AudioThing The Orb morphing formant filter: the new free 2.0 update brings new features and introduces an iOS version
Traditional filters—such as low-pass, high-pass, or band-pass filters—found in subtractive synthesizers are commonly used to make sounds brighter or darker. This differs from a formant filter, which lends sounds a human timbre.
AudioThing has offered The Orb, a filter plugin that allows users to experiment with vowels, for 10 years. Version 2.0 is now available as a free update, and there’s also an iOS version.
AudioThing The Orb
The Orb is a formant filter plugin for macOS, Linux, Windows, and now also iOS. AudioThing The Orb simulates the characteristics of the human voice.
The core consists of three band-pass filters. Each filter comes with a dedicated formant slider, allowing you to mix perfectly the three levels of the formant filters. It also includes smoothing, drift range, and polarity for all three formants.
In the dedicated vowels section, you can go deeper and customize the number of vowels and the genre. Click the Edit button in the section to open the Custom Vowels window. In this window, you can change each vowel name and frequency for the three formants.
Each custom vowel set will be saved in a preset (or DAW session), so you can create as many as you want by saving to a new preset.
In the middle, you can find the orb that gives the plugin its name. Here, you can morph between the different vowels (ah, e, ee, u, o…). Then you can set its emphasis and drift. The latter can shift the frequencies of each formant up or down.
Things get more moving on the right side. You have three independent multi-wave LFOs for modulating the vowel, the emphasis/resonance of the formants, and the drift. For each LFO, you can set the rate, amount, and shape.
Using the LFOs, you can achieve automated morphing, resulting in exciting, vocal-like filtering.
Version 2
Version 2.0 is a free update for existing users and adds a few new features. When you launch AudioThing The Orb 2 for the first time, you notice the new procedural UI, which looks more modern and uncluttered.
Furthermore, you can also work with a new stereo width parameter in the master section and spread and size controls in the vowels. With these, you can achieve a wider stereo filter effect.
Other changes include a new preset browser, dotted values for the synced LFOs, and macOS 26 Tahoe support.
The new 2.0 update also introduces the new iOS version with AUv3 support. This means another older AudioThing plugin has made its way to iOS.
First Impression
It’s great to see another plugin from the AudioThing portfolio on iOS. Version 2 is also a welcome update for anyone who’s been using the plugin for a while.
The new AudioThing The Orb version 2 is available now as a free update for existing users. The Orb is now on sale for $19/19€ instead of $49/49€ (until October 31, 2026).
It runs as a VST, VST3, AU, CLAP, and AAX plugin on macOS (native Apple Silicon + Intel), Linux, and Windows. The iOS version is out now with AUv3 support for $7,99/8,99€.
More information here: AudioThing /App Store
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