XLN Audio XO Drum Sample Organizer and Sequencer Plug-in Reviews

Comes with great sounds love it.

I initially bought this to add drum sounds and a different style drum sequencer to my workflow. Right off the bat, I was able to make great sounds and beats with the factory content. That alone was worth the price of admission. However, I recently discovered a feature that was in front of my face the whole time - adding your sample folders to the XO's engine. First of all - unlike other instruments that attempt this - it doesn't alter, or move your samples. It uses them right where there are. Cool. So far no big deal. However, the real magic of this feature happens when you get back to the "Space" window. You now have ALL of your samples available without having to menu dive or move things around. Further, and even more amazing, the analysis engine groups similar samples together which makes it super easy to navigate. Everything about this instrument is mind-blowing. Unparalleled access to your samples, great drum sequencer, great factory sound content, super easy to use, great effects, stable, low CPU usage. One thing I haven't seen yet (might be there) is the ability to modulate/sequence parameters (like filters, etc). It might be there, but if it is, it's not obvious. It might not be there though, but that's a minor thing if its not. It supports multi-out so you could modulate other effects if need be.

XLN software is generally great, but they've really outdone themselves with XO. Couldn't be simpler to use, provides tons of flexibility, saves time, and the design is spectacular. XO tells you everything you need to know about the program and how to use it as soon as you open it up. The intelligent sample sorting is top notch, and the stock sounds alone provide you with nearly any drum sound you could need, and that's before you add any of your own. Rhythm sequencing is stellar and very in-depth, and the preset rhythms cover plenty of genres and styles. My favorite feature is the included capability of EASILY exporting the sequencer's MIDI info directly to your DAW, something a lot of other sequencer-style plug-ins don't make as straight-forward.

All around a fantastic product and a must-have tool for any producer.

Check it out ... I payed the full price ... but worth it as I am so happy with it ... this plugin is amazing.

A friend told me about this so I decided to look into it and download the demo and watch a few Youtube videos on it to see what all it can do and was I impressed with what I learned about it, a few hours later I decided to make the purchase and at the perfect time because it was on sale for Black Friday. XLN Audio did an amazing job with this, I saved it as a default Ableton Live Set because it will be my go to for drum samples. No more browsing through folders to find the right sample. XO is very easy to use and has a lot of potential to it, I can wait to see what other features are added in the future! Overall I'm glad I found out about it when I did and made the purchase!!!

Does exactly what I wanted it to do and makes it easier to surf all of your drum samples! I like how the sounds that are "alike" are clustered together so you know it's going to be more similar to the current sample you are using. Overall its fairly easy to use and the drum sequencer is nice for basic stuff. I pretty much just use it to load up a kit and then i drag it over to ableton drum rack for more control

It is a lovely and unique piece of software. Using a visual 2D map to pick the samples in a drum kit, is a stroke of genius, resulting in very easy way to audition samples when creating beats. This was the sole reason I bought this plugin. There are many out there which offer far more in depth features such as polyrhythmic tracks, all sorts of automated modulation functions, beat slicing and a lot more. XO doesn't do any of these things. It has a simple 32 step pattern editor with 8 kit pieces you can assign to any of the 8000 samples XLN include. You can edit the samples in a basic way within XO, by setting Attack, hold and decay parameters, basic EQ and a few other parameters. XO also exports MIDI and stereo audio or multitrack audio, easily and quickly. The simplicity of the workflow doesn't hamper creativity. I gave it 4.5 not 5 stars because, XLN could have made the visual interface for the step sequencer better. It almost looks like an afterthought in the GUI design. But it does work well, and I'd thoroughly recommend it to anyone wanting a quick way to make beats. I also managed to import my Battery 4 drums into XO with a few clicks of the mouse. If you want more sophisticated beats, then plugins like Nerve, Break Tweaker, Drumvolution etc... have more in depth features than XO, but aren't as intuitive or simple to use. It's a tradeoff.

One important point I need to make for anyone buying this software from Sweetwater is, once you purchase the product, they send you an email with the license key and instructions on how to register and download the product. Keep the license key, ignore the instructions and go straight to the XLN website, NOT the Sweetwater website as the instructions say. If you don't have an XLN account, make one and login. Then click on your account and click "Register Product" Enter your license key that Sweetwater sent to you in the email. Then XLN has an installer which you download and run on your computer. Once you run the installer and install XO, it's ready to go. I phoned Sweetwater and asked them to change their instructions so as not to confuse people.

XLN Audio never disappoints. They are my go to for pianos and rhodes, RC-20 is a great for colorization of your sounds, turning them "lofi" or even just having the tube saturation on to add beef to sounds..

With the release of XO, they are now my go to for drums. I paired this up with Splice (Splice downloads sounds with each one in their own folder, making it a pain to browse your library or going one by one in Splice's own app.), but now I load up my Splice folder and everything is mapped in "space." You can quickly edit, manipulate, and sequence up to 8 drum sounds in real-time with your project. Once you're set with your programming, you can export each single sample, all single shot samples (for playing with Ableton's Drum Rack, Kong, or Battery), or even export the whole or individual loop stems for more editing in your DAW.

Music is about capturing surprises. If you find a kick drum you really like, try playing through in real time with XO's suggested samples, you'll end up with something even better you weren't expecting. The sequencer allows you to do trap hi hat rolls quickly, add groove, and apply FX to each sample or to the whole kit. They give you about 8,000 new samples to play with, patterns to use, and allow you to even layer sounds.

My only gripe is if you have a huge library of sounds (most of us do), you may find the loading time to take a bit longer than usual. After you're loaded though, there's a whole world to explore of long forgotten sounds.

There are similar products, you may be used to just drag and drop, but XLN's XO puts everything in front of you in an easy to use plugin, making this a go to tool in my workflow. Coming from FL Studio to Ableton, the sequencer and ease of use from the browser were all I was missing from the switch. Great tool to have.

Thanks to Joe Schafer #1393 who's always putting me onto anything that'll make my workflow easier.