Using GeoBlend and SpectroBlend in Zebra

Last week we checked out GeoMorph and SpectroMorph, so this week GeoBlend and SpectroBlend are up!

When I just started out with Zebra I thought the names GeoMorph, SpectroMorph, GeoBlend and SpectroBlend where a bit confusing, but just look at it like this:
The first word in the name says something about what you do in that editor, for example, GeoMorph and GeoBlend are both for drawing the waveform, exactly how you want it to look.

The second word says something about how you do that, in the Morph modes you work with dots, in both Blend modes you draw the waves more freely.
In both Spectro modes you work with the Spectrum of the sound, you don’t draw the wave here, but you draw the harmonics!

To do so you need to know a little bit about harmonics, and why waveforms sound a certain way, you can find a good starting point here, but there are a lot of sources on this when you search for it.

Personally I really love both Blend modes, they are very easy to work with and you can make very clean edits.
You can also draw in the phase of a specific harmonic, if you have ever worked in the Absynth oscillators this concept should be familiar to you.
Phase is a tricky concept and if you want to become a master at waveform drawing I recommend you to do more research on it, this article is a very good starting point for that.

I’d like to end with sort of a contradiction here, so bear with me:
Drawing waveforms is great and you can get some awesome unique sounds that no one has ever made before, or you can very precisely recreate familiar sounds, but it is also very easy to lose yourself in it.
When I was starting out with Zebra I felt like I needed to know everything about the Wave Editor and draw all waves myself, but this takes a lot of time and it can cause you to lose focus on the most important thing, the music.

So always pay attention to the sound more then what it looks like and save your oscillators, this makes the process a lot quicker the next time!
Because at the end of the day it’s all about writing a good tune.
(Unless you are a sound-designer of course, in that case: Go Crazy!)

Take care and have fun with the new ideas!

-Jorgalad