goes on ?


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## Fleer (Apr 24, 2021)

sostenuto said:


> Good to see your earlier Serum comment, as it has looong been high on list, but never added. Current interest is PhasePlant and Pigments 3.0. Major cost difference and may try PP subscription path .... not my fav.
> Preset / 3rd Pty lib junkie, in terms of way to get close to desired content before tweaking. Assuming you remain pleased with Kilohearts PP as time goes on ?


Indeed, but I haven’t really tried Pigments (3.0j yet. I do believe Phase Plant 2.0 will raise the bar even more.


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## Russell Anderson (Apr 24, 2021)

sostenuto said:


> Good to see your earlier Serum comment, as it has looong been high on list, but never added. Current interest is PhasePlant and Pigments 3.0. Major cost difference and may try PP subscription path .... not my fav.
> Preset / 3rd Pty lib junkie, in terms of way to get close to desired content before tweaking. Assuming you remain pleased with Kilohearts PP as time goes on ?


PP subscription is really great, coming from someone who much prefers ownership over subscription. As good or better than Plugin Alliance ($100 voucher after 12 months of sub, consecutive or non-).

Gotta say, Harmor is an amazing additive synth, and it's far easier to get far cooler additive sounds out of Pigments at first glance. You can do some amazing stuff with Harmor, too, but they're a little mutually exclusive, and frankly... As far as cool pure-synthesis additive stuff goes with some modulations happening to affect the sound, I'm tentatively casting my vote for Pigments over Harmor. You can't do resynthesis in Pigments but you can do sampling and granular; and for the pure-additive part, Harmor gives you potentially more control over partials being places but it takes longer to get there and the modulation, because of the available parameters, just can't get you to where Pigments can with for instance its Cluster mode, which can quickly get you some VERY cool sounds that would take forever if not be actually impossible to get in Harmor without just resampling Pigments into Harmor, which is about the only way to brute-force harmonics to move around as you want them to. And frankly the 2cAudio Kaleidoscope workflow of pixel editing is not my idea of how additive synthesis is best realize when talking about per-partial editing. Pigments did great in this regard, and frankly I'm too novice with other additive synths (haven't used them) to be able to say how Pigments matches up to the likes of Razor, Parsec, Loom II etc.

anyway, to bring Phase Plant into the conversation... After the 20 minutes I just spent demoing Pigments' additive, I can't say which between them I'd "prefer" overall. I'd prefer to have them both, to be frank, although I think I'll wait a do some more looking into other additive synths or FFT effects in general since Pigments just blew my mind a little bit. I'll say this: Phase Plant's modularity has Pigments beat, aside from potentially a few easier workflows with custom mappings/MSEGs in Pigments. I _think_ Phase Plant has Pigments' effects beat (a whole suite of modular effects, man). It also has like 15 unison modes, some of which get you into somewhat additive territory (pitch stack, shepherd etc). Without a doubt, FM in Phase Plant is unquestionably more powerful. It's also getting granular in a coming update. It also features toggle-ably polyphonic effects; for instance, distortion on each note individually which prevents notes from being glued together and chords becoming sometimes messy (or awesome). Both synths are regularly updated with huge updates. Pigments' Arpeggiator takes a dump on Phase Plant in that regard. Pigments already has great granular. Pigments' additive, I must say, sounds really quite good, and thus is really incomparable to Phase Plant. Their layouts are different; for now, I prefer Phase Plant, though Pigments is pretty and for many works very well. 

Additionally, they have completely separate preset libraries. And if you have any arturia products, I think Pigments is $70 or less while this sale lasts. I don't want to fuel you spending money on things you may not need or use, and I am very much an advocate of learning what you have, even though I make impulse buys like most others do. However, you're likely to get quite a selection of different sounds by owning both. And I think you can get some very good sounds indeed from Pigments with (and before) this update. The noise oscillator by itself is very good-sounding and useful.


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## sostenuto (Apr 24, 2021)

Fine Reply ( for my needs ) and helps when this selection process is now in 'fine tuning' mode. 
Personally .... not astute re. synth internals ..... and will never exhaust work with Omni 2.6 to 
utilize fully. 
Present sense .... after amazing list of VI-C posts .... Pigments 3.0 is strong value at $69. (Analog 4/5 user). PhasePlant would/will be heckuva addition and challenge, but will be extended time to absorb vital (_pardon pun_) details.


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## Russell Anderson (Apr 24, 2021)

sostenuto said:


> Fine Reply ( for my needs ) and helps when this selection process is now in 'fine tuning' mode.
> Personally .... not astute re. synth internals ..... and will never exhaust work with Omni 2.6 to
> utilize fully.
> Present sense .... after amazing list of VI-C posts .... Pigments 3.0 is strong value at $69. (Analog 4/5 user). PhasePlant would/will be heckuva addition and challenge, but will be extended time to absorb vital (_pardon pun_) details.


I find it to be really easy to use, honestly, which is one of its most captivating parts. It's an _insanely_ deep synth, but they've organized it in such a way that everything feels simple to do (well, barring a few more esoteric things but those are nowhere near bread-and-butter features). I'd say it's also very good value at $10 a month, and you can always just decide it's a no-go. But Pigments, at $70... It is good value for sure. And you can typically re-sell it for $80+ if it's not doing it for you. You can get some positively monstrous, or gorgeous sounds out of either one. I won't be surprised _when_ both of them continue to be updated with amazing updates that make them far superior to their previous renditions.


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## Fleer (May 6, 2021)

Pigments 3.0 has arrived. Ready to compare with Phase Plant.


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