# Your favorite Zebra 2 soundsets?



## kimarnesen

As a new owner of Zebra 2 and Dark Zebra, I'm interested to hear about your favorite Zebra 2 soundsets. Yes, I know, I can make my own sounds. And I will!


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## MisteR

--everything by Howard Scarr on the u-he site (linked off the Zebra page).
http://www.u-he.com/cms/zebra2-patch-banks

--everything by theunfinished.
http://www.theunfinished.co.uk/shop/zebra-bundle/


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## kimarnesen

Any thoughts on PulseSetter?


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## Jaap

kimarnesen said:


> Any thoughts on PulseSetter?



Just saw this topic and was about to recommend them. They are really great and my favorites. Very smart and intelligent design and use of Zebra 2. I have both of them and they are both great! (as well as their Omni 2 set btw)

Edit: also check Sonic Underworld - Stephan Baer has created some great soundsets as well - http://sonicunderworld.com (disclaimer: I do create some demos for his products now and then and have received free products)


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## khollister

And Jaap's stuff (Triple Spiral Audio) is very good as well. Also like the Botanica trilogy from Eclipse Sound - one of my favorites.


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## Circe

I bought time ago corin neff Orchestral sounds.
Incredible quality !!!!

If I could make me my own instruments, from wavs .....but seems to be ultra-difficult


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## kimarnesen

Thx all, I will check every recommendation!


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## phil_wc

This is also another my favorite presets like The Unfinished. http://sonicunderworld.com


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## Quasar

kimarnesen said:


> As a new owner of Zebra 2 and Dark Zebra, I'm interested to hear about your favorite Zebra 2 soundsets. Yes, I know, I can make my own sounds. And I will!


I just got Zebra this morning as well. Used a 20% GC discount code, but I don't have the Dark Zebra, at least not yet. I'm inclined to try and learn a little bit about how to use this synth before throwing even more money at it.

There are a ton of free sound banks at Rekkerd.org:
https://rekkerd.org/patches/plug-in/zebra/


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## R. Soul

This one: 
http://www.luftrum.com/luftrum13/

Along with the ones from The Unfinished.


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## synthpunk

Some good freebies out there to get you started...

Free Zebramatic soundset
https://originsofaudio.com/product/zebramatic/

Free The Unfinished Box of Delights
http://www.theunfinished.co.uk/free/

Free Sonic Underworld Sigma
http://sonicunderworld.com/freebies/

---

Alexander Hacke (Einstürzende Neubauten) NYC
https://www.u-he.com/cms/zebra2-patch-banks/105-hackesnyc?u_he_AddCart=Hackes_NYC

Kyhon Zebra ( very eccentric website and sounds. WARNING if you are epileptic do not load his website)
http://www.kyhon.com/zebra

Also been impressed with the Sonic Underworld stuff lately mentioned above.

Agreed on Matt's (The Unfinished), Joseph's (Hollo), and Soren's (Electric Himalaya) work as well.


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## EvilDragon

I have too many to pick any favs...

Zebra Orchestra is ridiculous tho.


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## Saxer

Joseph Hollo's Padsheaven


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## AdamKmusic

Anything Unfinished and recently got Sonic Underworld’s Pandora which is really great!


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## Cinebient

My would be Padsheaven and Luftrum 13.
And The Dark Zebra HZ if that counts...


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## zvenx

Big Tone's two banks sold by u-he: Chronospheres and Stratospheres: http://www.u-he.com/cms/zebra2-patch-banks#traveller

Sound Author's Undertow https://eclipse-sound.com/72/5/zebra/undertow72-detail

Ed Harvey's Absolute Zebra: http://aural.science/

Electric Himalaya's Analog Memories (exceptionally playable) http://www.electric-himalaya.com/u-he_zebra2_presets.html

And of course Hollo stuff already mentioned.
rsp


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## khollister

zvenx said:


> Big Tone's two banks sold by u-he: Chronospheres and Stratospheres: http://www.u-he.com/cms/zebra2-patch-banks#traveller
> 
> Sound Author's Undertow https://eclipse-sound.com/72/5/zebra/undertow72-detail
> 
> Ed Harvey's Absolute Zebra: http://aural.science/
> 
> Electric Himalaya's Analog Memories (exceptionally playable) http://www.electric-himalaya.com/u-he_zebra2_presets.html
> 
> And of course Hollo stuff already mentioned.
> rsp


Undertow is excellent - forgot to mention that one


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## zvenx

khollister said:


> Undertow is excellent - forgot to mention that one


I think that is my favourite one tbh, I keep telling SoundAuthor, if ever I can afford to, he will be my Howard (to Hans)
rsp

I should add stealing jaap's disclaimer"
(disclaimer: I do create some demos for his products now and then and have received advanced/'free' products)
"
rsp


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## Quasar

EvilDragon said:


> I have too many to pick any favs...
> 
> Zebra Orchestra is ridiculous tho.



Can you or anyone else elaborate on the Zebra Orchestra? There's not much out there in the way of reviews/demos, but what I've heard sounds great. Not exactly "real" like a quality sample library, but still great in a 21st century, postmodern orchestral sense. I'm guessing that it might blend really well & flexibly with samples for so-called hybrid music...

...Anyone using it? Is it worth $40? Half of me wants to get this along with Joseph Hollo's Padsheaven bundle, and half of me wants to get The Dark Zebra instead for about the same amount of $$$. Can't do both right now.

Zebra is pretty much blowing me away. For whatever reason I just jibe intuitively with it, and think I can use it to learn synthesis from the ground up, which I've never actually done.


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## EvilDragon

Yes, it's great for blending, or for full-on synthesized madness.

If you're on the fence, I think you should probably go with Padsheaven sets, they are more immediately useful (not that ZO doesn't have immediately useful patches, it does). ZO sometimes needs massaging to get it to sing (but oh what a song then!).


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## D Halgren

Quasar said:


> Can you or anyone else elaborate on the Zebra Orchestra? There's not much out there in the way of reviews/demos, but what I've heard sounds great. Not exactly "real" like a quality sample library, but still great in a 21st century, postmodern orchestral sense. I'm guessing that it might blend really well & flexibly with samples for so-called hybrid music...
> 
> ...Anyone using it? Is it worth $40? Half of me wants to get this along with Joseph Hollo's Padsheaven bundle, and half of me wants to get The Dark Zebra instead for about the same amount of $$$. Can't do both right now.
> 
> Zebra is pretty much blowing me away. For whatever reason I just jibe intuitively with it, and think I can use it to learn synthesis from the ground up, which I've never actually done.


If you buy Dark Zebra you get the Diva filters, and a free upgrade to Zebra 3...some day


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## SoNowWhat?

+1 for Pads Heaven by @hollo 
Love, love, love it.

I am going to get Nordsund (The Unfinished) at some point. Hopefully in the near future.

There are also an awful lot of free patches out there either completely free or a free subset for testing from a larger patch set. Hollo Sounds does this if you're interested in testing out some of those sounds to see if they "work" for you.


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## KEM

I've thought about buying some, but man I feel like I'm cheating if I'm not using completely original patches I've made...


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## synthpunk

In the recent HZ Roundtable video Hans admitted to doing all his previous zebra programming from scratch then one day re discovered how good the factory presets were



KEM said:


> I've thought about buying some, but man I feel like I'm cheating if I'm not using completely original patches I've made...


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## KEM

synthpunk said:


> In the recent HZ Roundtable video Hans admitted to doing all his previous zebra programming from scratch then one day he discovered how good the factory presets were



Oh I watched that, and believe me I resonated with that, almost a sigh of relief that I can cheat a little bit haha, I do use the Dark Zebra presets from time to time, but I always feel a little guilt when I post one in a track. Now Omnisphere on the other hand... I don't think I've ever made a patch on the thing, it's a preset monster lol.


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## ThomasNL

KEM said:


> Oh I watched that, and believe me I resonated with that, almost a sigh of relief that I can cheat a little bit haha, I do use the Dark Zebra presets from time to time, but I always feel a little guilt when I post one in a track. Now Omnisphere on the other hand... I don't think I've ever made a patch on the thing, it's a preset monster lol.



Yeah omnisphere i also use presets but you should definitely try things like the granular synth on there


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## KEM

ThomasNL said:


> Yeah omnisphere i also use presets but you should definitely try things like the granular synth on there



The granular is actually the only thing I'll use to make original sounds, it's very powerful, and it sounds amazing too.


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## JeffP06

EvilDragon said:


> I have too many to pick any favs...
> 
> Zebra Orchestra is ridiculous tho.


Sorry but I don’t understand. Your answer: « Ridiculous tho. » means what exactly ? Good or bad ? Thanx for your answer.


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## KEM

Bought Tunguska recently and I loveeeee it!!! Really amazing set of sounds!


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## EvilDragon

JeffP06 said:


> Sorry but I don’t understand. Your answer: « Ridiculous tho. » means what exactly ? Good or bad ? Thanx for your answer.



Ridiculously good.


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## JeffP06

EvilDragon said:


> Ridiculously good.


Thank you... Always difficult for a stranger to understand if it is sarcasm, joke... Even "ridiculous" and "good" seem strange when associated... I hope you mean that it is a very good library...


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## BassClef

I have "2" and "HZ"... factory sounds are great... I also have 3 or 4 sets from TheUnfinished. A great thing about his web site is that each set has a walkthrough video showing you ALL of the sounds in that set so you can preview them!

I see Synths as a composition tool... unlimited sounds available for my music, regardless of where they came from. I do some occasional tweaking... no actual sound design. I have great respect for the creative folks who can spend hours designing new sounds with powerful synth engines like Zebra, but can't understand people feeling like they are cheating if they use someone else's preset. To me that would equate to NOT USING as solo violin patch because it's not YOU playing the violin, or a piano VI because YOU did not build the piano that makes that sound!


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## wst3

ThomasNL said:


> So do you guys only use it with the presets? 'Cause if there is one thing i like about it, its the endless hours you can play with the synth and come up with crazy stuff myself. I can understand when it is a time issue, but i hope it is not a creativity issue...
> 
> Thomas


Zebra is only the second synth where I've made good use of the presets. I still prefer to program on my own, but the synth is complex, and the presets are really good. The other synth was the late, lamented (on Windoze) Camel Audio Alchemy. I learned so much from exploring their presets.


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## Mark Schmieder

Don't forget the two from ISW. I haven't bought them yet as I own Diva and Re-Pro but not Zebra, but the audio demos are quite impressive, and loyalty discounts can often bring them down to almost nothing. They're a bit tricky to find at the site though, as the loyalty discount for Tetralogy embeds several other synth path libraries in one paragraph and it's all kind of jumbled together on the screen.


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## brojd

BassClef said:


> I have "2" and "HZ"... factory sounds are great... I also have 3 or 4 sets from TheUnfinished. A great thing about his web site is that each set has a walkthrough video showing you ALL of the sounds in that set so you can preview them!
> 
> I see Synths as a composition tool... unlimited sounds available for my music, regardless of where they came from. I do some occasional tweaking... no actual sound design. I have great respect for the creative folks who can spend hours designing new sounds with powerful synth engines like Zebra, but can't understand people feeling like they are cheating if they use someone else's preset. To me that would equate to NOT USING as solo violin patch because it's not YOU playing the violin, or a piano VI because YOU did not build the piano that makes that sound!


Amen to that!


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## Pier

I was looking for that Undertow library and it turns out Sound Author is now selling on Gumroad.









Sound Author


Follow me for updates on what I am creating.




gumroad.com





The previous Eclipse Sound links don't work.


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## kgdrum

Cluster by Sound Dust to quote my favorite Dragon is ridiculous!

😂

The soundset is really amazing,Pendle creates presets that are really unique,interesting and quite musical.


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## Arbee

This is my pick:
https://www.aiynzahev-sounds.com/collections/zebra2/products/sphere-for-zebra2


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## zebra_addicted

My recent purchase: ZENON SHELL:

Check the audio demos and especially the sound-walkthrough video with all 112 amazing presets. Every patch with a different musical context. It takes about 40 min., but it´s worth every second, also to watch the XY-pad possibilities. IMO a must have.

https://www.observantsound.com/shop/synth_presets/zenon-shell-112-presets-for-zebra2/


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## axb312

zebra_addicted said:


> My recent purchase: ZENON SHELL:
> 
> Check the audio demos and especially the sound-walkthrough video with all 112 amazing presets. Every patch with a different musical context. It takes about 40 min., but it´s worth every second, also to watch the XY-pad possibilities. IMO a must have.
> 
> https://www.observantsound.com/shop/synth_presets/zenon-shell-112-presets-for-zebra2/


Na. This one sucks. And its too expensive for just 112 patches,


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## maxchristensenaudio

I was going to recommend ISLA from Treeswift Audio. Haven't used them but the demos were very impressive!



zebra_addicted said:


> My recent purchase: ZENON SHELL:
> 
> Check the audio demos and especially the sound-walkthrough video with all 112 amazing presets. Every patch with a different musical context. It takes about 40 min., but it´s worth every second, also to watch the XY-pad possibilities. IMO a must have.
> 
> https://www.observantsound.com/shop/synth_presets/zenon-shell-112-presets-for-zebra2/


Thank you for your kind words!



axb312 said:


> Na. This one sucks. And its too expensive for just 112 patches,


Sorry you feel this way. Feel free to write me and tell me what you didn't like about them. Assuming you've actually bought and used them.

Also, anyone who has ever used a gigantic pack with 400 or more presets in it for dirt cheap will tell you that the amount isn't always what sets the value.


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## axb312

maxchristensenaudio said:


> I was going to recommend ISLA from Treeswift Audio. Haven't used them but the demos were very impressive!
> 
> 
> Thank you for your kind words!
> 
> 
> Sorry you feel this way. Feel free to write me and tell me what you didn't like about them. Assuming you've actually bought and used them.
> 
> Also, anyone who has ever used a gigantic pack with 400 or more presets in it for dirt cheap will tell you that the amount isn't always what sets the value.


Haha. Forgive me was just trolling the "new member" whose got 1 post on here about your soundset.

I don't buy packs with 400 presets but yes yours is expensive (for me). Let me know when you have a sale.

ISLA is awesome. Agreed.


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## zebra_addicted

Cold comfort for me, maxchristensen as online pro also was taken in by your trolling way to say welcome to a forum newbie.
I also highly advice ISLA as an outstanding set with sonorous, fresh, crystal clear, soft and unique "water theme"-based sound creations, imo one of the most important releases for a long time, definitly my next buy.


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## gsilbers

kimarnesen said:


> Any thoughts on PulseSetter?



Hopefully we can release a new one soon. but we busy with scoring stuff so our release schedules are not as good as others. but 3x spiral audio stuff is good. matts unfinished stuff and others that tailor to the scoring genre. I use them all. get one of those bundles from 3x spiral audio or unfinished and you'll have ammo for years.

There should be like stores for just scoring stuff. There is a lot of sound sets out there that's like too generic for all genres. but these specific companies here normally try to get that remote control sound/Hans zimmer/harry Gregson Williams. tv ready and easy. Instead of stuff that could maybe somehow work.

oh boy, I just realized this is an old thread. even synthpunk is here 
just need chillbot's desk pix and its down memory lane over here lol


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## Kel

Hi! new lurker here!
People just recommended some cool banks.
I developed a soundbank for Zebra 2 called "orchestral essence". Based on the same idea as Corin neff bank(please check out Corin's stuff, quality here), its an orchestra emulation using Zebra capabilities. I think it has its uses and it's quite cheap.

I dont know if you know it, but I think its another thing to add to the palette of sounds or for hybrid stuff. Just if you want to check it up, you can have a listen on my soundcloud page.

Anyway, I've been developing more and more fixes for a 2.0 beta that never were (2 years process), and I am almost ready, so you'll get the original bank+improved bank, actually they are like different volumes. For the curious people, have a look.

Product page: https://gumroad.com/l/vEiGp

Some demos (all tracks starting with name Zebra): https://soundcloud.com/ruberboy


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## spektralisk

I would like to share my soundset for Zebra as well. Hopefully you'll find it useful.









Xebra for Zebra by Spektralisk


171 sounds and 32 wavesets for Zebra




www.spektralisk.com


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## Jonathan Sharp

Can I chime in with some of mine.... I have a couple of sets for Zebra and ZebraHZ as well as some other synths. And a brand new set for Zebra out this Friday....

https://heartwoodsoundware.com/shop/


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## axb312

KEM said:


> Bought Tunguska recently and I loveeeee it!!! Really amazing set of sounds!


Did you buy the regular or the Dark Zebra version? Is there much overlap between the two?


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## KEM

axb312 said:


> Did you buy the regular or the Dark Zebra version? Is there much overlap between the two?



Honestly I never even looked in the regular Zebra version of the soundset but I believe the HZ version just makes use of the extra features, mostly the same patches but just more detailed and I think there’s extra patches in there that can only be done waiting HZ


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## shadowsoflight

axb312 said:


> Did you buy the regular or the Dark Zebra version? Is there much overlap between the two?


The Unfinished Dark soundsets have reimagined or tweaked versions of all of the regular patches, at a 1:1 ratio. Sometimes they are only subtly different, and sometimes they are quite different. It can be really interesting to layer the two versions together, actually!


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