# Zebra HZ Diva filters in stereo



## Kevperry777 (Sep 20, 2022)

Hi all…I’m new to Zebra HZ. I know there are ways to do this, but I was wondering if someone could demonstrate/explain some good techiques for building stereo sounds in Zebra HZ with Diva filters. (Seeing as they are mono) Thanks for any help!


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## Tusker (Sep 20, 2022)

Welcome to Zebra HZ. It's a great synth and for many of us it's the perfect trade-off between ease of use and power.

I may be misunderstanding what you mean but Zebra is blessed with four audio lanes. Zebra HZ provides four Diva filters. So you can pop a Diva filter on each lane and pan the lanes however you want. Just two lanes, each with a Diva filter will give you a stereo field. You don't have that convenient "offset" variable as you do in the XMF dual filter, but you can dial in the offset yourself.

Alternatively, you could run the audio in mono (one lane) through one Diva filter and then use the stereo effects to create a stereo field. I hope this helps.


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## Pier (Sep 20, 2022)

You basically need to use two channels with two filters and pan those.

The issue is that you will also need one OSC per filter, otherwise you won't get a stereo signal.






And then if you now want to add something after the Diva filter (eg: distortion) you have to replicate it in both channels...

It's quite tedious and the main reason I don't use ZebraHZ that much.


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## Kevperry777 (Sep 20, 2022)

Thank you both. I don’t suppose there is a way to split a stereo signal to two lanes is there? It would be nice to detune the voices from one oscillator to a stereo spread. It does feel klunkier than it has to be.


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## Pier (Sep 20, 2022)

Kevperry777 said:


> I don’t suppose there is a way to split a stereo signal to two lanes is there?


You can split the signal to two channels with the Mix module or in any module you can right click and select the input. The issue is that you can't split L from R.



Kevperry777 said:


> It would be nice to detune the voices from one oscillator to a stereo spread. It does feel klunkier than it has to be.


Can't you just detune the OSC and add width? Or maybe I'm misunderstanding.


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## Tusker (Sep 20, 2022)

Kevperry777 said:


> Thank you both. I don’t suppose there is a way to split a stereo signal to two lanes is there? It would be nice to detune the voices from one oscillator to a stereo spread. It does feel klunkier than it has to be.


The traditional oscillator is mono unfortunately I think. I'd be happy to be wrong. There is a powerful detuned stereo supersaw type of thing (or the swarmatron) which are quite attractive and are easer to get to on some other synths.

However the fm oscillator in zebra is stereo and so is noise. Some of the filters, like XMF, comb and sideband are stereo. If I am wanting a stereo spread really badly I do it on multiple lanes which is a bit kludgy as Pier says. Or I use a stereo filter which is not quite the same.


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## Pier (Sep 20, 2022)

Tusker said:


> The traditional oscillator is mono unfortunately I think. I'd be happy to be wrong.


Hmm no it's not? If you stack more oscillators in the OSC module and turn the width knob you get a stereo signal.


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## Kevperry777 (Sep 20, 2022)

Pier said:


> Can't you just detune the OSC and add width? Or maybe I'm misunderstanding.


Yes…but add a diva filter after it in a lane and it collapses to mono. I could very well be missing something tho!


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## Tusker (Sep 20, 2022)

Pier said:


> Can't you just detune the OSC and add width? Or maybe I'm misunderstanding.


This is very cool. It spreads quite nicely across the stereo image. Thanks Pier.


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## Pier (Sep 20, 2022)

Kevperry777 said:


> Yes…but add a diva filter after it in a lane and it collapses to mono. I could very well be missing something tho!


No yeah you're right. I meant when using the oscillator on itself. The Diva filter collapses to mono.


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## Kevperry777 (Sep 20, 2022)

Pier said:


> No yeah you're right. I meant when using the oscillator on itself. The Diva filter collapses to mono.


On a side note, thanks for your constant wisdom and input on the board. I’ve learned a lot from your posts looking back through old threads regarding synths and sound design.


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## Pier (Sep 20, 2022)

Kevperry777 said:


> On a side note, thanks for your constant wisdom and input on the board. I’ve learned a lot from your posts looking back through old threads regarding synths and sound design.


My pleasure!


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## JeeTee (Sep 28, 2022)

Actually, you can do this using just 1 oscillator. Using 2 MixerMods, with Balance Panning, you can split the signal left and right. It's a bit of a fudge, but it does work. Settings below...


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## Pier (Sep 28, 2022)

JeeTee said:


> Actually, you can do this using just 1 oscillator. Using 2 MixerMods, with Balance Panning, you can split the signal left and right. It's a bit of a fudge, but it does work. Settings below...


Oh wow! Today I learned something new about Zebra!


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## Kevperry777 (Sep 28, 2022)

JeeTee said:


> Actually, you can do this using just 1 oscillator. Using 2 MixerMods, with Balance Panning, you can split the signal left and right. It's a bit of a fudge, but it does work. Settings below...


Ah there it is....thank you! 

Sidenote.... I also noticed many of the HZ factory presets that do stereo diva filters aren't really getting the stereo image from voice detuning and width.....but rather just using slightly different settings of the diva filters on each side. For example the left might have a slightly different resonance than the right. It does provide some stereo imaging...but the above solution is really nice and can make more efficient use of osc modules.


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