MusicRadar

The Restlyer's controls are well-spaced and comfortable to use.

View in gallery

• Review

Sherman has become a cult name in studio gear circles, owing largely to the wildly chaotic power of its Filterbank units.

The Restyler is the company's second product and a collaboration with Rodec, which is well respected for the quality of its DJ mixers. Don't ignore this because you think it's a filter for DJs only, though: the love child of this relationship is a tidy desktop stereo filter unit with the look of a precision piece of lab equipment.

The clean white sloping front panel is at optimum viewing angle, and places all the controls at easy disposal. The size of the hardware and the spacing are all spot on; it's very comfortable to use, and built to a high standard.

Round the back are the inputs and outputs of this stereo filter. You can connect in with XLR, 1/4-inch jack and RCA cables, while outputs are the same minus the XLRs. These are available as an expansion, and there are holes cut in the unit ready for them to be fitted if required.

A thread screw connector is used to attach the external power supply, and a manual also comes in the box.

In detail

Inside the Restyler is a multimode three-way filter, with low-pass, band-pass and hi-pass. The volume of each filter band is controlled by the three up-faders, which are detented in the middle position. These can be combined in any way and are all connected to the same Master Frequency dial on the right.

This nice, chunky dial is bigger than usual which gives you greater precision when programming (it also has a cool blue backlight).

Over on the other side is a similar sized dial with blue and green lighting. This serves a dual purpose and is used to set the Slave/ Trigger frequency depending on the mode. Above this is the trigger section – its three dials are used for setting the sensitivity, speed and slope of the envelope follower.

When the unit is in Trigger mode, the big dial can be used to hone in on the selective frequency range to trigger the envelope. So if you want it to trigger on the kick, set it down in the bass end; aim higher up to follow the snares; and all the way up to get the rhythm from a hi-hat pattern.

In the middle are three green dials for adding amplitude modulation to each frequency band. AM can be added in positive and negative directions and is affected by the shape of the envelope follower.

This can be set to sweep smoothly like a sine wave, or gradually sharper until it becomes a square wave at which point it chops and stutters the audio. Below these dials are three buttons for attenuating the slope of each frequency band and switching between the two audio processor modes. On the far right are the resonance and FM rotaries and above this is a three-position rocker switch.

The last three dials are for the mix, input and make up gain. The three-position rocker switch is set up for cutting hard between the mix and dry signal and seems solid enough.