Dual-Phatty poly chain - noticeable difference?

[Stuka]

I am intrigued by the possibility of poly-chaining multiple Phatty's together, but haven't had the chance to actually experience it other than via You Tube clips.

For those of you that have gone that route, does adding a 2nd Phatty to the mix and poly-chaining present a noticeable difference in the sound - and is it worth it?

Eventually I hope to add a Little Phatty Solar CV to the gear stable, but for now space limitations dictate I stick to rack/tabletop gear to use with my current MIDI controllers.
So, for the immediate future, I'm contemplating adding a 2nd Slim Phatty, but haven't quite decided yet...

Any feedback, pros or cons, would be appreciated!
Thanks!

Randy

[ColorForm2113]

i actually played a duophonic little phatty/slim phatty set up at sam ash a few months ago (YES a music store actually had it set up this way! i was impressed they usually have issues connecting audio cables to a mixer there lol) and i spent probably over an hour tweaking around. and especially with arp running it made some beautiful dense sounds. if you tweak phatty 1 it will control both but whats really fun is tweaking phatty 2 to completely different sound (ie; phatty 1 = punchy tight bass, phatty 2 = FM/sync sound) can result in some really complex textures. i have been really tempted to just make a poly phatty (or poly voyager...with midi pal of course since ive heard poly chain doesnt work so well) rig and ditch my other polykeys.

but if you really like the sound of the phatty, having 2 or more is definitely going to be a good thing

[Stuka]

Appreciate the feedback!

I'm definitely leaning towards adding SP # 2, and rack-mounting both.
It would definitely be cool to have twins ready to go if a LP (or something else compatible) shows up in a year or two...

[EMwhite]

I'm in the middle of trying to acquire my 3rd and 4th SEM for a 4-voice; just don't have the money at the moment . I have the other bits, meaning a voice distributor (MidiPal) and a Quad Midi-> CV (MOTM-650) and also a dedicated SEM sequencer. But even with this grand scheme, I still want to get Poly rolling with my Little Phatty as it looks so appealing and despite all of the gear I own, I still spend a fair amount of time on my Tribute.

From a cost perspective, you can grab Slims for $600 so $1800 + my Phatty which I'm likely in $1500 at this point is still not bad. It's not an 8 voice and it doesn't have all of the bells and whistles that you might get on something more 'modern' that has Bandpass, several LFOs, metallic whopp, sub-octave, but I think there is still plenty there and it's not thin sounding.

[Stuka]

I'm slowly but surely becoming convinced I need to move forward with the Phatty expansion plan...

[ColorForm2113]

I'm in the middle of trying to acquire my 3rd and 4th SEM for a 4-voice; just don't have the money at the moment . I have the other bits, meaning a voice distributor (MidiPal) and a Quad Midi-> CV (MOTM-650) and also a dedicated SEM sequencer.

I might do this. I always forget about the SEM. Do you have the midi or the pro?

[ColorForm2113]

Holy crap! I just looked at sweetwater to see what sems were going for, they went up like $200! Weren't they originally $799 for the patch panel or the midi. And the pro was like $1200?

Edit: also is the 2voice actually in production? They make it seem like they are available on Sweetwater and Tom's website but I haven't seen them out in the wild or even heard of anyone laying their hands on one yet...

[EMwhite]

I picked up two Patch Panel SEMs for $750 and $700. I try to buy used whenever I can. Every now and then they pop up on Muffs Buy/Sell forum and somehow nobody wants them!

They all have the same main unit; I owned a Midi SEM in the past but it was somewhat limited though had some unique features.

With regard to the two voice re-issue, it's not happening. I've been after it for nearly two years and been waiting waiting waiting. I've given up for the 2nd and last time. I gave Sweetwater my credit card in December for the pre-order, I emailed my 'rep' saying that I would like a solid ship date, he returned with early March.... HA! So much for that. Tom's web site says "1st Q". So much for that as well.

Endless respect for the man and unbelievable props for getting the SEM off the ground. But he's dealing with outsourcing the programming for the 2-voice controller and sequencer with ratchet functionality, etc. and I suppose it's taking longer than he expected or the perfection that he normally looks to achieve just hasn't been there.

I do hope he gets it out but I won't be taking one because I'm off on my own DIY solution now.

If you are interested in a bigger Poly Oberheim sound and have some basic soldering skills, you should hop on over to Muffs and have a read of OldCrow's (with the help of MC; the real) OBX resurrection. Yes, he's created a new/old OBX voice card PCB which does not use the SSM env gen chip; it fits into an existing OBX and in addition has engineered carrier sub-assembly and a MU panel based 'master' for programming. No presets or digital anything except for a simple PIC for noise to be used by S+H. He estimates the cost of parts at about $1k and the cost for PCBs for a four voice at about $200-$300. I'm onboard for this though I expect it will take 6 mos to get the 2000 components soldered up and properly working.

I'm rambling but the SEM has a special place in my heart and I won't rest until I have my 2-voice w/Sequencer nicely built into a Tolex case. Part of me wants to hold out for the 3rd and 4th voice, just can't see pulling the required $1,500 together considering all of my other interests and plans.

[Stuka]

Another question concerning the Phatty poly chain ~

Do you find the chain to be pretty reliable with multiple Phatty's running the lates OS, or does it seem to be prone to dropouts, disconnects, etc.?

[David Smyth]

The below is simply copied/pasted from my PM to Stuka, so that the info is available for others:

Hi Stuka!

Sorry it took a while to get back to you - I wanted to make sure I could give you as much info as possible by compiling info over a few days into this message. I consider myself a bit of an expert with this poly-chain setup.

It's no problem answering your questions! I was in a similar position - I didn't have the chance to try the poly idea before I got my second Phatty. Also, we actually have a pretty similar setup, and therefore similar possibilities.

Regarding tips, pros, cons, etc. - I run my poly-chain in a number of ways (it's VERY flexible!) :

- Polyphonic - All units on same patch, parameters of all units controlled from primary unit (LP in my case).
- Polytimbral (monophonic) - Each unit in monophonic mode (i.e. not in poly mode) with different patches per unit (think stacking different sounds to create complex atmospheres) parameters can be controlled from the primary unit (such as opening all filter cutoffs for the different patches from one knob) or separately (per unit).
- Polytimbral (polyphonic) - As above but polyphonic, limited by each note being a different patch sound, when distributed around the units (depends on how many units you have too, e.g. three units will make the cycle through patches start on every 4th note). You can make some pretty lush chords with different presets set to each unit. I haven't experimented enough with the note priority settings, but I imagine you could use them to set one unit to always play the low note and the other to play the high note for different patches, although this may not work out too well with more than two units.
- Mono Stack - All units on the same patch, with poly mode off. You can make some 4 osc. (or more with more units), heavier/phatter sounds by simply having both units play in unison together on the same patch. You could either control all the parameters from the primary unit, or separately for each unit.
- Multiple Unit Arpeggiator - This is simply awesome! The arpeggiator can distribute the notes by cycling them to each unit, which can have their own clock divisions and/or patches, resulting in notes flying around in awesome ways (panned too, if you have a stereo mixer & speaker setup - I don't). You also have the option (at least with the LP) of sending the pressed-key note information or the post-arp note information to the next unit for the next unit to arpeggiate.
- Modular-Style - Each unit could be digitally separated from the others (with their own patches and parameter control) and triggered by CV signals for different modular-style voices. You could play a lead/bass/whatever on the LP on top.

So as you can see, it's not just polyphonic playing that is opened up when you assemble multiple units together - you get alot of modular flexibility (although it takes a bit of menu-diving on each unit to change 'modes'). I chose to stop at three units because Maj./min./aug./dim./power etc. triad chords are possible and the CP-251 'multiples' have three outputs (one per Phatty) for extra modulation applying to all units if needed.

Presets can be easily sent to the next unit in the chain as per my posts in this thread: http://forum.moogmusic.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=12873 . It works best to design your patches on the primary unit, so that when you're done designing, the MIDI cable can transmit the patch to the following units.

You can MIDI sync all the units together (arpeggiators & LFO's) by putting an external MIDI clock signal into the primary unit's MIDI In port. The MIDI cables linking the units together can pass the clock signal on to all units. You could also send MIDI CC messages to all units. You can easily de-couple (a) unit(s) by changing MIDI channels on each unit. You can also turn on/off patch change and/or parameter change sending/receiving between units so that you can control everything from the primary unit or each unit separately.

Some issues I have experienced:

- Occasional dropped notes - this seemed to be more an issue when I had two Phattys chained (LP St.II w CV Out + SP), certain rhythms caused some notes to fail to trigger. Somehow adding the third Phatty to the chain helped this, although it still happens from time to time, I think it's probably more about my playing technique with the limited voices - this is something to consider with poly-chaining (keeping in mind how many keys are pressed at one time and how many voices are available, although MOST of the time if you exceed the voices available a note will be stolen from the previous chord for the new note). On the very occasional times that the poly "round-robin" note distribution system needs re-alignment (e.g. two units sounding on one key press, none on the next key press), "ALL NOTES OFF" in the MIDI Menu on the primary unit is a command that cancels all notes and re-sets the MIDI note cycle. I normally keep the master menu of the primary unit on this function in case it's needed quickly when I'm in preset mode (this is not crucial though). When/if you get the poly-chain up and running and want to know how I do something specific in detail, just send me another message!

- Don't worry about this one if your Slim has been working fine so far - My two Slim Phattys both had an issue with self-moving "dancing dials" (nothing to do with the poly-chaining aspect). In most cases that issue is caused by not grounding the Phatty properly (with a 3-pin power lead and grounded socket), however in my case it was a more annoying issue which ended up with me getting an Electrical Engineer to find the issue and install a mod fix (however plenty of people have Slim Phattys with no problems - so I wouldn't dwell on this, it may be something to do with using the unit internationally), see - http://forum.moogmusic.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=13563 .

---

Regarding the patchbay/cables etc. - all of the info for my setup is documented in this thread: http://forum.moogmusic.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=14648 . The patchbay I'm using is a DBX PB-48 - not the most sturdy-feeling jacks, but it was pretty cheap and does the trick. Any patchbay that has the option of pass-thru or de-normalled (may be called something different - each front jack matches it's corresponding jack on the back) will work for this setup. The whole reason for the patchbay is to simply bring the Phatty CV jacks etc. to the front and close to the Moogerfooger modules for easy patching. The dummy plugs shown in the thread above are needed to make the Phattys behave normally when they are constantly plugged into the patchbay, but unpatched (i.e. no CV signal plugged into volume and/or gate CV input(s)). Unplugging a Gate dummy plug will cause the unit to drone (useful at times!) and unplugging a Volume dummy plug will cause the unit to be silent (no volume).
I use TRS (stereo) cables for all CV patching, as I also use an EP-2 expression pedal (you probably know about the powered/white-ring jacks on the CP-251's etc. that require TRS to not short the expression pedal power supply).

I would recommend some kind of colour-coding or similar labelling system for the patchbay. It makes it very easy to patch without getting confused (as much! haha).

---

Regarding the use of my second CP-251 - there are a couple of reasons why I have two:

- I do get use out of both for more complex patches. It's VERY useful to use, say, the multiple of one CP-251, and still have another for that next addition to the patch you think up! Especially when I added three MF's (like you). An example of a cool patch I like to do is trigger the gates of all units (using a square LFO from a CP-251, which has an LFO output from the other CP-251 (or a MIDI-sync'd LFO from the LP CV Out Mod!) changing the speed of the first - into the "pedal input" of the first, into a multiple, into all units). Check out this track for an example of the MIDI LFO sync'd version of the patch I mentioned - http://soundcloud.com/davidsmyth-4/moog-poly-modular-1 .
You get two noise sources, two CV mixers, four attenuators and so on - it all opens up more patching possibilities - both for direct patching into the poly-chain, and for interfacing the poly-chain with the MF's.

- The rack mount kit for the CP-251 has space for two CP-251's.

---

If you do get a Little Phatty to control your chain at some point, make sure you get a Stage II (or similar/later - Solar Edition etc.) with the CV Output Mod pre-installed. This will open up more possibilities, such as getting a MIDI Sync'd LFO Output for use with modular-patching. Also, the earlier models (pre Stage II) have less interconnection hardware/firmware and may not work for controlling a poly chain.

Over all I love my Poly-Chain set-up!! So much potential and I've only scratched the surface of possible sounds! Even with the very annoying "dancing-dial syndrome" problem I had, which I had to get modded (rare problem with nothing to do with poly-chaining), it was all worth it in the end for such a powerful/flexible system. The LED-Ring Encoders work perfectly for recalling patches with all the units (I'm sure you know this with your current SP)! You always know where every parameter is at - information you don't get with a traditional knob-per-function synth with patch storage.

Like I said above, if you have any specific (or more general!) questions you'd like me to answer, just feel free to message me again whenever..

I hope this helps!

Regards,
David Smyth
New Zealand

[Stuka]

I vote we mark David's response as THE reference thread for Little/Slim Phatty poly chain and patch bay utilization.

Beats all the manuals and YouTube videos combined that I've looked at to try to dig up all those details!

Randy

[stiiiiiiive]

Indeed, thank you David for that bunch of knowledge.

[David Smyth]

No problem - I am happy to share my experience/setup info!

Thanks for the kind words guys!

David
NZ