Fugue State Audio offers XORbot, a freeware noise box synthesizer in VST plugin format for Windows.
XORbot is a noise box synth somewhat similar to NANDroid, from the same developer. While the two synths share many qualities, like a lack of MIDI key tracking, the sound generation method differs enough to create contrasting sounds.
The synth has two oscillators; one acts as a clock for sound generation, and the other is an amplitude modulation source.
The Filter section has a 12dB/24dB lowpass filter, or 12dB highpass/bandpass filter. It provides Cutoff, Resonance, and Modulation controls.
Beneath the oscillators is the Delay section. You can feed the output of the Delay section back to the filter input. The amount of delayed signal fed back to the filter is adjusted with the Feed 2 knob.
XORbot also features a Modulation section with three LFOs, and two Sample and Hold units.
Each LFO has Rate and Level controls and can be synced to the host BPM.
At the bottom left of the GUI, you’ll see the patch (preset) menu, where you can browse and choose presets.
XORbot is the kind of synth that doesn’t provide the most musical demos, and for some potential users, that might be a struggle. Again, I reference my younger days here because, as a young student, I found it hard to understand synths that weren’t instantly musical; it wasn’t what I was used to as a piano player.
But, while it’s never going to be the most musical instrument, these noise box synths can create fascinating rhythmic patterns, excellent rises, sweeps, and more.
It’s the kind of thing that can be great for adding layers to your track.
We haven’t been short of free synths recently; we’ve had Sphinx 2 from Infected Sounds, Apricot from Nakst, and even some synth libraries for Kontakt Player, like Foundations Synth Bass from Heavyocity.
XORbot is available in VST and VST3 formats for Windows.
Download: XORbot
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