I combine the Zadar with a Veils VCA. Zadar isn't very menu-divey if you just want envelopes. If you want to use the CV inputs or set it to repeat or LFO, yes, but the menus are not very deep at all. I'm not using the expander myself. For envelopes, well, there's so many of them that it means quite some button turning before you find what you want. But that's just choice for you.
Veils is a very good, basic VCA. I sometimes move away from purely linear towards exponential (not all the way, though) to achieve clipping on the envelope. It's a simple way to add some distortion to your signal already before sending it to filters/fx. The two modules are side to side in my rack and all Zadar outs are permanently plugged into the Veils CV ins. It's a great combo :-)