Sherman Filterbank 1 or AKAI MFC 42

M

Madness

New member
Any one used both of these babies and care to comment on the Pro's and Con's of each.

I have an oportunity to get one or the other (both is overkill) so Im lookin' for some tipps...

Peace,
 
the akai is 3 channels (stereo plus mono), while the sherman is just mono.

both are good sounding filters, but the sherman has a lot more sound mangling power.
 
What about the sound quality?

the Sherman has a Overdrive kinda stage which I assume is built into the Pre-Amp analougish build of the thing.

Whilst the AKAI is proclaimed analouge but sports Distortion. Is the Distortion Analouge sounding?

Any other comments from Peeps on the differing sound of the two..???
 
I'd say it's a kind of personal taste: try them both and decide for yourself - they're pretty different.
 
Ive been searching on the Forum and it seems there have been many people with the same dillema. Just thought it might be cool since that was some time ago if people posted their thoughts?

Won't have the chance to try as these are Ebay items, (plus, I never have the time to get to my music store, dam job, atleast im getting some $$$ for my troubles)

Anyways, I think I need the Sound Mangling capacities of a Sherman!!!

????
 
I used them both (not together) - one in a friend's studio and I owned a Sherman I myself.

Imho if you need a cute versatile filter you'll be better off with the Akai, while if you need/prefer the mangling capacities (like you mentioned) I'd strongly recommend the Sherman. I.o.w. the Akai is imho a versatile "normal" filter, while the Sherman is - to gve it a different name - more a kind of 'versatile distortion box' (sic).
 
I own an MFC42, and I'll agree with THM here. It's a more "vanilla" filter than others I own, but it's more usable because of it. (You don't notice it every time and say "oh, there's that damn thing again!")

I really like the fact that it's got a notch filter mode, and a 12dB/oct. filter option. The phaser is okay. The distortion has two settings: "I-Will-Kill-You-Now" and Off.

-Hoax
 
The Akai MFC 42 is great for house music-esque filter sweeps and envelope following. It's very creamy and smooth sounding. I'd like to have one again. The Shermans on the other hand are VERY different. You can do subtle effects with the Sherman, but that's not where the fun lies. A lot of people talk about how they distort too much and that's usually the result of user error. Many people turn up the input knob too high, which overdrives the signal and gives it a tube overdrive kind of sound. If you don't want it that distorted, keep your input knob as low as possible... it only needs to be able to pick up incoming audio. Another thing that gives some sorted sound is cranking up the FM/AM knobs. Keep those tamed and you'll remain in fairly clean territory. Also, there is a balance between dry and wet signal, and if you go all the way to the right (wet) you will hear the Sherman very clearly... gotta keep the beast tamed! (Or not! :cool:) The main downside to the Shermans is that the manuals aren't very clear when it comes to explaining stuff, and depending on how you have your knobs set, a certain knob won't seem to make any audible difference. You really have to experiment a lot and learn to figure out how it all flows together, but once you do, you have an amazing tool. I have an original Sherman and a v2. They're badass but I can see why some people wouldn't use them much... but for what I do, they rule.
 
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