Kilohearts Filter Table is a new innovative, customizable wavetable-powered filter effects plugin for macOS and Windows.
Filters usually follow well-known designs—ladder, SVF, Steiner Parker, Prophet, etc. Plenty of hardware and software adaptations of these filters are on the market. You can go deeper into filtering with spectral processors, where you can design your filters.
For example, the DS Audio Thorn is a synth plugin that offers a spectral filter for creating unusual typologies. Kilohearts, developer of the popular Phase Plant synth, has taken a new filter direction with its new Filter Table plugin.
Kilohearts Filter Table
Filter Table is a new innovative filter plugin that uses traditional wavetable files known from classic wavetable synthesizers. Unlike any other filter plugin, it lets you create unique morphing filter effects by scanning through wavetables.
Powerful, this wavetable process is fully customizable. You can create your own filters by dragging and dropping wavetables and samples. Alternatively, you can create your own shapes with the built-in wavetable editor.
Kilohearts ships Filter Table with a curated collection of specially designed wavetables featuring spectral manipulation, textures, formants, and more.
The plugin is very straightforwardly designed. There is a wavetable visualizer at the top, directly below a spectrum plot and a table selector. Then, you have classic cutoff, resonance, and dry/wet mix controls. Cutoff is here a bit different.
In Filter Table the cutoff signifies the frequency of harmonic 24 in the Wavetable. You can keytrack the cutoff just like in our other filters by modulating it with the Note modulator at 100%.
You also choose between four filter phase response settings: minimum (snappy/tight without latency), linear, original, and RAW. Further, the inconspicuous dry/wet mix also offers a unique feature. Depending on the selected phase mode, the mix knob might introduce “interesting” phasing artifacts.
And how does Kiloheart’s Filter Table sound? From the sound demos, it doesn’t sound like a classic filter. The results are very different, and you can achieve fascinating organic filter colors.
First Impression
Spectral filters are the place to go if you want deeper options than classic filters. It is good to see that Kilohearts has dared to try something new with the Filter Table and offers another way to expand filtering. I could also imagine something like this in a Eurorack module. Filter Table is a fascinating plugin, and I’m looking forward to checking it out.
Kilohearts Filter Table is available now for $39 and runs as a VST/AU/AAX plugin on macOS (native Apple Silicon + Intel) and Windows. You can also load it using the Snapin multi-FX engine. The plugin is also available as part of the subscribe-to-own model for $9,99/month.
More information here: Kilohearts
It’s interesting that another developer (Exp DSP) previously released a plugin with the same concept and even the same name. But considering that this is some small unknown developer (and also because the version from Kilohearts has the obvious advantage of integration into their ecosystem) it looks like this is now a big failure for them. https://x.com/expdsp_com/status/1856659487794540704
Looks pretty nice, actually. Not only something different, but different and actually useful.
In Eurorack, there is the Rossum Electo-Music Morpheus filter. It is based on a different implementation, but the idea of filter morphing and the kind of sound it generates are not too dissimilar to this plugin.
And it’s only 600 bucks. Boy, am I glad I never went down this route. Theres is so much awesome software which you can touch with a few versatile MIDI controllers. Kilohearts’ stuff is awesome btw.