Presets in non-matching Phatty poly chains?

[Omaroo]

Hi all

I'm keenly anticipating the arrival of new new best buddy - a Little Phatty Stage II - this Saturday. The plan is to poly chain it to my existing Slim Phatty with the LP acting as the primary.

My question is this - given that the presets are different on each, how does that work? If I select a preset on the primary does it automagically copy that chosen preset across to the secondary (and later, tertiary, etc) even though that preset may not exist on the secondary? Not having it here yet, I'm not sure how different the banks are on these two models, but I gather that they presets they ship with are completely different. Can someone explain to me how this works?

TIA

[Voltor07]

Well, you would need to take whatever patch you wanted to duplicate and transfer it to the unit which is lacking said patch. The Slim has the same hardware as the Little, so there's no reason two units running the same OS couldn't have the same sound programed into them.

[David Smyth]

I run a 3 unit poly chain - a LP Stage II (w/ CV outs) + 2 SP's.

Expanding on what Voltor said - you can send the current panel settings, a single preset or all presets through the midi cable that is chaining the units together, by the press of a button! (The options are in the SYSEX menu).

In your case, since your setup would be: LP Midi Out --> SP Midi In, If you wish to keep and transfer your existing patches/presets from the SP, you could temporarily put the midi cable in like so: SP Midi Out --> LP Midi In, and do the preset transfer from the SP's menu, then put the cable back to: LP Midi Out --> SP Midi In, so that the LP is the primary.

For new patches to be shared on all units, I find that it's easiest to do your sound design on the primary (LP), and once the patch is saved, send it through to the SP's.

I hope this info helps!

Regards,
David Smyth
NZ

[Omaroo]

Voltor and David - thanks very much. Excellent info! At the end of the day, I probably won't be operating the SP as a dedicated individual synth any more, and so all patches on the primary would probably always become those of the secondary as well. I'll store the originals separately just for good measure. Thanks again

[David Smyth]

Aswell as polyphony, one thing I've found I do alot is simply "stacking" the units (turn poly mode off - so all key-presses play all units as a midi controller). For example, you can run the same patch on both units with 4 oscs. for extra power, or get more interesting, complex soundscapes by changing patches on the secondary unit while knob tweaking etc. in more of a modular synth fashion (turning the filter cutoff on one unit for example).

Like polyphony, it's heaps of fun!

P.S. Note that "ALL NOTES OFF" is a useful command in the Midi Menu of the Primary Synth (LP). Pressing "Enter" on this function will restart and realign the midi connection between the units if there is any confusion between the devices (such as in poly-mode with both units playing on one key-press but none on the next).

Regards,
David Smyth
NZ

[Omaroo]

Thanks again David - great info. I think that I'll probably pick up a second SP soon as well, and have a three-stage poly chain, which is ideal for most of what I do. Three SP's would be brilliant, but that's a ways off.

How's NZ going? Stopped shaking yet? I really must get back over there one day soon - it's the most picturesque country on the planet. Fabulous landscape photography!

[David Smyth]

I find three units is cool as you can get min./maj./aug./dim. triad chords etc. but also because I'm rackmounting a patchbay (bringing the phatty CV connections to the front) and two CP-251's above them. The reason I say three is good in that aspect is that the multiple circuits (signal splitters/dividers) on the CP-251's have 1 input and 3 outputs, so I will be able to route some complex modular patches to effect 1 or all 3 units (I'd be mostly effecting all 3 for polyphonic patches) which will be great fun!

NZ is going great! I live in Wellington which used to be New Zealand's earthquake city (we're built over a fault line), but now I guess Christchurch has that title . I work for a Structural Engineering firm, and some of our engineers are on rotating shifts down there inspecting buildings, and they're still getting swarms of small earthquakes everyday. I also enjoy the scenery, especially the South Island as it gets a bit more rugged down there..

Most of my holidays have been to Australia and I love it over there (I love the coast, heat and sun)!

Regards,
David Smyth
NZ