THE ORB

USER GUIDE

v1.2.1
THE ORB.............................................................................. 3
INSTALLATION..................................................................................................3
REGISTRATION..................................................................................................4
PARAMETERS....................................................................... 5
THE ORB............................................................................................................5
CONTROLS........................................................................................................5
CUSTOM VOWELS............................................................................................6
FEATURES............................................................................ 7
PARAMETER LOCK............................................................................................7
EDIT VALUE.......................................................................................................7
EXTENDED LFO RANGE....................................................................................7
WINDOW SIZE...................................................................................................7
PRESET COPY/PASTE........................................................................................8
ENABLE/DISABLE NOTIFICATIONS.................................................................8
SWAP MOUSE BUTTONS.................................................................................8
ENABLE/DISABLE GUI ACCELERATION..........................................................8
DARK / LIGHT THEME......................................................................................8
END...................................................................................... 9
WHERE IS EVERYTHING?..................................................................................9
CREDITS.............................................................................................................9
EULA...................................................................................................................9
THANK YOU.......................................................................................................9

AudioThing – The Orb Page 2

THE ORB
The Orb is a formant flter plugin which simulates the characteristics of the human
voice. Featuring a set of three band pass flters, The Orb can transform any sound into
a vowel-like formant-fltered sound.
With the three LFOs you can modulate the Vowel, the Emphasis/Resonance of the
formants, and the Drift, which can shift up or down the frequencies of each formant.
You can also create your own custom set of vowels by changing name and frequency
for each vowel/formant.
Depending on how you use it, The Orb can function as a Phaser, Talkbox, Step
Sequencer, Filter and Vocal synth.

INSTALLATION
MAC OS
• Double click on the DMG archive to extract it
• Right click on the PKG installer and click open
• Follow the instructions to install the plug-in(s)

WINDOWS
• Extract the ZIP archive
• Double click on the setup fle (.exe)
• Follow the instructions to install the plug-in(s)

AudioThing – The Orb Page 3

REGISTRATION
You can open the registration window by clicking on the icon next to the bypass
button, in the top-right corner.
You can choose between Online and Ofine authorization.

ONLINE
• If you haven't created an account yet, you can signup here using the same
email address used at check out.
• Just input your credentials into the text felds and click on Log In

OFFLINE
• Download the license fle from your account.
• Copy the fle to your ofine computer.
• Just drag and drop the license into the registration window or click on the
Load License File button and browse to the downloaded license.

AudioThing – The Orb Page 4

PARAMETERS
THE ORB

Each sector of the orb represents a Vowel. You can change the vowel for each sector
by clicking on the vowel name.
The distance from the center of the orb to the dot represent the amount of Emphasis
(resonance) for each formant flter.
The angle inside each sector represent the amount of Drift, which is an amount in Hz
that will be added or subtracted from each vowel formant.

CONTROLS
FORMANTS
Smooth Controls how smooth is the transition between two vowels (or
drift settings).
Drift Range Controls an amount (in Hz) to be added or subtracted from each
vowel formant.
Drift Polarity Select if the Drift amount should be added (+), subtracted (-), or
both (±).
Formant 1, 2, 3 The volume of each formant flter.

AudioThing – The Orb Page 5

VOWELS
Amount Controls the amount of vowels inside the orb.
Genre Controls the set of vowels between: male, female, child and
custom
Edit Shows the custom vowels settings (see below).

L.F.O.
Rate Controls the speed of the L.F.O.
Amount Controls the amount of modulation to apply.
Phase Controls the start point of the waveform.

MASTER
Limiter Enables a soft clip limiter.
Gain Controls the output gain of the formant flters.
Mix Controls the balance of the wet and dry signals.

CUSTOM VOWELS
Clicking on the Edit button in the Vowels
section, you can access the Custom Vowels
window.

It's possible to change each vowel name and

frequency for the three formants.

Each custom vowels 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.

The default set is the same as the Male genre

settings.

AudioThing – The Orb Page 6

FEATURES
PARAMETER LOCK
If you want to keep the value of one or more
parameters while changing presets, or when
using the randomizer button, you can use the
Parameter Lock feature.
Right click on a parameter and choose Parameter
Lock.

Lock/Unlock If locked, the parameter won't be updated when changing presets

Lock All No parameters will be updated
Unlock All All parameters will be updated

EDIT VALUE
You can also manually change the value for knobs and
sliders. Right click on a parameter an choose Edit Value.
You can also access this feature with a SHIFT + Click.

By clicking on the icon you can access additional features.

EXTENDED LFO RANGE

By clicking on the More button you can also enable/disable the Extended Range
(0.01Hz to 2kHz) for the Rate parameters of the three LFOs.

WINDOW SIZE
You can resize the plugin window using three predefned sizes (small, standard, big).
You can also resize the plugin window by clicking and dragging the bottom-right
corner of the interface. Double clicking will reset to the standard size.

AudioThing – The Orb Page 7

PRESET COPY/PASTE
You can easily share presets by using this Copy/Paste feature.

Copy to Clipboard the status of all parameters will be saved to the Clipboard

Paste from Clipboard load a preset from the Clipboard

ENABLE/DISABLE NOTIFICATIONS
You can enable or disable the notifcations for updates and news (shown by the bell
icon). This option is global and it will afect all AudioThing plugins.

SWAP MOUSE BUTTONS

If you are using the right button as your primary mouse button, the plugin might not
recognize it. Use this option to enable it internally in the plugin. This option is global
and it will afect all AudioThing plugins.

ENABLE/DISABLE GUI ACCELERATION

You can enable or disable the GUI acceleration supported by your system. The current
and default library is OpenGL.

DARK / LIGHT THEME

You can choose a dark or light appearance for menus, popup values, and windows.
This option is global and it will afect all AudioThing plugins.

AudioThing – The Orb Page 8

END
WHERE IS EVERYTHING?
The installer will place the plugins, presets and other data in these folders.

MAC OS
AU: /Library/Audio/Plug-ins/Components/
VST: /Library/Audio/Plug-ins/VST/
VST3: /Library/Audio/Plug-ins/VST3/
AAX: /Library/Application Support/Avid/Audio/Plug-Ins/
Data: /Users/Shared/AudioThing/

WINDOWS
VST: custom path from installer
VST3: \Program Files\Common Files\VST3\
AAX: \Program Files\Common Files\Avid\Audio\Plug-Ins\
Data: \Users\Public\Public Documents\AudioThing\

CREDITS
DSP & Code: Carlo Castellano
Design: John Gordon (vstyler)
QA Engineer: Giuseppe Marrazzo

EULA
Please visit www.audiothing.net/eula/ to review this product EULA.

THANK YOU
Thank you for your purchase! We hope you will have as much fun using it as we had
making this product.
For help or any question, feel free to contact us here: www.audiothing.net/contact/

AudioThing – The Orb Page 9