Waves Metafilter

What Waves MetaFilter Is For

Waves MetaFilter is a filtering and modulation plugin designed to add movement, life, and depth to your sounds. It is suitable for music production (electro, hip-hop, pop, rock, techno, drum and bass) as well as sound design, providing expressive sweeps, tempo-synced filtered rhythms, complex LFO textures, and effects like wah, auto-filter, and comb filtering. On synths, drums, guitars, bass, or samples, MetaFilter transforms a static track into a dynamic source that breathes and interacts with the groove.

Main Features

An Analog Soul with Modern Precision

MetaFilter recreates the musicality of analog filtering while offering very fine control. Select the response type (high-pass, low-pass, band-pass, notch, comb) and choose the slope suited to your intention: 12 dB/octave ("obie") for smoother transitions, or 24 dB/octave ("mini") for sharper cuts and a more pronounced signature. To widen the stereo image and create subtle movements, you can also detune the left and right channels.

Creative Modulation: LFO, Envelope, Sidechain, and Sequencer

The heart of the plugin is modulation. You can vary the cutoff frequency, resonance, and even delay time via multiple sources: LFO (with several waveforms, including random), envelope follower (reactive to input level), external sidechain (perfect for "pumping" or making a filter dance to the rhythm of another track), and step sequencer. Modulations can be applied positively or inverted, for very expressive response and contrast effects.

Groove Locked to the Tempo

The sequencer and delay synchronize to the tempo to stay perfectly in place within the track. The sequencer offers 1 to 16 steps, with level adjustment, swing, and sync, allowing you to create rhythmic filtering patterns, resonance rises, or very musical gating effects. The LFO offers dedicated rhythmic values, ideal for clean wobbles, progressive sweeps, or controlled stereo vibrations.

From Grain to Contamination: Drive, Bitcrush, and Delay

When you want to dirty up the signal, MetaFilter adds a palette of textures: saturation via the Drive control, bitcrushing for an aggressive digital sound, and a delay mode with analog character. The delay also allows you to widen and animate the space by offsetting the right channel (up to 150% or 200%), useful for creating a sense of movement and depth without multiplying plugins.

Total Real-Time Control with MIDI Learn

Thanks to MIDI Learn, MetaFilter becomes a performance tool: assign parameters to a controller, control surface, or DJ controller, and play the effect like an instrument. It is possible to play the filter frequencies via a MIDI keyboard, opening the door to expressive wah-like effects, talkbox-like sounds (depending on the source material), or ultra-precise live transitions.

Presets to Get Started Quickly

With over 90 presets, MetaFilter offers immediately usable starting points: subtle auto-filter, synchronized sequences, LFO textures, aggressive effects, and sound design-oriented treatments. Ideal for quickly finding a color and then refining according to your arrangement.

Technical specifications

Type

Full software

Downloadable

Yes

Mac	macOS Catalina 10.15, Big Sur 11, Monterey 12, Ventura 13, Sonoma 14	5 filter curves	HP, LP, BP, notch, comb + VCA
Windows	Windows 10 64-bit, Windows 11	Tempo synchronization	sequencer (10 rhythmic values), LFO (12 rhythmic values)
Memory	8 GB	Right channel delay offset	150% or 200%
Disk Space	16 GB	MIDI Learn	parameter assignment and frequency playing via MIDI keyboard