Sherman Filterbank 2

Herman Willis is not only a genius, but also far too modest for his own good. To call this analog obscenity a "filterbank" is akin to calling its namesake the M4 Sherman battle tank a "method of transportation".

After unpacking and setting up the Filterbank, I thought to myself, "maybe I'll just fiddle with the knobs at random for a moment, before opening the manual and starting to get to grips with this thing in a more systematic way".

Three hours later, I was still at it. The sound palette the Filterbank offers seems endless. Not for everyone perhaps, but the sheer power and versatility of the unit make this a perfect purchase for myself.

Any downsides? None for me, but I suppose the unpredictable nature of the beast might not be to everyone's liking. As a noise artist who revels in chaos and cacophony, however, I wouldn't have it any other way. I also have experienced the sudden swells and drops in volume others have mentioned, but I'm sure I'll learn to avoid them in time.

As for the price, no, this thing isn't cheap. But it is worth every penny and then some.

I bought this unit with the intention of trying to get that crunchy distorted drum rhythmn in a lot of electronic music from the 90s. That was very quickly achieved. After reading the manual (which is not the easiest thing to follow) I realised there were loads of different possibilities for this unit. Alternatives to running a drum machine through it were: guitar, synth, mic etc. I particularly like putting a guitar or synth through it as the sherman can give some real sharp highs and thick lows to add clarity to a mix as well as the possibility of some really dirty distortion. You can get some pretty awesome weird synth sounds from the sherman if you get the modulation going. If you can get it self modulating then all sorts of new possibilities are available.

Word of warning though: this unit can go very loud and swing from very high to very low frequencies so be careful! also the trigger volume (input) is quite sensitive so do not ramp it up quickly. i think the best piece of advice with this unit is - do not ramp any dial up sharply as you will encounter dramatic shifts in volume or frequency.

one thing worth noting which is mentioned on page 22 of the manual is: how to recreate sequencer behavior of a tb-303. That is really good fun and sounds great.

All in all a very good fx unit and you'd expect that because this thing is not cheap.

If you're looking for high-class refinement, then you've come to the . . . eh . . . wrong place. The Sherman, from my admittedly limited abilities and knowledge, is not the kind of animal to gracefully and exotically adorn your living room garnering admiring looks and compliments from exquisitely adorned guests during dinner parties. To your horror, but surely not surprise, the Sherman would attack the screaming and fleeing guests before savaging the dinner part of the party.
So if that hasn't given you the gist, imo it's very much for adding a mad rawness to your sound - beats or say typically a virtual analogue that wants being very much brought screaming - with the emphasis on screaming - into the real world.

Later edit: Have started spending much more time with the Sherman of late, playing a Nord 2x into it, & the key to it opening much to be much more than a distortion beast & imo opening up to be much more interesting is taking it easy with the Input knob, generally now for me meaning with it before rather than after 12 o clock.