Sherman Filterbank

The Creator
In the late eighties & early nineties Herman Gillis was guitarplayer & producer in the Belgian music scene. His formerly contributed also in Poésie Noire. On this subject you can find more information on http://poesienoire.anby.net where you can see picture of Herman when you click at BAND MEMBERS : Herman Gillis. On this site you can also find a list on recordings that Herman wrote, or contributed to as producer (under his artist name "Sherman").
The first Filterbanks that were marketed in 1996 were hand-built, and only 40 pieces were made. These prototypes did not have MIDI. At the same time, the designer Herman Gillis also made 9 Sherman CHAOSBANKS. After a lot of people asked for more Filterbanks and Chaosbanks, Herman decided to update the prototype model of the Filterbank with MIDI and at that time, he added even more features to the box. This is how he came to the one and only MIDI Sherman Filterbank. In 1997, about 500 Sherman Filterbanks were sold, merely in the United Kingdom (London), Belgium, Japan and the Netherlands.
The FilterBank
What is it?
A powerful analog filtering and distortion unit with a huge frequency range and a killing TUBE overdrive behavior.Easy and FUN to use, live and in the studio A small modular system? YES! Another 303 clone? NO! Affordable? YES! Application: processing every sound source, effect mixing, expanding modular systems, etc.
What you get:
Independent low pass, band pass and high pass filters with resonance, frequency and ADSR (positive - negative) controls These are switchable between parallel or serial The second filter has a 6 octave switch, and is synchronizable with the first filter 1 ADSR generator for these filters with an external output for use with more filterbanks or modular systems, triggered by the incoming signal, by a second sounds source, or by a gate 1 FM input for the filters, internal or external audio, LFO or CV 1 VCA overdrive with AR generator also 1 ring modulator input, internal or external audio, LFO or CV
The differences between the FilterBank V1 and V2
The original Sherman Filterbank (Version 1) is no longer being made (we are also sold-out) and is thus now completely being replaced by this new version !
The global look has remained the same, but there have been added several strong functions. To summarize : There are 5 extra NEW SWITCHES
1 extra INPUT (for footpedal)
2 extra new LEDs
A NEW COLOR (silver-grey) with an improved (long-lasting) varnish layer.
The inner electronics have also been adapted to achieve an EVEN BETTER SOUND-QUALITY
We also do have new packing-boxes (silver, with photo on upper side), new flashy stickers (silver) and new adaptors (with Sherman-logo).
All this with the famous solid SHERMAN-QUALITY and the well-known thorough & speedy AFTER-SALES service (repairs).
Whats new about the Sherman FilterBank 2
- There are 5 extra switches and 2 extra LEDs, and on the back panel there's one pedal input jack.
- A reworked front-panel lay-out and the grey metal color.
- The pedal input allows foot control of freq1and bypass/effect switching. You can rewire an old wah (because they have a switch on board) as shown by the diagram in ‘extra stuff’ on the Sherman website Click here .
- A 3-way switch on the input stage allows Hi boost as well Hi cut (both boosting high frequencies at input)
- Another 3-way switch allows "Sensitrig" (which makes the triggering twice as sensitive for, e.g. clean string pad filtering) and "Limit", which leaves the filters more "breathing room" for self-oscillation if the input stage is extremely overdriven.
- A 3-way switch has 2 general transpose functions : +1 Octave and + Quint which works nice with monophonic signals, and has a specific dirty character.
- A 3-way switch for the really powerful and quite revolutionary "Tracking" function - a monophonic pitch follower, that tunes filter 2 to the incoming pitch, and makes filter 1 slave of filter 2 via the harmonics switch. E.g. in position 2, filter 1 will be pitched one octave higher than filter 2, but still following the pitch. This extra switch activates the "tracking" in a normal or deep "track low" position, with stunning basses as result.
The "revolutionary" aspect of this function is that never before any similar system enhances "on the spot" harmonics and creates new harmonics with fat analog circuits.
- An extra white LED indicates when the tracking system is "locked on".
- At last there is an 3-way function switch in the LFO section, allowing sawtooth wave shape OR AR retrig : this forces an LFO restart from the AR trig with pumping grooves as unavoidable result.
If you want to receive a new brochure, please ask your dealer first.
The Sherman Filterbank is now also midi controlable via kenton control freaks(a small portable hardware console, including sliders)
All the finger-tip MIDI control you need, instantly to hand. Forget your mixer maps and do it all in real-time. An ideal solution for the gigging musician, or the musician who likes to save time & settings. The Kenton Control Freaks are made in the U.K., by Kenton, and are preprogrammed with profiles for the Sherman Filterbank as well. Hundreds of additional profiles are available for download FREE from the Kenton website. Kenton website .
TABLETOP VERSION V1 AND V2 DIMENSIONS:
430 mm (19 ") width
110 mm depth
80 mm height
Packed weight : 4.3 Kg
NEW SINCE JANUARY 2006
VERSION OF THE FILTERBANK V2 IN RACK VERSION, JACKS IN THE FRONT
TWO TIMES SHERMAN FILTERBANK V2, STACKED IN RACK VERSION
COMING UP: STEREO FILTER IN COLLABORATION WITH RODEC
I WANT ONE OF THESE THINGS, NOW!
HOW DO I ORDER ONE..?
GO TO THE SHERMAN WEB SITE AND HIT THE "PRICES & HOW TO ORDER BUTTON"
SHERMAN WEBSITE .
Some reviews, comments and some snips from interviews[more can be found in thr blog section, or visit the sherman website]
Interview with the Chemical Brothers, Keyboard, June ’97, United States of America
“ We’ve also got this guy who’s made some things for us. He makes these things called Shermans: the Sherman Filter Bank and the Sherman Chaos Bank. He only makes, like, 50 of each of them, and they’re just wild. They sound really good. Extreme. What does the Chaos Bank do ? (Laughs.) It’s a little modular synth setup, and it comes out with the most unearthly noises. I think he’s building a big modular system, and I think this is one part of it. It’s worth checking out. “
Dave Robinson, Future Music, June ’97, United Kingdom
“ The Sherman is a scary grey-shelled creature, all knobs and line diagrams and a endless back row of inputs and outputs, like some future noir interrogation device, and it has a sound to match. This is not a machine for achieving clean and sensibly-controlled filter effects, oh no. The Sherman is a grime monster: it will chew up your delicate signals and spit out something altogether more unsavoury. What is really smart is that the Sherman can handle data coming at it from all directions - controllers, ADSR modulation, LFO modulation, and your grubby hands on the interface - and though you can send the filter epileptic, it won’t fail you. There’s an almost unparalleled number of connection options at the back of the Sherman, including three (three ! ) MIDI Thrus, Link In and Out sockets for joining Filterbanks together for building a destroying 48 dB filter, an envelope in and out, triggers and feeds for the AM and FM controls. Gulp… More holes than the plot of ID4. “
Zon Vern Pyles, Keyboard, November ’97, United States of America
For many years, various adjectives have been used within synth circles to describe differences in filter character from on machine to another. Moogs are “fat”, ARPs are “wet”, and Oberheims are “sizzly” - just to mention a few. Now along comes the Sherman Filterbank, a box that evokes several different adjectives due to its multiple filter routing capabilities. The most important question is, how does it sound ? Like nothing else. It can sound rude and dirty - purposely and in good ways - especially when resonance is added to a hot input signal. The squelchy techno filter sound in a box. Each of the Filterbank two filters has a 12dB/octave cutoff slope. Chaining them together in series results in a 24dB slope. Link in and out audio jacks allow you to chain multiple Filterbanks together for steeper filter cutoff slopes. Linking a pair of Filterbanks with their internal filters aligned in series results in a 48dB slope; linking three in the same way will get you a 72dB slope. Trigger inputs for the ADSR and AR can accept audio signals or gates from analog synths and sequencers. The “Abuser’s Manual” is informative and gets high marks. Thirty of its 47 pages are filled with educational illustrations to help novices understand the concept of filtering and using envelope generators. If you’re tired of “clean” and you want to get your ears dirty, the Filterbank just might be the tool for filter-sweeping the dance floor. The Sherman Filterbank offers such cool filter processing with realtime control that you’ll want it close by all the time. “
Stage Magazine, February ’97, Belgium (translation from Dutch)
“ The Sherman Filterbank is actually a set of filters and modulators from those old modular synths. The simple idea of replacing the oscillator by another sound source has been appraised to a new standard, and how ! Depeche Mode is using it, and David Bowie would have hung one above his aquarium, and somewhat the whole British studio-scene is drown with it by now (the designer, Herman ‘Sherman’ Gillis prefers to talk about a hype, but actually this is the same). And ladies and gentlemen, this is a pure Belgian product ! It would take me too far to describe all possibilities of the filters, and their settings, and the modulators, and the internal patch-possibilities, and the external controller-possibilities, and the MIDI-possibilities, and the …. No, for this purposes you have the excellent manual called “Abusers Manual”. This manual is easy to review, fun, and everything is being explained in detail, with the necessary warnings for safety of “ears and legs”. Because caution is to be taken into account with this module. You are perfectly able to generate frequencies by which you can win the gulf-war. Every important function is MIDI-controllable, this makes the real power of this module. As this was apparently not yet enough, you can link more Filterbanks in a master-slave configuration. This way, you can even make e.g. -48 dB or -72dB notch filters (extremely interesting), and even control this with MIDI. And you can mount them in four different ways in a 19” rack. There is only one conclusion : take it and run ! The sound quality is superb, the possibilities are endless and the price is a seduction. Additionally, your knowledge of filter-works is being multiplied by ten in just one hour. It’s not really a new principle, but one only has to come up with the idea of putting these in a separate box. Therefore, I do think this box will not only remain a hype on the other side of the channel. The world is ready for the Sherman Filterbank. “Peter Freeman, Electronic Musician, August 2001, International
The Filterbank 2 ($799) from Sherman Productions offers a number of electronic enhancements and cosmetic refinements to the original Filterbank (see the March 1999 issue for a review). Like its predecessor, the Filterbank 2 is an analog processor with MIDI I/O for added control. The original Filterbank's white finish has been supplanted by a metallic gray, and the front-panel layout has changed slightly with the addition of several key features. Although the changes are not a dramatic departure from the original device, they do increase the Filterbank 2's functionality.
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