First gig with Phatty....or so I thought...Major Bug!!!

The Moog Forum Little Phatty & Slim Phatty Forum
1

Hi everybody.

Last night I was playing a gig at a pretty large venue, and I was going to use my little phatty for the first time. I had been looking forward to this siunce getting it a couple of weeks ago.

Unfortunately it didn’t work out well at all!

I had planned to connect the Phatty to my pedalboard which is connected to my bassamp. But when I did this, the Phatty showed wierd behaviour. The parameters changed slowly by themselves, and it was impossible to change it back via the preset button. As soon as I pulled the Jack out it seemed to be fine.

I tried everything and I eventually found out the it didn’t even matter if the jack was connected to anything. Sometimes it did this with the jack in the audio out and just touching the jack would do it.

Since it was a festival setup and changeover was only 30 min I wasn’t able to test further. I did try another power outlet but it was probably on the same phase.

Has anyone seen this behaviour? It makes it impossible to trust the phatty to work, thus rendering it useless

Heeeeelp

2

Sounds to me like a grounding problem…better check how you Phatty is connected with the powerstrip and if this one is grounded yes/no.

3

Hi all

Well I just pulled the phatty in from my car and checked it out. This is the deal:

When i plug it in the same place as i always do it works fine. It’s the same placxe that most of my studio gear is sitting in.

But since I was also suspecting the power to be the problem I tried the wall outlet on the other side of the room. And there was the bug again.

None of these outlets have a hole for a grounding leg (is that what it’s called?) and the this is very common in Denmark.

The powercord the phatty came with dont even have three legs either.

If this is normal behaviour for the Phatty I’m afraid I will have to return it (To Germany GRRRRR!!!). This behaviour is simply not reliable enough for professional use.

Is it just my unit that is faulty?

4

Like i wrote in my previous mail…it is not your Phatty…it is your power supply/power outlet which is creating a issue.

Having decent grounding in your home/studio/live situation is one of the most important parts of your setup.

So you can send your Phatty back…but that will not solve your problem and any other synth/equipment will have grounding issues with certain power outlets which are not decent grounded.

5

Hi Prime.

I appreciate your advice. And you are probably right.

But…

First of all I have never seen anyone with problems like this. I’ve played pro for 15 years from the smallest to the largest venues and festivals in Denmark. And I have never seen people have problems like this even though they use ungrounded power cords. Analog or no analog.

So it seems to me that if grounding is the problem, the Phatty must be way more sensitive to this than other gear.

Another thing. It seems very odd that Moog supplys a power-cord with no grounding if using it will create these kind of problems. I mean, 3 out of four outlets I’ve tried been bad.

There are probably also big differences from country to country in how to deal with the grounding issues.

I will have to dig out a power-cord with a grounding leg and see if that helps. But I have to say again that it seems very unreliable to me.

Any input on this will be appreciated.

6

The LP needs to be properly grounded, all 3 prongs and make sure the outlet is grounded.

A midi loop ban also cause strange behavior, but you most likely had that set correctly.

7

Damn…

That is a big problem. A lot of smaller scenes in Denmark simply doesn’t have three holes in the outlets.

Why is the phatty so sensitive to this? My friend has the Voyager, and I havn’t seen him have any poblems.

8

Time to step up to a Voyager then… :wink:

Maybe Amos from Moog can explain better to you why the Phatty is so sensitive to groundloops and such things…???

9

Amos’ expertise would indeed be very welcome.

I’m still trying to decide if I should return the phatty.

10

I’ve platyed venues in europe without grounded power and I haven’t experienced this. Sounds to me like it’s your unit man, if mine did that I’d have taken to it with a baseball bat!

11

Wait for Amos’ imput before you smash your phatty with a bat hahaha or at least before you send it in.

Sorry about your problem.

12

Ok, i’ll do that… so…

Amos to the rescue please :astonished:)

13

Have you emailed Moog? Don’t wait for them to read the forum, I don’t know how often they come around here.

14

I pm’ed Amos to read this thread. But you are probably right. I’ll do it later on.

15

I just checked, and I can’t even find anywhere that sells an powerchord with 3 prongs. Thomann for example, who has everything doesn’t have them as far as i could see.

So I guess that if Amos comes back with a “grounding is the only fix” answer, I’m out of luck.

I contacted Moog Service too.I hope they are fast, cause i’m getting near to the 30 days return policy

16

What do the power sockets in your country look like?

Most euro/Schuko outlets do not require a third “pin” for earth/ground connection… this connection is made by some contacts on the walls of the socket. So, to get a good earth connection you need a plug with some flat metal strips on the side of the plug, like in this picture…

Does this look like a plug that would work in your country? This is what all the outlets in Germany were like. I am surprised to hear that Thomann would not ship with an appropriate power cord. Moog ships all Little Phatty to the EU with an appropriate Schuko plug, which has tabs for grounding.

If your outlet looks like this:

The metal spring contacts at top and bottom are the ground connection. No need for an extra pin on the plug.

Do your outlets look like the above?

In any case, let’s think about what could be the trouble and what you can do. First, if the power plug you have does not have the ground contacts (flat metal strips on the outside of the plug) then Thomann has replaced the power cord supplied by Moog with an inferior one… which seems unlikely.

Second, if you have the power plugged into a “bad” outlet, make sure it’s really the outlet and not a problem with some other connection. Disconnect any/all audio cables from the LP but leave the power plugged in. Does the problem persist, or does it go away? I have encountered similar situations where the problem was actually a ground loop or voltage problem being caused by an effects pedal or mixer that was connected to the Little Phatty’s audio output. This is important to test.

Once we are certain whether the problem is specific to the power plug or if it is to do with the audio connections, we can trouble-shoot further from there.

If it’s a power problem, an uninterruptable power supply (UPS) or a power conditioner or line voltage regulator (like this?) might help.

You may wish to return this LP to Thomann if you can… I suspect you will get much better support in Denmark if you purchase from our official Danish distributor, High End Tentacles. Besides which, Ole is a super-nice, super-cool guy and could use your support.

Thanks,

Amos

17

Thanks for the answer Amos.

The power cable is indeed a shucko like the one in the picture. The same kind I have for all my amps monitors and so on.

Funny thing is that normal sockets in denmark have either 2 or three holes, but nowhere the shucko plug can connect to ground.

But what I can deduct from your answer is that it is indeed very important to have proper grounding. This is , I’m afraid not easily done. It’s not practical to start yelling at people during a 30 mins changeover at a festival because the the power is ungrounded somewhere along the line.

If I add to this the possibility that combinations of my amp, pedalboard, di box and so on might make trouble at random times, I’m afraid that it seems to me that the Phatty is just to sensitive for stable live use, at least in my part of the world.

Is the voyager as sensitive as the Phatty? I haven’t heard any complaints from my pal who has one.

I would very much have liked to support your official dealer in Denmark. But I’m afraid that 60-70% on top of the thomann price is just out of my pricerange right now.

I’m leaning towards a return of the Phatty and finding something else for my synthbass needs. To Bad because I have allready come to love the sound and simplicity of it.
What should i get instead?


Thx for your help though. You are very helpfull.

18

Perhaps it’s not too late with the Phatty… indeed people are using them all over the world with no troubles.
In general it’s safe to say the Voyager is definitely less sensitive to AC ground issues.
But, I think it’s possible that most LP are less sensitive to AC ground issues that this one is.
Best thing would be to try a different one before you commit to return yours.

How possible might this be?

mvh,

Amos

19

i have had my LP 2 for 8 weeks, but had enough of the problems, cant rely on it to work properly at live gigs, so its had to go, and now buying a roland, as i`ve had the same one for 20 years playing live, and not one single problem GOODBYE MOOG

20

Errr…yeah…bye… :unamused: