XLN Audio Life

In a world filled with compressors, reverbs and EQs, it’s a welcome change when something strikingly different comes along to catch your attention. XLN Audio’s Life plugin looks intriguing, not only because you can easily import sounds to generate your own beats but also because it has an accompanying field recorder app for your phone that allows you to capture everyday sounds and easily turn them into something unique and useable.

You’ll need to install the desktop app first via XLN Online Installer. Once installed, open it as a standalone or inside your DAW and you’ll see a QR code for downloading the mobile app and a numerical code for pairing the two. This allows for anything that you record on your phone to be sent to the XLN cloud so that it will instantly show up in your desktop app ready for editing.

A track featuring the Life plugin

Building Your Sample Library

The Field Recorder app is very simple to use. Open it up and you’ll see a record button at the bottom. Use it to grab actual drums and percussion or random sounds from your surroundings. For the purpose of this test I made use of a nearby radiator and cardboard box (that sound surprisingly good once edited). Having completed your recording, you can name it and assign an icon and colour for fast identification later. Providing you have a speedy online connection, the sample will be uploaded to your XLN account within seconds.

When opening your desktop app you can choose between stereo or 6x stereo outputs. You’ll be able to see your new recording listed in the central dropdown menu and it will download from the cloud once selected. Audio from the Field Recorder app comes in at 16 bit, 48 kHz and mono, plus you can import sounds from your desktop or use the factory samples too.

Any imported files are automatically sliced and colour coded based on similarity of sounds – Life very smartly organises your slices into groups depending on the characteristics of that sound, so that when a beat is automatically generated it’s using the closest possible sound to kicks, snares, hats, etc. While the app has done a fantastic job of splitting the audio in all tests conducted, you can slice your original file up further by clicking on the Slice Points button and double clicking on the wave file to create new split points, or by getting the app to rescan and offer another suggestion of it’s own. You can also favourite slices so that they are used more frequently in the beat or switch them off completely.

Creating Your Beat

A beat is automatically constructed in the main central circle of the app by combining your samples with one of the preset patterns. You can test new patterns by hitting the randomise button to the left or by using the browse function to the right. There are no genre groups here, the idea is to create your own unique style which you can do once you get on to the editing stage. Shortlist your favourite beats as you go using the slots above so that you don’t lose any potential good results while you’re exploring the possibilities.

Once you’ve got a beat that you’re happy with, you can really start to get creative. At this stage it’s recommended to open the Edit screen so that you can see how each of the functions are altering your beat.

Dragging your curser across the Sound Variation circle changes the effects and envelope settings, while doing the same across the Pattern Variation circle alters the complexity of the beat. There are three further sections for tweaking your beat – Density for adding and removing elements, Syncopation for adding a little more randomness and Symmetry for giving your beat more uniformity.

Looking to the bottom bar, you have the aptly named Groove section, which adds more swing. The Pitched button can be switched off if you’re bringing in more tonal samples and don’t want pitch to be affected. For added fun, Kick adds a 4 to the floor underneath your beat. There are a few different patterns to choose from here and 10 different kick sounds, or construct your own pattern using your preferred sound.

Now you can really start to develop your beat by tweaking effects and manually adding and removing hits on each of your tracks. You can also drag slices down into your edit panel to replace existing sounds, to really fine-tune your creation. The panel below your tracks lets you select from a few different master effects, including reverbs, delays and saturation.

Finally, from the menu icon select MIDI control and you’ll notice that most of the parameters on the app display Learn CC, a feature that’s going to please a lot of music producers.

Using A Beat In Your Track

Need to preview the beat playing alongside your existing track to make sure that it fits? No problem. You’ll see two padlocks in the bottom left section of the app, one for syncing to the project tempo and another for triggering playback from your DAW controls.

Once your beat is ready you can export it in various ways, including a MIDI file, a stereo mix, individual stems or even the slices themselves as one-shots.

You can also just play the slices from your keyboard and build up your own beat within the DAW. Or you could simply add multiple instances of Life onto different tracks and use automation to bring each of the parts in as needed.

In Conclusion

XLN Audio refer to Life as the Happy Accidents machine and that sums it up pretty well. Life is a massively fun and easy app to use with endless possibilities and I can see it becoming a really valuable tool for composers and singer songwriters, or for adding percussive elements to existing beats. It not only provides you with very organic sounding tracks, but also something that is unique to you.

In an increasingly complicated world, Life takes us back to the early days of sampling, with the app keeping out of the way of creativity and allowing for endless hours of fun.

Standalone, VST3, VST, AU, AAX | Phone App (iOS, Android)
RRP €149.00