JAS-I
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KHORLO

A unique instrument unlike anything you’ve played before. Eight independent impulse plucks striking eight physically modelled strings. Create infinitely variable rhythms, otherworldly atmospheres, modulated basses, and much more.

Khorlo's synth view. A 3D glass cylinder carrying vertical strings inside an encircling impulse ring, plucker cards down the left edge and string cards down the right, with macros, the eight MOD tabs and the amp and filter tabs along the bottom.

Equipped with ten high quality effects. Chorus, compressor, delay, phaser, flanger, filter, distortion, reverb, EQ, and limiter. Each with its own display, arranged in a rack you can reorder. You can modulate almost every parameter.

Khorlo's effects view. Ten effect panels — chorus, compressor, delay, saturation, equalizer, filter, flanger, phaser, reverb and limiter — each with a display above its knobs, over a row of macro and modulation controls.

A synth is only as good as its modulation and Khorlo is a sound designer’s dream. Nearly everything can be modulated, string and plucker properties, effects, even other modulators. Fine tune your modulation assignments on one routing page.

Khorlo's routing page: one table of every modulation connection, with columns for source, destination, amount, polarity and velocity. The sources listed include MOD1, MOD3, three macros, velocity, the mod wheel and aftertouch.

Khorlo is equipped with a robust preset browser. Browse by instrument categories. Filter by tone, character, articulation or who made it.

Khorlo's preset browser. A folders and tags sidebar down the left with instrument, tone, character and articulation filters; columns of presets, each with a three-letter instrument badge, a favourite star and a delete control; name, designer and Save To fields across the top.
How it works

Imagine a glass cylinder. Up to eight strings stand around it, each parked at its own position on the circle.

Circling them are up to eight impulse rings, each spinning at a rate you choose. Where an impulse crosses a string, it plucks.

Each ring is free to ride up and down the cylinder. Height is where it grabs the string: high is bright and thin, low is dull and round.

Emergent polyrhythms at one end, resonant voices at the other, and a lot of strange in between.

Change the background colours, the fog, and the glass colour and opacity. Every part of the scene takes a colour of its own.

Six modulation shapers — envelopes and LFOs you draw by hand. Nine more slots carry the four macros, which you can name, and nine carry what your hands do: velocity, the mod wheel, aftertouch. Almost every knob in the instrument is a destination.

Khorlo's appearance panel: colour swatches for the three background tones, the glass, the inner glow and the ripple, with sliders for warp, speed, fog, opacity and ripple amount.
The 80s Dream preset dressed in crimson and deep purple, with a macro named Muffle on the panel bottom left.
The same preset again, this time in green.

Have a listen

Sound demos

Lo-fi beats
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Four to the floor
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Ambient
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Every sound here was made with Khorlo. No external effects — only EQ, compression and limiting on the master bus.

The deets

FormatsVST3, Audio Unit, CLAP
macOS11 or later, universal binary
Windows 10 or later, 64-bit. Uses WebView2, which any machine with Edge already has.
Linux x86-64. Needs WebKitGTK 4.1, which most desktop distros ship.
Hosts64-bit only
GraphicsHardware acceleration for the 3D view. Performance mode if your laptop objects.
PriceFree. No account, no activation, nothing phoning home.

Stay in the loop

Occasional emails about Khorlo updates and new instruments. Nothing else.

Test it for yourself

macOS, Windows and Linux. Free, and it does not expire.

Download the beta

About

JAS-I is the work of Aaron Jasinski. With thirty years of painting, illustration, UI/UX design and music, he builds instruments that incorporate all of it: the crossroads where image meets sound. New sounds, or fresh ways to make them.

[email protected] for questions, bug reports, and requests for features.

Press kit for writing about Khorlo.