In this paper we present novel filter design methods that combine well-known frequency warping techniques and a new procedure for the optimization of Kautz filter poles. The motivation, from an audio signal processing perspective, is as follows. Many audio related target responses can be well-modelled by a combination of distributed decaying exponential components, which is by definition what a Kautz filter does, but in an orthonormalized form, providing many favorable properties. The most essential part is then how to choose the Kautz filter poles, to which we propose a new effective and well-behaving iterative method. Utilizing an intermediate warping procedure, desired frequency resolution allocation is incorporated to the choosing of poles - the target signal is warped prior to the pole optimization and then the produced poles are mapped back to the original frequency domain using inverse warping.