Music Unfolding has released OttoPhormant, OttoVibe and DiTone, the latest additions to the "Twister Series" of Universal Binary Audio Unit plug-ins for Mac OS X. They cost $19.99 each but for a limited time you can get the entire collection of 11 Twister Audio Units and save 35%. Demo versions are available.

OttoPhormant

OttoPhormant is a wah effect based on morphing formant filters. It can be controlled using touch-triggered sweeps or envelope tracking. The filters can also be controlled using MIDI expression control.

There are 10 formant or vowel types available. The effect works by selecting three vowel sounds - start, middle and end - and morphing from one vowel to the next. There are 10 possible vowels that can be used in each of the three locations.

The formants are created by three filters. The filters can be either bandpass or a combination of two bandpass and one lowpass. The bandpass settings are similar to a traditional wah pedal. The filters are a special combination of Music Unfolding's multi-stage driven filter. You can choose from 1, 2, 3, and 4 stage filters. You also have control of the resonance and drive for the filters. There's a lot of control for setting up just how you want this effect to talk to you.

OttoVibe

OttoVibe is an auto/touch effect with MIDI control. OttoVibe works much like an envelope-controlled filter, except that instead of a filter, it has a modulation section. The envelope controls the rate and depth of the modulation effect.

OttoVibe includes a variety of effects including tremolo, vibrato, panning, and chorus. Altogether, OttoVibe has eight different types of effects. The effects can be dynamically manipulated using "touch" or expression pedal controls, much the same way a touch wah works. Even though OttoVibe tends to be more subtle than its siblings (OttoPhormant and OttoPhilter), it is very expressive.

DiTone

DiTone splits your input signal into two separate streams. An independent effect is applied to each stream. Then the dry input signal can be mixed into each stream independently. One stream is lowpass filtered and the other is highpass filtered. The two filters are designed to overlap in a nice musical fashion. Finally, the two streams are mixed back together with independent volume controls.

DiTone has a variety of effects available including tremolo, vibrato, panning, chorus, and flanger. Altogether, you can choose between twelve different types of effects for each stream and set the parameters independently for each. This gives you a huge array of possible sounds from which you can create interesting and unique modulation effects.