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Overview

What is Floe?​

Floe is an audio plugin for your digital audio workstation (DAW). It's a platform for performing, finding, and transforming sounds from compatible sample libraries. It hosts sample-based instruments (sampled pianos, synths, textures, and so on) and exposes an extensive set of parameters for venturing into sample-based synthesis. A comprehensive presets system with powerful browsers, macros, a random variation generator, and other features make it a formidable engine for sample libraries.

It focuses on ease-of-use and performance, designed to offer a curated experience for producing music rather than overwhelming complexity.

Library platform​

Floe is not designed for ad-hoc sampling — you can't currently import your own samples. Instead, it's an open platform for professional, curated, sample-library products. For those with programming experience, the means to make custom libraries is fully open.

Key features​

  • 3 independent layers to blend and mix - even across different libraries
  • Totally free and open-source; offline, no logins, no catches
  • 11 effects in a reorderable rack
  • Powerful granular synthesis
  • Per-layer arpeggiator
  • Comprehensive browsers for finding the right sound or preset
  • Random variation generator
  • CPU efficient
  • Resizable UI
  • All baseline features: ADSR, filters, EQ, MIDI CC & sustain pedal support
  • Sound design friendly: undo/redo, A/B comparison for preset edits, macro knobs
  • Free sample libraries

New in version 2​

Floe is improving: the recent free version 2 update of Floe offers a substantial set of new features and improvements. Read about the update in the blog post.

The UI​

Floe's main window with its four regions highlighted
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  1. Top panel — global controls: preset name and browser, save, undo/redo, the main menu, and master volume.
  2. Main content — showing the background image of the sample library, with one of 3 selectable tabs: Perform shows the distraction-free basic view, Layers exposes the per-layer parameters for each of the three layers, and Effects is the reorderable effects rack.
  3. Bottom panel — the keyboard, plus context-sensitive controls (key ranges, macros, etc.) depending on the active tab.
  4. Main tabs — switches the main content between Perform, Layers, and Effects.
  5. Resize corner — drag to scale the window (fixed aspect ratio). The window size buttons in the preferences panel do the same. In some DAWs such as Logic Pro, you must grab this exact point of Floe, not the corner of DAW window wrapping it.

Signal flow​

Notes are sent in parallel to three identical layers — each hosting its own instrument with per-layer envelope, tuning, filter and LFO. The layers are combined and fed through a shared, reorderable effects rack, then a master volume.

Tips​

  • Knobs and sliders respond to click-and-drag (up/down or left/right). Hold shift for fine adjustments, ctrl/cmd+click to reset to default, double-click to type a value, and right-click for more options.
  • Hovering over most elements displays a tooltip with a brief description. Tooltips can be disabled in the preferences panel.
  • Floe is designed to be efficient with your CPU and can be added multiple times in a single project; multiple instances will share resources such as sample libraries to keep memory usage low.