The Usual Suspects Xenia is a free Synthesizer plugin that emulates the Waldorf microwave II/XT using the DSP56300 plugin
In recent months, the DSP56300 Emulation Blog has caused quite a stir in the synth world. Behind it are the community-driven developers of The Unusual Suspects, who have set the goal of emulating various vintage synthesizers based on the discontinued Motorola 56000 chips.
The first three are great successes: the Access Virus A/B/C, the Waldorf microQ, and the last one, the Access Virus TI. Behind the scenes, further developments are underway. Xenia, another emulation of a Waldorf classic, is now available as a beta version.
The Usual Suspects Xenia
Xenia is a free plugin that emulates the Waldorf microwave II/XT from 1997/1998. Unlike microwave I, the II and XT had no analog but digital filters, which gave them a different character
It is important to note that this plugin does not emulate the vintage digital synth engine but the Motorola 56300 chip. It must be added that the legality of this project is questionable. So far, Waldorf has not publicly commented on the two plugins.
The plugin is currently in beta, so problems may still be occurring. They have given the plugin a very authentic interface. Here, you will find all the features of the original hardware distributed in five different sections: main, mod, ARP/FX, multi, and browser.
Like the previous emulations, installation is a bit tricky. First, you must download the plugin, which is free for macOS, Linux, and Windows.
In the second step, you must insert the ROM (firmware) into the plugin folder. However, the developers do not offer this as a download. I will not do that, either. Also, I will not accept comments with links to the ROMs in the comments. Sorry. You have to search for it yourself otherwise it won’t make noise.
In addition, The Usual Suspects deliver Xenia without any presets. So you also have to get these.
First Impression
I’m glad to see that another emulation is now available. I installed it on my second system, and it sounds very good again.
The Usual Suspects Xenia is a free download. The plugin is now in beta and available via their Discord server. It runs as a VST, VST3, AU, CLAP, and LV2 plugin on macOS (native Apple Silicon + Intel), Linux, and Windows.
More information here: The Usual Suspects
There is a YouTube video demonstrating this plugin that includes a link in the description to a downloadable Beta version. I installed it and it works great! As a longtime owner of two Microwave XT hardware units, this plugin will get a TON of use alongside those.