Review OHMForce Ohmicide: Melohman Distortion VST

There have been so many great plug-ins coming out of late and not enough time to review all of them, but when I tried the new Ohmicide: Melohman I couldn't resist reporting on how good it was. Read on to find out why

Destruction.And.Murder.

Only.part.Of.The.Plan.

About Ohmicide: Melohman

It's commercial common knowledge that "people always want more distortions" and this is exactly what Ohmicide: Melohman is delivering. In one death blow.

Based on Predatohm design, Ohmicide:Melohman is organized around up to four frequency bands, each of them coming with their own Noise Gate, Dynamics, Distortion, Feedback Generator and all mixing abilities with just a twist of pre- and post-processing (distortion input, high shelf output...).

The DSP is 100% different from Predatohm: compressor/expander works differently to fit well with both the very sharp Noise Gate we've included and the huge amount of new distortions. Those are at the core of Ohmicide. They're designed to offer pretty much everything you can think of next to a lot of things you can't think of. Some, like the tasty "Porridge" distortion sounds deliciously analogue, while the "Fractal" one is harsh and digital as hell. Or you've got the very dense "Accumulator" that can add low harmonics instead of high.

All those distortions are mainly new breeds - yet the classics are also covered. They all are declined in three variations: normal, ampsim and odd. The "Odd" one is terribly exciting as it gives you control on the harmonics frequency and allows for slightly detuned distortion. Last but not least, we've added a disto type that was missing from Predatohm... No distortion. It was an absolute need, considering how many things can be done just by using the multiband dynamics and/or the filter!

First Impressions

This is maybe the strangest and most rewarding distortion plug-in I have ever used. If you are after a solid state amp modelling VST then you might as well forget about it right here because Ohmicide: Melohman might not be your best choice. However, if you are after the beefiest, most bone crunching, yet smooth distortion/sound mangler/weapon of mass destruction then this is definitely the distortion unit for you.

On first impressions this unit looks like a brand new slick piece of equipment right out of an expensive studio, if it was Marilyn Manson's studio and you were recording somewhere in Hell. Complete with blood splatters and all. The knobs and sliders look new and fresh, and the screens look authentic. All up the interface is amongst the most impressive I have seen in a VST.

The only problem I have with the interface is that it is not inherently obvious at first, how to load and save your presets.

How does it sound?

I threw this synth on top of a synth bass to see what it could do. For its first use I just threw it on all default settings and played around with the gain levels for each level. My first impression was simply wow. This thing sounds amazing. I never thought I would hear a distortion like this, so full, fat, crunchy and unique.

After scrolling through all the available distortion algorithms I was even more impressed. They have a distortion type for any mood your in, from subtle to completely vaporised. The noise gate, shape and gain alone give you almost unlimited capabilities on the sound let alone the rest of the options.

What impressed me most about this synth was how it handles the extreme low ends and the extreme high ends. It mangles the sound, but unexpectedly each algorithm adds a certain sweetness to the sound.

Overall

This is my new tool of choice for distortion. This is without a doubt the best over all distortion package out there. It handles anything form subtle to oblivion and sounds incredible no matter how much you destroy your sound. For $99 this software is an absolute steal.

In my opinion there are only two things that could be done to improve this unit. One would be to make the preset loading and saving a little easier, and the second would be to add in a filter, or an assignable LFO to throw some automation in. Those are just nice to have features, and even without them I rate this as the top contender for VST distortion.