Effect · Filter
Orbiton
A step filter where every frequency is a note of your key. Draw steps, pick one of 52 filter models, and the filter plays a melody.
In developmentOrbiton
Plugins that play in key, and play together.
AR-K AUDIO makes VST3 plugins for Windows, made in and for Ableton Live. They share one core, one look and one musical language, and a small one-eyed alien called Orbit lives in every window.
Orbiton
Orbital
Holon
Resampler
Drums · LinnDrum style · 1 bar
Press play, then turn a knob. Someone down there likes it.
The family
Each plugin does one thing in its own colour. Put them in one Live set and they listen to each other.
MIDI · Generator
Orbital
Random melodies and rhythms you can steer, with a Déjà Vu memory that repeats, slowly changes or reshuffles what it played. Always in key.
In developmentOrbital
Instrument · Synth
Holon
A polyphonic synth with chords, an arpeggiator and a step sequencer built in. Play one key and hear a whole progression, in key.
In developmentHolon
Effect · Resampler
Resampler
Coming soonNo window to show yetCatch a loop and get variations back: musical, or completely crazy. Grains from your loop, in key, played by the rest of the family.
Coming soonResampler
ARK Link: they play together
AR-K plugins in one Live set share their key, their notes and their rhythm. No MIDI routing, no extra tracks: set the same Link channel on both sides and that's it.
- Orbital sends the notes it plays, its rhythm, a slow modulation and its key.
- Orbiton listens: it takes the key, sings Orbital's melody with the filter, or starts its envelope on Orbital's beats.
- Every plugin can send and receive, on four channels. A plugin never hears itself, so nothing feeds back.
- Everything lands on the beat, whatever order Live runs the tracks in.
Orbitonlistens, sends
Orbitalsends, listens
Resamplercoming soon
Link 1
Key D Dorian
Notes
Rhythm
Mod Y
Channels 1 to 4. The plugins find each other inside Live on their own.
Screenshot needed: ARK Link in a Live set
Orbital and Orbiton side by side in Ableton Live, both on Link channel 1, Orbiton singing Orbital's melody.
One core under every plugin
Every AR-K plugin is built on ark-core, our own shared platform. That's why they connect without any setup, and why every new plugin you add fits right in with the ones you already have.
ark-coreARK Linkkey, notes, rhythm and modulation between plugins
Scalesone key lock, the same keys and scales everywhere
MIDI toolsstep lanes, arpeggios, patterns you copy from one plugin to the next
Studio lookthe same panels, knobs and controls in every window
Orbitlives in every plugin, reacts to your music
For you
Buy one plugin and it already talks to the next one you get. No routing, no learning a new interface.
Always in step
Improvements to the core reach every plugin: a better scale engine or a new Link message helps the whole family.
Built to last
Every plugin is tested on the core: tuning, stability at every sample rate and buffer size, saved projects that open again exactly.
Meet Orbit
Somebody lives in there
That's Orbit. He lives in every AR-K plugin window, he's the hyphen in our logo, and he takes on the colours of whichever plugin he's in.
He strolls along the panels, climbs your knobs and rides them when you turn them. Turn too fast and he goes "oh noo". When the music gets funky he dances. Leave him alone long enough and he falls asleep. And if he gets in the way, there's a button that sends him home.
Walkexplores the panels
Climb and siton top of a knob, legs swinging
Ridehands up, or "oh noo"
Dancewhen the groove is right
Sleepnothing playing? zzz
How Orbit got here
A very long way, for a good bassline.
1 · The quietest planet
Very, very far away lies Hush, where nothing makes a sound. Not the wind, not the rivers, not even the fridges. Hushlings have one big eye (two would be showing off) and talk by blinking. One of them hummed all day. The neighbours thought his face was vibrating.
2 · The signal
One night the red ball on his antenna started to glow. A sound was coming in from very far away: dum… dum-dum… DUM. A bassline, from a bedroom on Earth where someone was making music in Live with the speakers way too loud.
3 · The trip
He built a spaceship from a saucepan, two paperclips and a lot of hope, and steered by the beat. He came in too fast ("oh noooo!"), bounced off a coffee mug and shot straight into the laptop's headphone jack.
4 · Inside the music
Behind a door marked VST3: knobs, hundreds of them, and music everywhere. Every note in key, so he could sing as loud as he liked and never sound wrong. Being polite, he blended in: orange here, cyan there, lime next door.
5 · His name
He climbed a knob, the music started, and it turned round and round, just like the little moon he used to ride back home. His real name takes nine minutes to blink, so the producer called him what he was doing: Orbit.
6 · Why he stays
He saw a gap between AR and K, thought it was a stage, and jumped in, arms up. He's been holding the company together ever since. Every week he beams a tiny MIDI file home. Last month, for the first time ever, Hush hummed back.
Made for Live
VST3 for Windows. Every AR-K plugin is built and tested in Ableton Live first.
Always in key
Pick a key and a scale once. Filters, melodies and modulation stay on its notes.
One family
One shared core, one look, one Orbit. Learn one plugin and you know your way around the next.
