BYOME Review
Unfiltered Audio’s BYOME is one of the coolest multi effects out there, a modular system with loads of creative effects types and modulation sources. The minimalistic vector based UI with simple primary colors just invites fun and creativity. Seeing the “patch cables” between modulation sources and destinations isn’t for everyone, but the chaotic mess of wires resulting from a mad experiment can be very inspiring in its own right. Or you can hide them by clicking the crossed out eye icon. The BYOME system is used in two other Unfiltered Audio plugins, Triad and Lion, so I’ll be referring back to this review in my future coverage of those plugins
BYOME has two main sections, an effects lane, and a modulation lane, you can connect any modulation source to nearly any control, including the controls of the modulators themselves. Each lane can have up to 16 modules of any order or combination, if you want 16 randomizers and 16 delays, you can, if you want every effect and modulator to be unique, you can as well. you can also deactivate all modulation at once and just hear the effects without motion. Additionally there is a master compressor, a cool sample rate control, which literally slows down any buffered audio, as if it were an actual hardware clock deceleration, and a pretty colorful and groovy audio display.
EFFECTS: BYOME includes dozens of effects, over 40 if you count each one, but many are somewhat redundant or can be thought of as variations of the same effects. These effects range from straight forward utilities, like filters, distortion, delay, and gain, to some bizarre and creative sound manipulation, like granular, glitch shifting, chebyshev distortion and resonator banks. I find the BYOME effects to be on the more colorful and creative side. Some of the glitchier delays can be chaotic and wild. The variety of distortions allow you to craft some incredibly intricate saturation, especially if you apply proper mixing and filtering between distortions. The Granular effect is quite powerful as well, when you consider you can stack up to 16 instances of it, you realize that BYOME is technically Unfiltered Audio’s more powerful granular effect.
MODULATION: BYOME has a handful of different modulation sources, some of them are quite redundant in my opinion, the various LFOs could just be a single LFO option with shapes to chose from, same goes with a few others. LFO and sequencer rates can’t go above 16th notes unfortunately, but you can create polymetric patterns using multiple step sequencers. There’s some modular style options like the comparator and logic mix, and a unique spectral follower which allows you to detect various spectral properties of the input audio, such as brightness and noisiness.
BYOME is a playful tool for creating wild experimental effects, blend between various delays, or randomly swap between modulation effects, create gnarly distortions or go all out with glitchy madness. The sky’s the limits with this one. While BYOME isn’t nearly as powerful on paper as some other modular multi effects that are out there, it more than makes up for this with a variety of creative tools. This variety of colorful effect options allows you to create some wild and untamable results with ease, that would take far longer to achieve in some of the more “powerful” alternatives. This isn’t to say any one of the options out there is better or worse, it’s just a matter of alternative workflows and alternative tones for driving inspiration. I love reaching for BYOME when I’m doing creative sound design sessions and glitch resampling, clicking through the various presets and experiments I’ve gathered over the years to generate unpredictable new sounds with whatever source material I’m working with.
You can pick up BYOME from Unfiltered Audio’s website here: https://www.unfilteredaudio.com/products/byome