Little Phatty and MFB Synth Lite II?

[nerdtro]

While looking for something to midi up to my Phatty I came across a youtube video of this small german synth called the MFB synth lite II. This would give me the ability to play intervals and expand my Moog at a affordable price. Anybody out there have an opinion ? I also listened to the morpho youtube demo, but it didn't sound as good as this MFB.

[anoteoftruth]

Depends on what your looking for I suppose... I dont have any first hand knowledge of the MFB stuff, but I like you went around asking at one point, and the general consensus that I came back with was they they had a poor build quality.

I don't beleive it could really "expand" the LP... maybe accompany it, if its your cup of tea? Though in my opinion there seems to be a lot more interesting / better options out there.

[nerdtro]

You might be right, it is hard to match the phatty!!! I will Have to wait and see if Moog comes up with some sort of affordable option, or sell the house and get a mini !!! thanks for the reply. ps . from one canadian to another, nice gold medal "eh"

[soundxplorer]

I dont have any first hand knowledge of the MFB stuff, but I like you went around asking at one point, and the general consensus that I came back with was they they had a poor build quality.

While I would definitely call their stuff "budget", my MFB gear has actually been very reliable (Eurorack modules). It is obviously designed to meet low price points - they use plastic where a lot of other manufacturers would use metal. But the circuits seem to be designed well, it works like it should and I've never had any problems. It's not like Behringer gear, where you just know a knob is going to fall off sooner or later.

[anoteoftruth]

You might be right, it is hard to match the phatty!!! I will Have to wait and see if Moog comes up with some sort of affordable option, or sell the house and get a mini !!! thanks for the reply. ps . from one canadian to another, nice gold medal "eh"

Hahaha you know it! My Dad lives in Cole Harbour a couple houses down from Sid's parents.. so you can imagine the hype/excitement/partying that went on everyone saw Sid get the winning goal. I sure wish I was back home that night! haha. But yeah.. I think every major city in the country just turned into party town for 1 night after that game haha. Amazing.

[anoteoftruth]

BTW if you want a Voyager.. look into a RME. Thats what I did, got it off a friend in great condition for 1600$... There are lotsa good deals out there, you won't need to sell the house haha. Not to mention, if you like the LP, the Voyager is a real step up in terms of what it can do (Though I still stick to my opinion that the LP and Voyager sound different, and I use them for different things. Personally I use my LP more often for bass, and the RME for more indepth sound sculpting)

But like I said, even if you don't wanna sell the house, there are other similar synths out there in the price range of the MFB / Mopho etc.. just takes some looking around. I actually saw a Studio Electronics SE-1X that sold on ebay for 700$ the other day (normally around 1600$ or more) which is a pretty decent clone of the Voyager (and a pretty awesome synth.)

I personally like the new Oberheim SEM's... though you'd have to be on a waiting list and they are still 900$, I think it's a pretty awesome addition to a LP or RME.

[ldtregent]

Hello

I used a MFB Kraftwerg (which is semi-modular and similar to the Synth Lite) midi'd to my Little Phatty when I was playing live with a unit called "Harold". I ran them both into a small mixer and gave me a big massive guitar crushing wall of sound.

An example of this can be seen and heard here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IpcvdUKToI

Some notes though.

MFB can be difficult to deal with. I ordered my MFB in June of 2008 and it didnt get to the shop (Moog Audio in toronto Canada) until March of 2009. When it arrived it didn't have a proper power supply. The guys from the shop were unable to get a proper power supply until June of 2009. At that time I bought it. The power supply wasn't 100% though and I found it went out of tune alot or just did weird ghost in the machine type stuff.

However I did manage to get a correct power supply in Bangkok in November 2009 and now the MFB works nicely. Its also small enough I can travel with it. The MFB stuff to my ears has more of a ARP sound. Anyone who is old enough will know what I mean by that. For quality of build though nothing I own is as rock solid as my Moog gear.

An alternative you might want to consider would be the Dave Smith stuff like the Mo Pho or that little Prophet box what ever its called. It might prove more stable.

Cheers
LDT