Acustica Audio NOX: the EDM & melodic techno Synthesizer plugin - March 3, 206

Acustica Audio NOX is a new Alice-9 engine-based Synthesizer plugin that focuses on EDM and melodic techno productions.

Over the past year and a half, the Italian company Acustica Audio has made a major entry into the synthesizer plugin business. Among other things, they’ve released the Alice-9, a hybrid Synthesizer that uses oscillators with sample-based waveforms from various hardware synths.

With NOX, we have the next Acoustica Audio Synthesizer plugin, and it’s the first genre-focused synth plugin that uses a known engine.



Acustica Audio NOX
NOX is the first-genre-focused hybrid Synthesizer from the company. According to Acustica Audio, NOX is specifically designed for EDM and melodic techno productions.

At the heart of NOX is the well-known Alice-9 engine and the MUST technology, which blends sample content, convolution technology, and analog modeling. They promise that it brings depth and realism to the sound.

The synth consists of four sample-controlled oscillators (SCOs) with time-evolving waveforms, exhibiting natural drift and analog behavior. The first two have unusual sample-start parameters, while the other two are more traditional multi-wave oscillators.

Then, it goes into a mixer, and from there the signals are fed into two filters: one non-resonant HPF and a multimode resonant with classic controls.

On the modulation side, you have two ADSR envelopes and two LFOs with a delay function. It looks like there is no modulation matrix. Instead, modulation is assigned directly in the individual areas. You can modulate the VCOs, VCFs, VCAs, and more.

Also onboard is a multi-FX section with high-quality algorithms, including saturator, OTT dynamics, chorus, delay, reverb, and an EQ.



Worklow
Additionally, you have morph functionality in the center UI that lets you shape multiple core parameters in a fluid way. Expressive polyphonic control is also possible with full MPE support.

One unique feature is the two-layer GUI. The first (first image) is a feature-reduced “slim” performance interface that allows you to quickly create or tweak sounds—a kind of player GUI.

With one click, you access the Extended View, where you can delve deep into the engine and access all parameters. It ships with 127 curated presets built-on 61 unique SCO oscillators.

The browser offers an audition feature that lets you preview presets using dedicated MIDI phrases before loading. This is a very helpful upgrade since you can usually only preview sounds in other synths as a C3 drone.

Acustica Audio promises that NOX delivers impactful, mix-ready sounds through a streamlined workflow that prioritizes speed, clarity, and musical intent.

First Impression
At first glance, Nox looks like a repackaged Alice-9 Synthesizer. Whether it’s good or unnecessary, I don’t know yet since I’ve only tested it, but it sounds great in the linked demo.

It reminds me a bit of ROMpler plugins that developers sell you the same plugin ten times over, just with different sample content. In this case, you get different sample-controlled oscillator waveforms, a new UI, but with the same feature set as Alice-9.

I think NOX could be interesting for people who search for ready-to-use but tweakable EDM and melodic techno sounds. For everyone else, I don’t think it’s the most interesting synth.

Acustica Audio Nox is available now for an introductory price of 65€ instead of 109€ until March 25, 2026. It runs as a VST3, AU, and AAX plugin on macOS (native Apple Silicon + Intel) and Windows.

More information here: Acustica Audio

Source: https://synthanatomy.com/2026/03/acustica-audio-nox-the-edm-melodic-techno-synthesizer-plugin.html

 

The presets are laughable, and you are limited when it comes to sound design. Them marketing this to "EDM" producers just shows they know nothing about the genre.

 

One thing Acustica is excellent at - making terrible UI design...I admire the consistency.

Jokes aside, they are soooo late to the synthesizer market. I would appreciate if they consolidated the best of Nebula and Acqua algorithms into the fx section. Otherwise, I can't see any reason to look beyond Pigments, Omnisphere, Phaseplant, or Serum.

 

The marketing director must have conducted market analysis and identified areas for further revenue; this time it was EDM musicians and fans. Punks, rockers, and rock 'n' roll fans were underrepresented in the market analysis. Although, they'll probably just rename the same product for classical music. Same engine for other clients too...saves developer time!

 

Not impressed, I'm into melodic side of things and it's hard this will make sense to anyone, considering CPU hit is probably higher then Diva/Avenger and you are stuck with only those presets. Probably they will try to sell more of those for the price of your usual Avenger/Nexus extension. So Nexus/Avenger/Diva still make more sense even for people who don't do extensive sound design and rely on tweaking a great preset.

 

They said they will be releasing preset packs in the $60-$80 range. The thing is, the presets suck, and i have no doubt the packs will as well. The synth is just too limited when it comes to routing and modulation. Their full analog modeled synths sound great, and its easy to build your own presets, but this thing is some hybrid wanna be, ill just use any of the usual suspects. Serum, Current, U-HE stuff etc.

 

I was about to post asking about this

 

Instead of supporting their already existing lineup of Acqua plugins that desperately need core tech updates, Acustica Audio are releasing meh synths with piss poor presets IMHO. I loved this company once, but today they are a total money hungry beast slowly loosing themselves in my estimation. AA can do clean tools very well but still can't deliver proper hardware tone like the 3rd party devs do with older Nebula tech, lol.

To each their own.

 

There are other plugs that can do these sounds, we are spoiled in what we have available today.
But yes the genres this is made for, dont need over the top complicated patches anyway.