diff --git a/deepof/models.py b/deepof/models.py
index 338e259d702a197a33e7be62efb379f2ed16856c..d321f1958f4338ba66bc521299b41a6755f48c92 100644
--- a/deepof/models.py
+++ b/deepof/models.py
@@ -584,6 +584,7 @@ class SEQ_2_SEQ_GMVAE:
             )
             // 2,
             activation=None,
+            initializer=Orthogonal(),
         )(encoder)
 
         z_gauss_var = Dense(