XLN Audio XO Tutorial ③ Editing Sound to Effectively Create Your Ideal Kit

We will take a look at polishing up our sounds and editing them in this article.
XO’s kit editing functions allow you to quickly achieve your ideal sounds.

XO has pitch editing, sound/volume adjustments, velocity sensitivity, reverse, and other sound editing functions.

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Editing sounds to customize your kit

First, we will take a look at individual sound edit functions.
We hope you can utilize these tools to help achieve you ideal sounds as well!

Volume adjustment and panning sounds

Use OUT to control the overall volume, as well as individual volume and panning.

Envelope functions

The attack and length of each sound can easily be edited as well.

• T (Transient): Adjusts the strength of the sound’s attack.
  Use this to make a sound more noticeable, or to soften the attack of a sound.
• H (Hold): The sample playback length can be adjusted in ms (milliseconds).
  You can shorten it to tighten the sound, and add groove to your beats.
• D (Decay): Determines how long it takes for the sound to fade out after the point set with H
  Adjust accordingly to create more natural sounds.

Pitch functions

Each sound’s pitch can be adjusted in 1/10th of a semitone (half-note).
Make adjustments to the kick according to the bass, or edits snares and sfx to optimize them to your track.
This function is a must when making tracks.

Tone / Filter

“Tone” allows you to change the low/high frequencies of a sound.
Raise the amount (right) to boost highs and cut lows. Lower the amount (left) to boost lows and cut highs.

“Cut” allows you to make low/high cuts.

• Low cut: Cuts low frequencies to lighten the sound, and clean up your low sounds
• High cut:Removes harsh highs, to help blend the sound into the track/li>

Sound groups

By setting sound groups in your kit, different sounds grouped together will be played as 1 group (1 note).
Because the most recent sound will cut other sounds short, use this to close “open hi hats” by triggering “closed hi hats”.

Reversing sounds

By utilizing reverse, the sample will be played backwards.
A popular use is utilizing reversal on cymbal sounds.

From the sample editor, adjust the playback points to edit the reverse sound’s timing in detail.

Switching between Mono/Poly

Turn on the Poly button (P) to allow sounds to not cut each other off in an instrument track.
Though most kit sounds are best kept with the P button off, utilize it when using longer sounds that can remain overlapped like sound effects.