Sherman Filterbank and Analog Heat

Elektron Gear Analog Heat
#1

Hey everyone,

I was planning to buy an Analog Heat mk2 to give my synths warmth and/or agressiveness. But it’s pretty usual to see people comparing it with Sherman Filterbank. I’ve never heard it on person but some samples made me think it wasn’t made for the same purpose of AH. It can make the sound warmer but it doesn’t seem to be it’s main objective. They have the same price right now (AH mk2 and Filterbank 2 compact) so I’d like to know from you if I should consider the Filterbank instead of AH.

#2

sherman was the flavour back in the days…

no comparison possible to ah…ah is way more versatile and way beyond just adding warmth and / or crushing things up…

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#3

I would demo both if you can in a local store.
Pick the one that works best and sounds best to you.

#4

These two are like apples and oranges, the filter in the FB is much more wild and unpredictable. While you can use the FB to warm up sounds it lends itself much more towards experimentation and mad sounds.

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#5

u really can’t compare a crazy but plain filterbank from a single man show in belgium, with lots of things to twiddle til ur ears bleed…
many not so happy accidents included along the way 'til u might get there somehow…

with an ah, that not only filters in ALL classic ways as cream, offers a bunch of different truu analog circuits to distort and crush and destroy ur signal in endless varieties, providing always proper control over the right leveling in all segments of the whole frequency range and aspects of it’s overall sound, adding nice enveloper and lfo tricks to any of it’s sound chain aspects, while taping all that straight to any computer…

no way, really…

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#6

That’s exactly my perception. Filterbank seems to have an untamed, rebel attitude while Heat is precise, controlled. Filterbank gives you crazy freedom while Heat gives you powerful options.

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#7

I’m considering some plug-ins too, like soundtoys decapitator. Have you tried any?

#8

Imo plugins haven’t really caught up with analog distortion, but decapitator is a nice plugin though. You’d do well to look into these two as well:

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#9

This.

I’ve had a Sherman for years. Used it mainly as guitar distortion. I didn’t find much use for it on my synths etc. Too crunchy.

Also, it’s mono.

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#10

I owned both.

long story short

the heat can do subtle.

that’s a biiiig plus

the Sherman gets out of hand easily.

heat has Digital control and presets

nuff said

my unwanted advice…

get both second hand and sekk whatever you want

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#11

I’ve had both
Kept the heat
Also had t-resonator 2 , crazy too , a bit uncontrollable .

I found heat covered more ground and was more usable / easier to get results.

#12

If i had to keep one it would be the Filterbank because it has more character. But i use the AH more often as it can be used on the whole mix too. If i simply want to warm up a synth i’d take the AH first because it’s easier to setup. With the Filterbank i usually get lost tweaking around for at least an hour. Which is fun and sometimes leads to extraordinary fresh sounds but it takes longer for me to get stuff done.
To me the Analog Heat is a serious surgeon and the Filterbank is a crazy doctor. :smiley:

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#13

Echoing what everyone else has said the Sherman is wild and raucous the - honey badger of filters! I enjoyed it while I owned it but as a creative destroyer rather than for enhancing or making stuff sound “nice”.

I also owned an Akai MFC42 which is stereo and probably a bit closer to the Heat in terms of using across a mix, although obviously has some key differences too, another filter I had was the Electrix filter which might be worth a look too, but out of them all I prefer the Heat for both treating a mix or to use for character on individual instruments or groups, the combination of drive, filter, and eq and the overall control of each element are pretty hard to find outside of either software or by combining more expensive other hardware units to do the individual functions.

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#14

The Sherman can do lots of things! Way more versatile than AH! I don’t think AH can actually destroy sound. Sherman is like the tank, it can destroy, bomb you with hardcore/breakcore/overdrive/distortion bitcrush perc, screaming noises, harsh but can also add warmth, be subtle with it, it can explode almost, can go very noisy in a good way but also into Merzbow noise (know your gear and …) but I would rather go for an old 2nd hand version (the big one) The mini Sherman doesn’t look so good. Think AH is more like a warm overdrive/dist unit.

So depends on what you want! And what kind of genre music you make!
Wanna add litlle bit of warmth, go AH
Wanna go way deeper further, more experimantal, go Sherman

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#15

AH can get pretty crazy when you start feeding the expression inputs with some modular signals, side-chain the drive with a gate, or send a random generator to control the filter. So many sonic possibilities, it’s always on everything I record in some form!

#16

…best distortion/filtering/destroying/eq band compressing/gating/pre disto manipulation plugin ever…
of all times…?

with no doubt…ohmicide!

effektrix by sugabytes and ohmicide by ohm are the only fx plugins i still install with every new computer…no need for other stuff beyond logics internals…hardware recorded into logic and further treated in there, does all the trick for me…

#17

…u obviously have’nt touch an ah yet…

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#18

I messed around with it in store, can sound very good but it’s not for me, don’t really like it, and it’s way 2much money!

#19

no comparison possible to ah…ah is way more versatile and way beyond just adding warmth and / or crushing things up…

I agree with this 100%. I own an original FB and have played with the AH mk1. both analog, but the comparisons end there. FB is a WILD and unique analog filter. It is so wild that I keep a Drawmer DL241 permanently wired behind the FB outputs to make sure that I don’t accidently blow my speakers one day… The AH, otoh, is a refined, flexible and versatile analog filter/saturator that can integrate beautifully into a DAW workflow. It can generate wooly textures to, but it’s way less wild.

I will never get rid of my FB, but I also really want an AH, but I can’t justify it at the moment. I would do completely different things with the AH than the FB.

#20

…messing around with ah in a shop will never give u a real experienced opinion about it…sorry…

everbody who’s saying it’s nice but it can’t mess up for real, was one of those, who just gave it a short try in a shop…

if u really wanna mess things up with it, u gotta use it for real…

imagine ur tryin’ to find out about a sherman filterbank just from first impressions in a shop…

these things really take time…

so i repeat myself…ah can mess up and destroy any kind of signal big time…without heaps of inbetween stages that will make ur ears bleed first or ur speakers start to smoke before u finding out, where’s the sweet spot for this particular moment now…

it’s even better…u’ll find many other sweetspots u never thought of before along the way…so same as with pretty much all other elektron gear also…only difference here…with ah u just can’t go really wrong…whatever ur doing with it…
and hell yeah, it’s priceless…worth every penny…

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