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[supernova777]

Ohm Force Hematohm
Formats: Mac VST, PC VST & DirectX, BeOS

Gallic DSP-meisters Ohm Force have a knack of creating plug-ins that look weird and sound weirder, and Hematohm is no exception. Like their other products, it's available in two versions, one having a bizarre-looking interface to inspire you artistically, the other featuring a more sober skin that gives you some hope of understanding what's going on. Even if you opt for the latter, however, preset names such as 'Melancholic Squid' and 'Soft Plastic Nail' are still somewhat opaque.

Hematohm is, in fact, a real-time frequency shifter. Not to be confused with pitch-shifting, this effect moves all of a sound's frequency content up or down by a fixed amount in Hertz. When applied to pitched sounds, the results are usually enharmonic, as the frequency-shifted fundamental and harmonic frequencies no longer bear any musical relationship to one another.

The basic frequency-shifting algorithm is augmented by several additions. The first is a well-specified, tempo-sync'ed LFO with 10 different waveforms (including brown and white noise), which can be used to control the amount and direction of frequency shift. The second is an envelope follower, while the third is a tempo-sync'ed delay line, the output of which can be fed back into Hematohm to add to the sonic carnage.

I was slightly surprised to find that Hematohm does have subtle applications. It can, for instance, be used quite successfully to add slight random variations to synthesized instruments or sampled drums, with the aim of creating a more 'human' feel. As expected, however, the plug-in's real forte lies in more extreme territory. The amount of frequency-shifting that can be imposed is huge (up to 5kHz in either direction), and the LFO and envelope follower allow you to sweep the frequency spectrum of the audio in innumerable ways. Sometimes the effect is not unlike that of a resonant filter, while other settings recall ring modulation, but Hematohm can also produce far-out chattering and burbling noises that are all its own. The icing on the cake is a morph function that allows you to create long, evolving effects by moving gradually between Hematohm patches.

A wide range of interesting results can be obtained with drums and other instruments, but I found Hematohm particularly good for weird vocal effects. It will produce anything from sinister robot voices and sci-fi bad guys to more subtle ambient delays and atmospheres. Unlike many vocoders and other effects, it seems to retain intelligibility and the dynamics of a human voice even when used heavily.

Like Ohm Force's other plug-ins, Hematohm has a character all of its own. It won't appeal to everyone, but those who like a touch of darkness and sonic anarchy in their mixes should definitely check it out. A demo version is available, and Ohm Force's innovative pricing policy means that it costs only $9.95 to download the fully functional Standard version — users need only pay the full price of $59 if they want to use it in a commercial release, or if they require the additional features, such as MIDI controllability, a larger preset bank and 24-bit output, of the Expert version. Sam Inglis

Standard version $9.95; Expert version $59.
www.ohmforce.com

posted in dls http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=1165.0