Software roundup

Get your fill with these five fabulous filters that have had the price tags cut off

Free Filter plugins

Audiothing Filterjam

Not your standard filter, Filterjam is actually a multiband filter setup under the hood. These four bands are then combined by a mixture of summing and multiplying (you select how exactly from a selection of four). There’s a frequency control to select the focal point (not a cutoff per se, but it depends on the mode), and then an emphasis control to add something akin to resonance. The signal chain finished with a gain and a mix control to refine the strength of the effect.

What Filterjam does to your signal can vary wildly depending on your material and the settings you go for. There are some characterful and non-conventional filtering effects here, but for the most part, you could think of this one as a distortion and ring mod processor – certainly as a tool for mangling your signal. Well worth having, even at twice the price. audiothing.net VERDICT 8.8

HY-Filter3 Free

A free offering based on the commercial HY-Filter3, the main controls of the default SVF mode are cutoff, drive, resonance, filter type (blend between low-pass, bandpass and high-pass), and an LFO. There’s also a Reso mode, with a network of three band-pass models connected in a choice of ways. Other settings abound here, with pre and post drive, smoothing, amp and pan, a three-band EQ, in/out levels, and a randomiser with user-defined limits.

Perhaps by design, the plugin’s controls circle back from one end of travel to the other – reach the maximum and keep going, and it’ll be set to minimum, meaning you can keep cycling through the entire range of the control’s operation. This can be interesting in some ways, but it’s an obvious liability in others. Otherwise an impressive and comprehensive plugin.

hy-plugins.com VERDICT 9.0

Audiomodern FilterStep

A sequenced filter operating in low-, high- and bandpass modes, FilterStep lets you specify a bar height for each step to control the filter cutoff at that point. You get to choose how many steps exist up to a max of 64, how quickly they’re cycled through, and in what direction: forward, backward, or forward-then-backward. You can also choose to only play a certain portion of steps from the total number.

There’s randomisation onboard, per-step activation, smoothing, wet/dry control and bypass with click-to-hold auditioning. Oh, and there’s also resonance and filter range controls, of course, alongside copious preset saving. FilterStep is a massively creative workstation for sequenced filtering, and even has plenty of potential live. You may not use every feature, but it’s one of the most useful and easy to operate free plugins out there. audiomodern.com VERDICT 9.5

TAL-Filter-II

Choose your filter type, choose your speed, and draw a curve using nodes and splines to modulate the cutoff of a filter. Those filter types include four low-pass numbers (6 to 24dB/oct), one high- and one band-pass (12dB each), plus Notch. The rate options run from 1x to 32x per four bars, with no triplet or dotted options present – you can still program that into your curve to an extent, as running in 1x rate gives you 24 grid lines to guide you. There are resonance and depth controls for further filter customisation, alongside Input and Output controls.

Actually, TAL-Filter-II can also target volume and panning using its curve, making it a basic but free substitute for the likes of Cableguys’ Shaperbox and Xfer’s LFO Tool. Simple but effective. tal-software.com VERDICT 9.1

BPB Dirty Filter

Coming from Bedroom Producers Blog, and the most recent of the plugins on the testbench here, Dirty Filter has separate low- and high-pass filters running in series, each linked to the devastating Drive control at the top, which lets you distort the signal you’ve filtered. Good applications here are to make a band-pass filter from the two and push a particular band of your choice, and to add low-band ‘saturation’ for beefing up your low end.

Filter slopes run from 12 to 48 per octave, and there are mix and output volume controls to refine the effect. BPB Dirty Filter sounds great, but there’s a lot less versatility on show than in the other plugins in this round-up. Simplicity never hurt anyone, though, and sometimes a simple filter is all you need. If it’s filthy as sin, so much the better.

bedroomproducersblog.com VERDICT 8.4