You may have listened to a previous interview with sound designer Howard Scarr on our Ep 184 Sonic TALK Inception special. The take away fact from that was the Howard Scarr was employed specifically to design sounds for U-he Zebra, a software synth that Mr Zimmer is particularly keen on, even though he has what is quite possibly the world's largest Roland Modular system plus almost every conceivable other bit of analog kit. We suspect that's primarily to impress the film industry types when they come a-calling.

Anyhow, Zimmer and Scarr have also  has also worked together on the last two Batman films, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rising. Both scores once again heavily featuring Scarrs's work on the Zebra2.

In celebration of this, there's a special edition of Zebra2 available containing these sounds plus many that didn't make it into the score.

The custom built version for Zimmer dubbed ZebraHZ  comes with a  bank of over 400 presets, a collaboration between Hans Zimmer and Howard Scarr. Practically all Zebra sounds in the The Dark Knight as well as The Dark Knight Rises soundtracks are included, plus several more that didn’t quite fit into the scores. Furthermore, the pack includes Hans' custom built version of Zebra, dubbed ZebraHZ. Many of the more recent patches make use of the extra features available in ZebraHZ.

You can get yours for $99 online at u-he.com though you will need a Zebra2.x licence to be able to run this new version which will cost you €199 euros.

Take the time to listen to the demo above to see the sonic flexibility available with this synth.

More Information

• U-he.com

U-He Social

• Superbooth 2023: U-he - Zebra 3 Early Feature Look 13-May-23
• NAMM 2023: U-he Show Updated Filterscape Bundle 15-Apr-23
• Patch Flip: u-he Zebra Legacy 16-Feb-23
• u-he Releases Zebra Legacy 17-Nov-22
• Sonic LAB: U-He More Feeback Machine 2.5 Patch Flip 13-Sep-22