GrabTone from Kobito is an experimental synthesizer plugin that lets you turn any sound into a playable instrument with MIDI, and it is free for a limited time.
It uses two audio files, A (Shape) and B (Tone), to create a new synthesizer voice. Sound A provides the movement, articulation, and rhythm, while Sound B delivers the harmonic and timbral information, which are then fused together.
I can immediately see a lot of cool use-cases for this. Making plain weird sounds by morphing to very disparate elements is the obvious choice, but you could also opt for something more subtle by using already established parts of your mix. Like a vocal track or FX-bus feeding it into GrabTone to create new dimensions of familiar-sounding elements.
You could then use them to develop the composition or to double already existing sounds to give them a unique flair.
You could, of course, resample and bounce several iterations of output from Grabtone and feed them back into each other for more and more outlandish results.
The plugin interface is simple, and the operation is even simpler. Most of the magic happens as soon as you’ve selected two files. Play your keyboard and listen to your sonic Frankenstein monster.
Kobito has also included a row of knobs to give you additional tweaking options. Dial in saturation, a filter cutoff, and resonance, spread, detune, noise, and intensity controls for Shape and Tone.
Grabtone also has two sections with visual feedback for the Shape and Tone sections to give you a basic idea of what is happening.
Plug-and-play tools like these might be simple and unassuming on the surface level, but can be really powerful for sound design or general creative inspiration when you’re out of juice.
GrabTone is free, but only for a limited time with promo code “GRABTONEPROMO100”. I couldn’t figure out when the offer ends, so I recommend grabbing it immediately.
Enter “0” in the pay-what-you-want column to get it for free. The promo code is applied automatically, and the plugin and license key will be available as soon as you have provided an email address.
If you like experimental plugins, be sure to check out this article featuring 10 unusual plugins released in 2025
Download: Grabtone (FREE for a limited time using code “GRABTONEPROMO100” – email required)
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Last Updated on March 9, 2026 by Tomislav Zlatic.
