HY-Plugins has introduced HY-Filter, a freeware multi-mode filter effect available as a 32-bit and 64-bit VST plugin for Windows based host applications.
HY-Filter is the third freeware effect developed by HY-Plugins, following the previously released HY-Delay and HY-Lofi plugins. This developer (his real name is Tadashi Suginomori) and his plugins are, for me personally, the most pleasant audio freeware surprise of late 2015 / early 2016. These plugins remind me a lot of the legendary Kjaerhus Audio freebies, in the sense that they’re nicely designed, easy to use, and yet absolutely solid effects in terms of sound quality and character. HY-Delay is excellent for making long feedback swells and HY-Lofi features several different bitcrushing flavors that sound great. The new filter effect is also quite interesting, as I’ll try to describe below.
So, HY-Filter is a multi-mode filter effect with four switchable modes: SVF (state-variable filter with high-pass, band-pass and low-pass modes), formant filter, telephone filter and comb filter. First off, the state-variable filter is decent in terms of sound, but the really cool thing about it is that you can seamlessly morph between the three different filter states (LPF, HPF and BPF). This can come in handy if you want to go crazy with filter automation, as you can really make some insane sounds while morphing between different filter states. The envelope follower is also pretty neat, as it detects the incoming transients quite accurately and makes the filter very useful for adding a bit of extra texture and punch to percussive sound sources.
Next up is the formant filter which sounds fairly good and also features an envelope follower, as well as an LFO. The user can switch between eight vowels, as well as adjust the emphasis and smoothness of the vowel frequency.
The quirkiest mode in HY-Filter is the telephone filter which basically emulates the sound you’d get by playing your audio source through a telephone line. The results are pretty convincing, actually. It is possible to control the amount of frequency degradation, as well as the noise level. The mono switch simply converts the incoming signal to mono.
Finally, the comb filter sounds pretty good and features delay time and feedback parameters, along with the envelope follower and LFO which were also included in the first two filter modes. The tone parameter works like a dry/wet knob, basically.
To sum it up, HY-Filter is another solid release by HY-Plugins, delivering a versatile set of filter modes that will be quite useful for many different purposes. You should definitely add this one to your sound design toolbox if you’re on Windows. And I definitely can’t wait to see the next HY-Plugins release.
Download
HY-Filter is available for free download via HY-Plugins (4.49 MB download size, ZIP archive, 32-bit & 64-bit VST plugin format for Windows).
Last Updated on January 29, 2016 by Tomislav Zlatic.
