1) INTERFACE The interface has some glowing and shininess going on and first of all is organized, easy to find the parameter you want to change quickly. Of course, you won't find too many knobs. I really love the frequency display. It shows exactly what the curve looks like at all times for any parameter changes. For fine-tuning, click and hold ALT and you can change knobs in a circular motion which allows you to pull your mouse away and fine-tune the frequency or any other parameters. CTRL resets the knobs. While the most important frequency knob displays value in HZ, the rest of the parameters show a value from 0.00 to 1.00.
2) SOUND What does it sound like? To sum it up, imagine the most delicious cream of wheat you've ever had. Take that bowl and throw it at your mother… let me explain.
a. PERCUSSION - You can get many totally unique sounds when processing percussion with the help of the wah-type envelope, distortion types, and delay. It's possible to get those crazy dub delay effects, which ambient and trance would benefit from, but like other delays, you'll need to spend time taming it. The comb filters and resampler are great choices for percussion as well as the more standard filters help with the common filter-fade-in/out effects.
b. SYNTH EFFECT - I don't think you'll ever need more distortion than what FilterBank can give you. I quote bobsled, "BP Dist can definitely tear your face off." From the lows to the highs, FilterBank can deliver dangerous distortions that can scream louder than the fat lady. At the same time its moog, notch, and (check it out) para BP filters do a great job in creating soft monosynths. The vocal/formant filters can really get things sounding classic, too. But if distortion is what you're after, included are some very unique distortions including Cubic, Wavewrap, Warble, and Presence which adds all kinds of fun harmonics.
c. VOICE MORPHING - It's no voice morpher but you can achieve some interesting results with the resampler filter and distortions which can make you sound like you're talking through a bad radio or distortion effects commonly used in pop music. You can achieve some funny results using the square distortion, the FM and AM filters, and the delay filtertype which can pitch your voice once you figure out how it works. However, I'd look elsewhere voice pitching.
d. SFX POTENTIAL - In my opinion, no matter what you are working with it's difficult to create musical or movie-potential sfx, but because of FilterBank's nature, the design and modulating abilities makes it possible to create interesting effects you won't find anywhere else. You'll have to listen to the mp3 demo or go through the SYNTH version's sfx and sequence presets.
e. AS A SYNTH - Absolutely ear-melting. Head straight for the presets. You will find some very nostalgic stuff like the SYN Churchorgan, SYN Theremin patches, and the SEQ(uence) patches great for trance. Of course it's very limited in programmability and doesn't have basic synth parameters, but the polysynth-only presets are great.
3) FEATURES For what Filterbank is, it's feature-full. One of the best features is the filter routing. My favorite feature is the ability to route Filter1 to right speaker and Filter2 to left speaker and then modulating their frequencies opposite of each other. Awesome for percussion effects and awesome if you want your synth to sound wide. The matrix is great because of its mod shape types. From square to circular, hard to soft, you have everything in between. The only thing is - it lacks a matrix bank. Then again it's sort of an extra. If any feature was to be expanded I'd vote on the matrix. The delay combined with the distortion can result in great ambient stuff.
You get ping-pong as well as delays that only work if you have surround-sound speakers. You can choose to route it before or after the distortion. Also, there's a huge selection of filters including things you wouldn't expect such as FM, AM, Resonator, Resampler, Comb filters. You will also see strange names like "HP SVF", "LP Oct", and "NoLP Moog." Combining this with Filter 1 minus 2 routing and unique distortions you can get some very unique filter shapes and harmonic textures.
