Little Phatty with extensions versus Voyager

The Moog Forum Little Phatty & Slim Phatty Forum
1

Hi

I seems to me that buying a LP with CV mod and a freqbox and maby an CP251 is going to cost approx the same as buying a Voyager RME.

  1. Aside from the missing keyboard, what would the difference on the two systems be - both soundwise (sonic possibilities) and ease of extension.

  2. I’m new to analog synths, but want to get into them. Would the Voyager be to complex?

EDIT:

I would like to add a third question:

  1. Is the LP Jordan Rudess uses in these clips equipped with the CV Mod? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUhUsyCMpUA&feature=related
2

The Little Phatty is a great first analog. With the CV out mod, you’ll have a lot of options to create a semi-modular setup as well. The LP’s sound is a bit grittier than the Voyager, IMO. A lot cheaper, too. The final decision must be yours to make, but I went with the LP and haven’t looked back… :wink:

3

Reverse order:

3: No, Jordan is playing a regular Stage edition, CV outs were not available at the time this series was produced. Certainly, the standard Phatty has Gate in, CV Filter and Pitch and CV Volume aka expression pedal inputs, so it’s a great recipient for CP-251 and Fogger output. Be sure to see all 9 in the Jordon Rudess series in addition to the KbdWizard on YouTube for many inspiring videos/demos.

2: Voyager won’t necessarily be too complex but it’s certainly more intimidating due to a: dozens of more knobs and b: an even more complex system of nested menus. Even long time owners sometimes get lost or have to ask “how do I…”.

1: Personally, I’d go for the Phatty option but I suppose I should ask if you are doing this mainly for home studio / hobbyist type use, or if you play live primarily. If the latter than the Voyager is for you and best (depending on the genre of music you play) along side a poly synth of some sort. If, on the other hand you are just starting out or have a home studio and just enjoy playing (like many of us), then I would recommend the LP + extras.

My experience with the Moog gear is that my first Moog product was a LP Tribute, then I bought a Midi MurF, then sent in my Phatty for v2.0 upgrade (not necessary for Stage editions) and CV Mod upgrades, then bought a Voyager Old School, FreqBox, Taurus Pedals, 101 LP Filter on and on… point is it’s an absolutely perfect first analog synth and despite some people saying “selling my LP to buy a Voyager”, many Voyager owners want LP’s. I won’t part with either.

I think the most important thing you need to ask yourself is what sort of sound you are after, whether you’ll be doing more ‘playing’ with a band than noodling aka getting sucked into the world of Analog synthesis like many of us.

To answer your #1 questions specifically: Phatty has:

  1. built in arpeggiator
  2. Overdrive on Filter

Voyager has:

  1. larger kbd w/Aftertouch
  2. additional OSC
  3. noise source within mixer (Phatty adds Noise as an alternate mod source to OSC.2)
  4. additional (and more capable) Modulation bus
  5. ability to switch 3rd OSC into low frequency LFO
  6. many more CV ins (and basic CV out unless VX-351 is added)

BUT the Phatty + extras is too long of a list to begin to write up, especially after adding an additional Fooger.

Hope this helps somewhat.

4

Thank you very much for your answers! :slight_smile:
I’ll be testing them both in music stores and keep your points in mind.

By the way, I’m going to use it live together with a Nord Electro 2 and Yamaha Motif ES + maybe a JD990.

EDIT: Also, I must say, that after reading your posts, I’m more for the LP. I’m not a pro musician, but I love playing.
My budget is not so big, so I think I might get the LP (without CV mod) and maybe a piece of extra gear (freqbox maybe) to start with.
It seems I can always expand it later if I want to, and that way I will not have wasted any money in the first place, while also (in the least) have
invested som money into learning about basic analog synthesis.

5

Dude, if you’re gonna go with a first moogerfooger - I’d totally, totally go for the ringmod.

6

Cool, I’ll look into that!

7

If you get the 102, a 103 down the road will increase your sound library immensely! The CP-251 is a must-have as well. :wink:

8

:slight_smile:

9

I think that to the untrained eye, the Voyager might seem daunting due to the fact that it has so many knobs, but Its a GREAT synth to learn on simply because of its single feature that makes it one of the greatest synthesizers ever: Its Knob-Per-Function interface.

THe interface is what sets this synth above all others because for every function there is a knob. This is going to make EXPRESSION much more intuitive.

Learning curves are going to be hard in analog synthesis, whether you are on a single osc synth, or a Phatty with limited controls or on a complicated modular.

This is their flagship product and in a Voyager vs Phatty situation, for just about every category, the Voyager is superior.

THe Voyager is simply a better synth and worth every penny.



However, you need to ask yourself if you are looking for polyphony. If you want to have a small keybed with several voices, then you have your answer.

If you want a fabulous monosynth and you can afford it, you WONT regret a Voyager. If you later decide you want more voices then you can have the better of both worlds with the Voyager + Slim Phatty voices.



Also,
NovaMusik has the best deals on Moog gear, substantially lower than their advertised prices.

10

Brother Voltor speaks the truth.

102, 103 and a delay pedal (either the Moog delay or an Electro Harmonix Deluxe Memory Boy) … oh yeah, the low pass 101 for a noise source (or an Electro Harmonix Big Muff Pi) … and you can make beats!!!

I’ve done it. Muhahahaha!

11

Sounds very interesting! In the band our drummer often play with a click in his ear, so matching that with some sort of backtrack going through the LP would open up some possibilities. Then again, if I had some sort of tempo tapping swich I could just match up tempo on the fly.

Thanks for the answers :slight_smile:

12

+1 for the Phatty.
In a live situation I would have chosen that over the Voyager. There are many reasons for that: It’s cheaper - so it won’t be the end of the world if it gets stolen or drops or whatever. It’s probably easier to set up. It’s smaller. It looks cool with it’s curved lines etc, etc …

Personally I have my LP Tribute set up with only a CP-251 and some delay. The CP-251 gives me a much needed extra LFO, a readily available noise source (of which I add just a touch to make the sound a bit more “gritty”) and I also have a cheap Boss expression pedal set up via one of the attenuators for pitch modulation with my foot while playing and tweaking with my hands. It’s a very funtional setup. The extra LFO makes it possible to free up the LP’s LFO to do other modulation tricks like for instance PWM or slowly moving filter modulation etc. I would add this feature before going for the more flashy effects like the ring modulator… I know some of you here will disagree. This is what works for me anyway, and I’m currently not planning to add anything else to my Phatty. Not even a freqbox for that extra oscillator. PWM on one oscillator and then adding the second oscillator an octave below takes care of those wide, fat model D’ish sounds perfectly. No need for anything else.

Edit: BTW - holding the LFO switch pressed down for 2 seconds it turns into a tap tempo switch…

13

I’m now pretty sure I’ll go for the Fatty, but I’m thinking of getting the Slim Phatty instead…
I have read reviews, but still want to be sure: Is there any differences between the LP and SP soundwise? Can the SP be fitted with the CV mod?
I just want to be sure that all the LP sounds I’ve heard could also be made with the SP :slight_smile:

14

AFAIK, the SP and LP share a sound engine…this would make sense, as the Voyager RME and Voyager sound exactly the same. I don’t think the SP can be fitted with the CV outs…not sure where they would be placed. :confused: Also, what keyboard do you plan on using the SP with?

15

Maybe a M-Audio Axiom 61. I’m a little concerned about taking too much room up on stage.
I was thinking about having an effects processor for reverb, the JD990 and the Slim Phatty in a rack.
Would it be better to just play the JD990 from the Little Phatty’s keyboard? I think another MIDI controller than LP might be better… Any ideas?
For controlling which synth to play I think I would just take the simple approach of using volume control from a small mixer.

16

I can see from other threads on the forums that the Axiom shoud be a good alternative as controller.
Thanks to you all for your help!

17

The LP keyboard is only 37 keys…for what you want to do, what you describe in the first part of your post seems like a fine idea to me. :mrgreen:

18

I own both an LP Stage II and a Voyager Performer Edition. Both are incredible instruments but here is a short list of my pros and cons of each and things to consider when looking at both. Some of my cons are really not cons per se but when comparing against the other I think they are important to note. I won’t address the “add-on” foogers since they can apply to both really.

VOYAGER

  • has extra osc
  • has aftertouch
  • has better feel to keyboard
  • has extra modulation
  • has touch surface
  • more expensive
  • larger
  • turning knobs can/will cause jumps in values due to the knobs being “static” regarding their current values

LITTLE/SLIM PHATTY
+++ knobs are dynamic so tweaks are smooth with no jumps in audio…i find this extremely important for me

  • overall less complex
  • auto-tune mechanism is nice
  • no aftertouch
  • no velocity → volume envelope

There may be more but these are things I think about when picking one instrument over the other for a recording, gig, project, etc. Good luck with your choice!

19

Didn’t you forget the “overdrive” as a plus for the phatty? :wink:

20

Well, I more listed the things that I look at when picking one over the other for a particular project. The Voyager can do the overdrive thing with a 3 inch 1/4 to 1/4 cable using the old loopback trick - but yes, the LP overdrive is nice.