Xylophone VSTs: 5 Realistic Xylophone Plugins (Free & Paid)

Concert percussion is abundant in film scores, trailers, and commercials. As a composer, it's always a good idea to have many tools at your disposal. Great-sounding percussion instrument libraries are often challenging to find. Look no further as I'll be sharing five of the best xylophone VST plugins to use in your compositions. Note: the…
Nick Cesarz
Xylophone VST Plugins
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Concert percussion is abundant in film scores, trailers, and commercials. As a composer, it’s always a good idea to have many tools at your disposal.

Great-sounding percussion instrument libraries are often challenging to find. Look no further as I’ll be sharing five of the best xylophone VST plugins to use in your compositions.

Note: the issue with many percussion instrument plugins is they usually come packed in a larger library (for example, an orchestral percussion library). You may not be able to find a standalone xylophone VST outside of the free option I’ve listed below.

Quick Picks

  1. Vital Series: Mallets
  2. Rhapsody: Orchestral Percussion
  3. Heavyocity AEON
  4. eXylo
  5. EastWest ComposerCloud+ | Virtual Instruments Plugin Bundle

  1. 1. Vital Series: Mallets

    Vital Series: Mallets

    Eight recorded mallet percussion instruments: Marimba, Xylophone, Glockenspiel, Tubular Bells, Glass Marimba, Song Bells, Vibraphone, Crotales. Up to 4 velocity layers, 5 round robins.
    View at Sweetwater

    Overview

    Vital Series: Mallets from Big Fish Audio is not exclusive to the xylophone; instead, it covers a range of many different mallet instruments.

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    ‘Vital Series: Mallets’ includes eight instruments in one patch. The GUI of Mallets allows for each pitched percussion instrument to be edited, played, blended, and recorded together.

    All eight instruments included are:

    • Marimba
    • Xylophone
    • Glockenspiel
    • Tubular Bells (Chimes)
    • Glass Marimba
    • Song Bells
    • Vibraphone
    • Crotales

    The samples themselves sound incredible; the level of detail is excellent for commercial film and TV productions. The recordings offer dry, stereo samples with four velocity layers and five round robins per instrument.

    Each instrument comes with multiple mallet types, giving you more flexibility for quiet and louder sections of a piece.

    Mallet types included are as follows:

    • Soft
    • Medium Soft
    • Medium Hard
    • Hard
    • Rods
    • Bow

    We all know that rolls and drags typically give us an issue when sampling drums. Mallet rolls are made easy with the Rolls creator, and they sound quite realistic.

    The major con of the library is the lack of multiple microphone positions. However, the samples sound excellent, and the instrument is worth a listen.

  2. 2. Rhapsody: Orchestral Percussion

    Rhapsody: Orchestral Percussion

    Comprehensive collection of 50+ orchestral percussion instruments. Core and auxiliary options. Tuned and untuned percussion. Three mic positions for flexible mixing. Deep sampling with dynamic layers. Dual sample formats. Easy interface with built-in tools.
    View at Sweetwater View at Retailer

    Overview

    Rhapsody Orchestral Colors and Percussion is a library made for the full version of KONTAKT. It boasts a collection of 50 traditional and extended instruments. The library has three separate microphone positions, giving more options with your production.

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    The samples aren’t overly hyped, like many “movie trailer” libraries.

    The xylophone samples included sound great, which are heard in the clip “Attack of the Blue Monster” near the end.

  3. 3. Heavyocity AEON

    Heavyocity

    AEON

    315 presets, 9,800 samples in Melodic. 315 tempo-synced loops in Rhythmic. 10,100+ samples at 48kHz/24-Bit. 14 GB content. Requires Kontakt 5. Supports stand-alone, VST, AU, AAX. Includes advanced tools like Arpeggiator and Loop Mutator.
    View at Heavyocity

    Overview

    While not necessarily a pitched-percussion library, AEON does contain many impressive-sounding samples, including those of the xylophone.

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    I am a massive fan of Heavyocity: I think they make some of the best virtual instruments for composers to date.

    AEON covers synths, ethnic, orchestral, cinematic, sound design, and rhythm all in one.

  4. 4. eXylo

    eXylo

    88 stereo 24-bit xylophone samples. 2 velocity layers for expressive playing. Release time control and amplitude dynamic range control. Main volume adjustment. Compatible with various DAWs. GUI described as poor.
    View at Retailer

    Overview

    We have arrived at a free plugin! The eXylo is a great xylophone VST that won’t cost a penny.

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    eXylo is a sampled xylophone that has 88 stereo samples from the University of Iowa Electronic Music Studios public domain library.

    The UI isn’t the most impressive looking, but if you’re looking for a free alternative to paid VSTs, look no further.

    eXylo works for Windows in both 32-bit and 64-bit VST. Mac users need to use the Audio Unit download.

  5. 5. EastWest ComposerCloud+ | Virtual Instruments Plugin Bundle

    EastWest

    ComposerCloud+

    Access to over 42,000 virtual instruments. Subscription-based service. Download and audition instruments via cloud. Royalty-free for commercial use. Compatible with major DAWs. Includes EastWest Opus Player and 46 mixer effects. Supports macOS and Windows.
    View at EastWest

    Overview

    My subscription to Composer Cloud from East-West has lasted for more than two years. That should say something about the samples included.

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    With East-West CC, you gain access to 40,000+ instruments for $19.99 a month. You can’t beat the value.

    The percussion libraries are fantastic-sounding and are very useful for commercial and TV productions.

    The only downside I’ve found is, again, the lack of different microphone positions. They are available, just not in the Composer Cloud plan. You have to purchase each library outright to gain access to different microphone positions.

    Aside from that con, I love the libraries included with the plan, especially the pitched percussion.

Top Pick

Vital Series: Mallets

Eight recorded mallet percussion instruments: Marimba, Xylophone, Glockenspiel, Tubular Bells, Glass Marimba, Song Bells, Vibraphone, Crotales. Up to 4 velocity layers, 5 round robins.
View at Sweetwater

What xylophone plugin do you use? Have you found a standalone one, or do you use one contained in a larger library? I’d love to hear from you down below in the comments. Thanks for reading once again.

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