One-track mindīYOME is a fabulous plugin, but there are a few issues to mention. The vector-based GUI isn’t wide enough to show more than two or three at a time, but scrolling through the chain is smooth and responsive, and modules can be collapsed individually or collectively down to a smaller size, turning knobs into sliders and reducing parameter names to single letters. The effects are homogenous in appearance, with clearly laid-out horizontal control strips, and their own level meters, including gain reduction for the compressors. These are also necessary for host DAW automation, as BYOME’s freeform architecture precludes module parameter assignment.
While the Meta modulator works as a simple knob for manual modulation, BYOME also features eight Macros, each one assignable to any number of targets.
Lifted from the Zip compressor, the Spectral Follower is a notable standout, enabling tracking of Brightness, Darkness, Noisiness and Tonalness in the source signal.
The number and variety of mod sources on offer is impressive, taking in the expected LFOs, envelopes and randomisers, as well as many rather less conventional options including an XY pad, Step and Gate Sequencers, mathematical functions, and a module for integrating Roli’s Lightpad hardware controller. Modulation depths are set using the sliders below the output sockets. Modulation sources are loaded into the bottom strip of the interface (the Modulation Manager) - just as effects modules are into the strip above - and are assigned by dragging cables from their output sockets to the input sockets attached to every control of every effect (and, indeed, modulator).
Unfiltered Audio’s proprietary modulation system is particularly at home in BYOME. Clearly we don’t have space to describe them all, but suffice to say, BYOME’s modules constitute a colourful and comprehensive smorgasbord. Meanwhile, the all-new Resonator Bank (Filters) serves up four comb filters, each with its own Note pitch and Gain control, for pulling chords out of any material Deep Reverb brings the bigness with up to six minutes of decay time Granulator slices the input into 2-1000ms grains for crazy timestretching and pitchshifting and Stereo Image provides all manner of widening voodoo, from M/S balancing to auto-inverted EQ, micro pitchshifting and left/right rotation. Then there’s the Noise Gate in the Dynamics category and the Modulation category’s Frequency Shifter, representing G8 Dynamic Gate and a simplified version of Fault’s central component.
While you don’t get the full Sandman Pro experience - minus the Sleep Buffer, most notably - it’s certainly the meat of it. For example, the algorithms in the Delay menu come from Sandman Pro, including Instant, Tape, Reverse, Multitap, Glitch Shifter, etc. The 44 modules are arranged into eight largely self-explanatory categories - Delays, Distortions, Dynamics, Filters, Granular, Mixing, Modulation and Reverbs - each category drawing on the corresponding algorithms from previous Unfiltered plugins, as well as offering up numerous new ideas. Click the + button at the right-hand end to add a module (there’s no cap on numbers), then simply select your processor of choice from the menu in its top right corner. Most of the action takes place in BYOME’s central strip, home to the effects chain itself.
At the bottom of the main window is the Modulation Manager - see Modulation station. This reduction is applied discretely to every individual module - thereby limiting filter frequencies, ‘quantising’ internal modulations, etc - to deliver profound transformation of the effects chain as a whole. Also here is the global Sample Rate reduction knob.