Moog Little Phatty
The Little Phatty is the next great thing to emerge from the revitalized Moog Music synthesizer company. It is sort of a notch below the Voyager, but should not really be categorized as such because the Little Phatty is a powerful synth with a layout and design that looks less into the past and more towards the future.
The Little Phatty boasts a 100 percent analog signal path, 100 user editable presets and a 37-note keyboard. It is a monophonic synth with two oscillators (the Voyager has three osc). Waveform selector is continuously variable between waveforms (tri, saw, square, pulse) and there is oscillator-sync. The filter is the classic Moog ladder design. Two ADSR envelope generators are available for the volume and the filter. And finally a nice LFO with six waveshapes, four destinations and rate/depth controls helps to get things moving. The 'Master' section of the keyboard has controls for Tuning, +/-2 Octave Transpose, Glide, Pitch/Mod wheels and some data entry controls. There are no on-board sequencers or effects, however.
The interface couldn't be simpler and despite the minimized number of buttons and knobs, there are no hidden pages or sub-layers of button functions - all controls are still very hands-on and provide excellent visual feedback via two-tone back-lit buttons, dials and pitch bend / mod wheels. Beautiful, hand-built, simple, effective, powerful - classic Moog design. The Little Phatty is designed to offer a 21st century analog Moog synthesizer in a compact portable package and at a price every musician can afford.
The standard edition is the Stage model (pictured top). Moog initially released a special, limited edition run of 1,200 individually numbered Bob Moog Tribute Edition synths. The limited run, Tribute Edition of the Little Phatty (pictured above) has special Moog wood side panels, a Bob Moog signature plate across the front and rear, comes with a CD-ROM featuring highlights of the Bob Moog Memorial Celebration Service and a special Bob Moog poster.
OK so they aren't that cheap. And they aren't very feature-rich compared with some of its competitors. But it is a genuine Moog. Its sound engine was designed by the late and great Bob Moog himself. It's the final synth he built for us. And it simply sounds amazing! It's analog but with such ultra-stability and such a modern and expressive interface, using the Little Phatty is an absolute joy - for experimenting, learning, jamming and having fun - it's one of the best 21st century synths for analog basses, leads, effects, noises and more.
- Specifications
- Polyphony - Monophonic
- Oscillators - 2 Ultra-stable analog Oscillators
- LFO - 1 LFO;
Sources: 4 waveforms (saw, sqr, tri, ramp) + Filt. Env. + Osc 2, (Sample & Hold and Noise also available on Stage Edition).
Destinations: Filter, Pitch, Wave, Osc. 2. - Filter - 1 Low Pass Filter (Classic Moog Ladder Filter) with ADSR Envelope Generator
- VCA - 4-Stage ADSR Analog Envelope Generator
- Keyboard - 37-note keyboard with +/-2 Octave Transpose
- Memory - 100 user editable presets
- Control - MIDI IN/OUT, CV (pitch, vol, filter) / Gate
- Date Produced - 2007
- Websites of Interest
- Resources & Credits
Images from Moog Music
Reviewed December 2007.
Errors or Corrections? Send them here.
Glad it worked out for ya!
As far as playing it live, only thing I can think of is to find somewhere to plug it in for an hour before performance then take it on stage. Has to happen quickly though, because only 10 minutes is long enough for it to cool back down. Finicky little buggers, but damn, do they sound fat and warm, like a tauntaun.
PS: keep an eye on the Moogmusic.com forum for tricks, tips & updates.
I'm just going to keep it in my studio! I'm not going to take it to the gigs for now,until I have to study the nature of this liitle slim phatty bist.hoopefully MOOG people will do something about autotune.
Your suggestion was the best.Now I know I'm not alone.
warm up was a good idea.
this synth stays in tune.
I love Floyd,Manfred Mann,Genesis,ELP etc.
Sound for me is an ispiration.This synth is a guitar for me.
So thanks again to Bob Moog
R.I.P.
Be sure you let the unit warm up. I usually let it sit for about an hour before I start to use it (a bit unusual, but worth the wait). I never use the auto tune. I think its buggy on the software end. They may fix it with an update. Also, when I first used the unit, it seemed way out of tune. I performed and auto-calibration and I havent had tuning issues since.
I realy like the sound, but there is a problem with autotune.
It's a disaster, it goes out of tune every 10 or 15 minutes.
I would return your unit. Sounds like it has some issues. I picked up a slim phatty the other day (same thing as a LP) and I am very impressed with the sound. The VCO's, VCF and LFO are directly taken from a Voyager. I own a Rogue, and the LP/SP kicks its ass! Also, nowhere does it say they are manufactured anywhere but in NC. It says "handcrafted" in Asheville, NC on the box.
I for one have put a Voyager on my savings list. It's gonna take me a couple of years, but in the meantime, the Phatty will fill the void nicely!