XILS Labs XILS V Synthesizer

Strings, Human Voices, 10 band Musical Vocoder What else …..
From a very long time, this wonderful and versatile machine was used by a lot of well know artists and musicians, from a long time now, it is waiting by a lot of computer users to be part of their sound arsenal.
The XILS V+ combines a Vintage 10 band Vocoder, Supreme Top Octave Divider based Strings and Human Voices, or any sophisticated layering of these three elements.
After more than one year of intense modeling deep in the basement of the Xils Laboratories, we offer you this complete recreation of a legend. Its unique vintage vibe and beauty that can only be brought back to life by precisely emulating different ancient and forgotten techniques.

T.O.D : The Top Octave Divider Oscillator provides a unique sound that no samples, or other simple synthesis techniques can reproduce. Emulating the T.O.D, without any aliasing on the whole frequency range, with its pitch and waveform modulation, was a real challenge, worthy of XILS-lab. We are very proud of this effort and offer it to you for your inspiration and enjoyment.

XILS-lab touch : The XILS V+ would not however be a real XILS-lab instrument if we did not add a lot of functions and possibilities that were not present in the original machine, some giving access to its internal circuitry and parameters. And some being totally new.

“T.O.D and Beyond”, following the Analog and Beyond tradition XILS-lab initiated a long time ago.

How close XILS-lab did ? juts judge by yourself seeing the A/B comparison video, listening to the various Audio demo.
The XILS V+ features exactly the same possibilities than its famous hardware predecessor but offers a lot more : while a lot of parameters were hidden under the roof of the hardware, Xils-lab put them on the front panel for a wider range of sound possibilities.

Features:

• One finely tweak and emulated Top Octave Divider aliasing free oscillator, providing up to 49 voices of polyphony.
• Access to a lot of parameters which its hardware model kept secret under the roof.
• One strings section.
• One human voices section.
• One 10 bands vocoder.
• A virtual keyboard ( from which notes can be saved in your presets).
• An Advanced Stereo Space effect.
• A simple but nice sounding reverb.
• A Analog like resonant Phaser.
• Up to 6 free assignable modulation nodes, with up to 14 sources and 24 destinations.
• A special Glide function.
• A finely tweak analog-like pitch tracker.
• All parameters are MIDI controllable.

Main panel
The main panel shows the same parameters than the original hardware for a better understanding. Vocoder, Human voice, Strings are enable by rocket switches, following the original keyboard split “upper/lower”.
This panel gives you all the possibilities you can find on the hardware.
A Brigade Bucket Delay based vibrato is providing for the vocoder and the human voice and the level of each section can be finely adjusted. The input of the vocoder “direct Mic” can also be mixed before the Ensemble (chorus).
An External synth input (using the side chain of the Plug-in) can be mixed with the internal sound generator to provide the vocoder carrier.

Advanced settings
To offer a huger range of sonic possibilities, the XILS V+ provides four more panels for advanced settings : Mixer/ARP, Vocoder, Effects and Modulation.

Mixer/ARP

• The mixer panel offers you the possibility to finely tune the internal sound generators.
• From the relative level of the Male 8 and Male/Female 4 Human voices, to the Ensemble dry/wet, you can also tweak the voices formants, the T.O.D wave form as well as the Strings filter shape.
• Furthermore, to avoid the only problem some users reported from the hardware, you can select a Polyphonic attack either for the voices or for the strings.
• The release, on the original machine, is reseted each time a new note is played. This is a very musical feature for long release doesn’t blur previous chords. But if you prefer standard release behavior, you can select it on this panel (“Legacy” white rocket switch).
• A build-in Arpeggio is also provided with a special feature to play “broken” arpeggios, avoiding some boring cycles.

Vocoder
The vocoder panel allows you to adjust the analog-like pitch tracker, the attack and release time of the analyze algorithm as well as some parameters of the filter banks.
You can also freeze the spectrum (the result can be save in a preset or your project) and enable the special “water” effect (this is impossible to describe, so just try it)

Effects
The XILS V+ provides three built-in effects. The now well known Stereo Space, based on the XILS-lab True Stereo Dynamic Engine, a simple but efficient Reverb and an analog-like resonant Phaser.

Modulations
Last but not least, the XILS V+ provides a wide range of modulations (over 14 sources and 24 destinations), a monophonic LFO and a polyphonic envelope dedicated to the modulation.

Top Octave Divider

• The XILS V+ is based on a Top Octave Divider oscillator.
• Under this strange name is hidden the heart of almost every electronic organ or strings machines built in the 80’s.
• A very clever concept to get 49 notes or more of polyphony without having to manage 49 or more stable oscillators, or the nightmare of having to tune 49 or more oscillators !
• Only one square oscillator, oscillating at a very high frequency (the “Top Octave”), has to be designed and adjusted
• This oscillator is “divided” to provide the 12 standard tempered frequencies over 4 (or more) octaves, these frequencies are then used to build the waveform of each of the 49 or more available notes.
• As a mater of fact, all the notes are kept in phase, hence no drift between octaves (see the videos comparison between the hardware and the software)
• An other benefit is that there is only a single tuning circuit for the whole keyboard and then when using the envelope glide, all the notes are modulated in the same manner.
• This is the limitation which gives this very special, very recognizable effect used by a lot of electronic music artists.

Two other consequences :

• The first one is that the attack is done after the summation of the notes. This means that after a note is played the others will get the level reached by the fist one.
• In other words No polyphonic attacks for the real machine, but XILS-lab, thanks to the computer world, offers you both, monophonic AND polyphonic attacks. That’s also called “paraphonic” !
• The second consequence is that all the filters are done after the summation of the notes. The filters (strings, Human Voices, Vocoder) are then also monophonic.
• 49 voices of polyphony wouldn’t be possible on todays’ computers if the 49 specific filters would have to be polyphonic too (human voices are done with up to 14 filters, strings involves 7 filters, so up to 1029 filters would have to run at the same time …).
• So, as the real machine, the XILS V+ has monophonic filters.

Anyway XILS-lab brought a lot of other Polyphonic modulation or parameters :

• Oscillator waveform
• Modulation dedicated envelop
• Level of each components (Human voices, Strings, Vocoder)
• Attack/release time (for the Human Voices and Strings)