Pad Builder
The guided panel on the left. Hide it for more room.
- Mood / Source / Movement / Grit / Space
- Five steps, one choice each, each setting a group of knobs.
Guide · v1.5
Glowbox
Atmosphere synth
A pad synth for long, slow chords. Hold one key for a full chord, then add movement, texture and reverb.
Getting started
Build a pad
Open the Pad Builder on the left and pick one option per step: Mood, Source, Movement, Grit and Space. Each choice explains what it did.
Hold one key
Chord mode plays a full, open-voiced chord from a single key: minor 9, minor 11, major 9, sus 2, and darker ones too.
Ride the macros
DREAM, DRIFT, GRIT, DARK | AIR, WIDTH and BLOOM shape the whole sound. All automatable.
Sit it under
One button cuts the lows, scoops the mids where vocals live, makes the low end mono and adds a tempo-locked pump.
Explore
The dice next to Save gives musical variations. The LFO box has its own dice for new movement.
The interface
How the sound is built:
Layers + Sample›Texture›Env & filter›Move›Grit›Space›Mix
Every section has its own tab. The display graphs whatever you hover or turn, so you can see what a knob does before you hear it.
Layers
- Stack
- Detuned voices (1 to 7) with a Wave knob from saw to sine.
- Sub
- A clean low layer from three octaves down to one up. Skips the reverb and low cut.
- Glass / Vocal
- Glassy partials and ghostly vowel sounds.
- Slowdown
- Pitches down with tape warble.
Sample
- Drop a file
- Drag a WAV, AIFF or FLAC onto Glowbox, then turn Sample up. It becomes a granular layer played by the keys.
- Position / Scan / Spray / Grain size
- Where in the file it plays, how it moves through it, how scattered and how long each grain is.
Texture
- Crackle / Rain / Hiss / Room
- Vinyl dust, rain on a window, tape hiss and low room rumble. Can fade in and out with your notes.
Env, filter & Move
- Envelope
- Attack up to 20 seconds, release up to 30.
- Filter / Bloom
- 12 or 24 dB filter with drive. Bloom makes notes open from dark to bright.
- Drift / Wow
- Per-voice analog drift and tape wobble.
Grit, Space & Mix
- Grit
- Tape saturation, bit crush and Muffle (a strong low-pass).
- Space
- Ping-pong delay into a shimmer reverb up to about 20 seconds, with Freeze.
- Mix
- Low cut, mid scoop, mono below, width and ducking (beat pump or sidechain).
LFO box
Press LFOs at the top.
- 3 LFOs
- Smooth shapes, 16-step patterns or random, synced from 1/32 to 32 bars.
- Connect
- Drag an LFO tile onto any knob (up to 6 each). Blue rings show which knobs move. Right-click a knob to disconnect.
Hover any control in the plugin and the bar at the bottom explains it. The ? button opens the built-in help.
Settings
Under the gear icon. They apply to every copy of the plugin on your computer.
| Interface size | 75% to 150%. |
| Polyphony | 8 to 32 voices. Chord mode uses 4 to 7 per key. |
| Pitch bend / Velocity | Bend range, and how much your playing changes the level. |
| CPU mode | Eco caps unison at 3 and uses fewer grains. |
| Hover hints / Pad Builder | Show or hide the explanation bar and the guided panel. |
| Default preset | The sound a new Glowbox starts with. |
Tips
- Freeze trick: play a chord, switch Freeze on in the Space tab and let go. The reverb holds forever; play a melody over it, then switch Freeze off.
- Pads usually work best with long, overlapping chords, mixed quietly under the drums.
- For ducking, Beat 1/4 or Beat 1/2 is easiest in FL. Sidechain needs FL's input routing.
- Save stores everything, including macros and the sample's location, as a .gbx preset.
Install
Copy
Unzip the download and copy the .vst3 folder to C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3\. Replace the old one when you update.
Scan
In FL Studio open Options › Manage plugins and click Find installed plugins. Tick Glowbox so it shows in your list, then add it to the Channel Rack.
Windows warning
The files aren't code signed yet, so Windows may say “unknown publisher”. Click More info, then Run anyway.
Free during early access