# Anyone using the Sherman Filterbank? Other options?



## gsilbers (Mar 23, 2017)

I am liking a lot the videos showing how aggrsive and cool the filterbank mangles sound. 
Too bad its kinda of expensive for a stereo unit. Wondering of any other options?


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## synthpunk (Mar 23, 2017)

I know it's not hardware but I really liked ohmforce ohmicide, it's sick.
https://www.ohmforce.com/ViewProduct.do?p=Ohmicide

Beyond that I would look at some of the Great eurorack modular filters.



gsilbers said:


> I am liking a lot the videos showing how aggrsive and cool the filterbank mangles sound.
> Too bad its kinda of expensive for a stereo unit. Wondering of any other options?


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## charlieclouser (Mar 23, 2017)

The Sherman is a unique piece for sure. Often it behaves unexpectedly and you start wondering if you really know what the heck is going on (in a good way). The controls and signal path are unusual and some controls have unusually wide ranges. 

I've had Shermans going back many many years. Back in the day we didn't have many choices for hardware filter boxes. Other than running audio into the filter inputs on the Moog, Arp, and Oberheim stuff we were starved for choices - so we wound up getting the Mutronics Mutator, Electrix Filter Factory, Peavey Spectrum Filter (still regret selling that one), and weird little German boxes like the MAM stuff - basically any and every filter box we could find. But these are all just subtly different flavors of the same basic milk chocolate - the Sherman is like a triple espresso with a Jaeger Bomb. It is bonkers. Distortion, filtering, ring-mod type effects that result from audio-rate modulation of filter cutoff and VCA level - it's way out there. Sometimes it's actually hard to get "normal" lowpass filter effects with simple ADSR control like you'd get by running signal into a MiniMoog, but the whole other spectrum of stuff it can do make it a real wild card in the studio. Definitely a classic.


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## Living Fossil (Mar 23, 2017)

I have the Sherman FB 2 and it's a very unique filter. Soundwise, there is no soft- or hardware that comes close to it (in my opinion), because of the interaction of its different parts.
However, it's a unit that needs quite a bit of know how when using it. It's extremely sensitive, and turning a knob by a millimetre can have a huge impact.


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## gsilbers (Mar 24, 2017)

damn guys.... you guys are no help at all... now i HAVE to buy it!  hehhehe


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## charlieclouser (Mar 24, 2017)

The Sherman logo tells the whole story:






The only intriguing alternative recently was the Schippman Ebbe und Flut - but I believe they are discontinued. Quite pricey, and very different to the Sherman, the Ebbe und Flut was more about smooth, buttery, flowing filter sounds as opposed to total sonic mayhem. Like the Sherman, it has an envelope follower and basic A-R envelopes that can trigger from input level or external triggers. A full complement of cv, lfo, and trigger i/o jacks is on the rear panel, but no MIDI. It had a rather nice compressor on the input, but was only mono input / stereo output, so no running full mixes through the compressor unless you like mono.


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## pdub (Mar 24, 2017)

Love the Sherman but it does take some learning, difficult to control and it doesn't do subtle. Also to do stereo you would need two units but I don't think there's a way to link them? I recently picked up an Elektron Analog heat which I like quite a lot.


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## charlieclouser (Mar 24, 2017)

It's gonna cost around $1,500 for stereo with the Sherman:


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## Dietz (Mar 25, 2017)

I bought the Sherman back in the mid-90ies directly from https://www.sherman.be/index.php/support/2-uncategorised/21-bio (Herman), before he even had a real distribution net. I still own it, although it's use is a bit limited today, due to the fact that it is the original, mono input machine.

Like others pointed out before, the Sherman Filter is an instrument in its own right. If you're looking for a bread-and-butter filter, look elsewhere. If you're ready for a screaming, growling, whistling machine that aggressively interferes with your input signal, than you should get one.



PS: I still have the long-sleeve t-shirt with that Sherman logo posted above. How's that for a fanboy!


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## Dietz (Mar 25, 2017)

PPS: Me and my baby...


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## Spip (Mar 26, 2017)

pdub said:


> ...Also to do stereo you would need two units but I don't think there's a way to link them?



I've never tried it myself but connecting them by a MIDI cable is enough and has been implemented for doing that according to the manual. 

I've got mine since a long time now and even though I don't use it everyday, these days, it's a wonderful instrument that brings a lot of surprises.

Just to add some fuel on fire, the mono version can be quite useful  . At first, I was recording the two stereo channels one after the other without changing the settings but, the fun with the Filterbank being in surprises and not simple and boring filtering tasks, I'm now recording stereo sources playing with the knobs differently during each pass of each channel. The result is always more interesting than expected.


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## Dietz (Apr 3, 2017)

A slightly off-topic and late Post Scriptum: I just realized that I still had the flyer for the original Sherman Filterbank from 1996 lying on my "trophy shelf"!

"For a free demo tape [!], write to ..." ;-D


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## pdub (Apr 16, 2017)

Compact version announced at Superbooth

https://ask.audio/articles/superbooth-2017-new-compact-sherman-filterbank-2-revealed


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## gsilbers (Apr 17, 2017)

pdub said:


> Compact version announced at Superbooth
> 
> https://ask.audio/articles/superbooth-2017-new-compact-sherman-filterbank-2-revealed




nice. 

although its not "that" compact. if it would be stereo then that would be awesome AND compact.


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## Alienpervert (Apr 26, 2022)

GUYS! just came across this thread! You CAN do stereo with EVERY sherman filterbank, well it goes mono in but you can stereo out and give each filter a different VCA if you put the filter mode fully panned to parallel. Then it becomes crazy!


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