XLN Audio XO 1.8.10-2026.09.04-Complete for macOS

XO is a plugin that sorts your entire drum sample collection onto a map where similar sounds sit next to each other, then lets you build patterns with them right there.

Your drum brain on a single instrument track

Load XO onto an instrument track in your DAW and it becomes your drum brain. It’s not a bus processor or a mixing tool — it’s a sound finder and beat maker combined. You browse the cloud-like map to pick kicks, snares, hats and percussion from over 8,000 included one-shot samples plus your own library. The built-in sequencer handles the pattern, and the Accentuator adds human-feeling swing and emphasis. When the groove is working, you can export the audio or drag the MIDI straight into your arrangement. The Groove Templates give you ready-made rhythmic starting points, and Playground mode shuffles random kits together for happy accidents. More than 240 editable presets mean you can call up a full kit and sequencer pattern in one click, then tweak from there.

Typical jobs it handles

Use XO when you know the drum sound you want but can’t remember which folder it lives in. The similarity search means you click one snare and instantly see other snares with the same tonal weight or transient snap nearby. It turns sample hunting from a file-browser chore into something closer to flipping through a well-organized record crate. For quick beat sketching, the sequencer and Accentuator work together so patterns sound alive before you ever touch a piano roll. And because it exports MIDI, you’re never locked in — swap the sounds later or send the notes to another drum instrument. Bottom line: XO replaces the folder-diving part of drum programming with a single window where sounds and sequencing live together.

Fast beat makers who hate one-at-a-time auditioning

Beat makers who work fast and hate auditioning one sample at a time will feel the difference immediately. Hip-hop producers sorting through thousands of kicks for the right low-end weight, electronic musicians building kits from scratch, even soundtrack people who need a percussion bed without spending an hour browsing folders — XO gives them the same thing: less time hunting, more time hearing. Drum programmers who already own big sample libraries get extra value, because the map organizes sounds you forgot you had. Beginners benefit too, since the presets and Groove Templates provide a starting point that doesn't require knowing drum synthesis. If you mostly mix other people's tracks and rarely program drums, you'll probably open it less often.

A workflow: finding a snare and building a groove

Say you're working on a downtempo track and need a snare with a short, woody crack. Here's how it goes in XO:

1. Open the map and click a snare you already like, even if it's not quite right.
2. Look at the samples sitting around it — the ones with similar transient and tonal character.
3. Audition a few neighbors until one hits the way you want, then lock it into your kit.
4. Load a Groove Template close to your tempo and feel, then adjust the sequencer steps.
5. Push the Accentuator a little to give the backbeat some natural weight.
6. Drag the MIDI into your DAW and keep building the track.

That whole process can take under five minutes once you know the map. The point isn't just speed — it's that you hear options side by side instead of remembering where you put them.

• macOS 10.13 or later
• Runs on Intel and Apple Silicon Macs