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Floe is a free sample library platform that puts sound transformation at your fingertips. Floe enables composers, producers, and musicians to effortlessly find, perform, and reshape Floe-format sample-based instruments beyond their natural boundaries.

Key Information

Platform: Audio plugin (CLAP, VST3, AU) for Windows, macOS, and Linux
Type:: Sample-library platform License: Free and open-source (GPL-3)
First Alpha: October 2024
Version 1.0 Release: August 20, 2025

What is Floe?

Floe is a platform for sample-based virtual instruments, typically described as an open ROMpler or sample-based synthesiser. It's designed to power professional sample-based packages and doesn't support ad-hoc sampling features.

Every library shares the same consistent interface for sound-shaping parameters, allowing users to transform sampled instruments beyond their realism using established synthesis techniques. It focuses on ease of use and performance, designed to offer a curated experience for making music rather than overwhelming users with complexity.

It offers simple, intuitive controls for browsing presets, layering sounds and tweaking parameters such as envelopes, filters, looping controls, LFOs, and a whole rack of effects.

Floe is an engine—empty without sample libraries to load into it. A growing ecosystem of free and commercial Floe-format sample libraries is available, with more being developed. It currently does not support SFZ or other formats, but this work is being investigated.

Completely free and open-source with no restrictions and available on all major desktop platforms including Linux, Floe serves as a unified platform where diverse sample libraries work seamlessly together, with sound transformation capabilities that bridge traditional sampling and synthesis.

Although primarily for composers, producers and musicians, Floe also offers tools for developers to create their own Floe-format libraries for distribution. It provides an entirely programming-based workflow for creating sample libraries using Lua scripting, enabling developer-friendly, AI-assisted workflows and complex automation that experienced developers can leverage.

FrozenPlain

Floe and FrozenPlain are companion projects, both created by Sam Windell — FrozenPlain produces cinematic and ambient sample libraries, and Floe's direction is primarily shaped by FrozenPlain's needs.

However, Floe is intentionally encapsulated as its own platform: an outlet for the developer's broader passion for open-source software development, with the potential for wider applications and freer exploration. Floe's open, Lua-scriptable library format means other developers can freely explore the platform and build libraries for it.

The projects also share history — Floe is based on FrozenPlain's now-discontinued Mirage engine.