Slim Phatty/Ableton/Midi/Problems

The Moog Forum Little Phatty & Slim Phatty Forum
1

Hello all,
Just purchased a Slim Phatty, absolutely love the sound but I am having some weird issues and I want to make sure something is wrong before I decide to return it, that’s of course if something is actually wrong with the unit.

I am running a brand new system I just built:
Win 7 64 bit/2600k 5.0ghz/16gb RAM
Saffire Pro 24
Ableton 8.2.2
Akai MPK49 (midi controller)
Slim Phatty desktop unit

I do not have a USB wire to hook up straight to my PC for my Slim Phatty, didn’t even know they existed, I am using to regular midi wires.

I have my midi controller connected with the provided USB wire by Akai.
I have my Slim Phatty connected to my Saffire pro midi interface (2-way connection in/out) with standard midi wires.
I have one audio cable connected to an audio input on my audio interface, and all audio signals routed appropriately.
I create one audio track for monitoring the audio signal.
I create one midi track with an external instrument set to “Midi to: Pro Audio 24 | Ch 1”, and “Midi From: All | Ch All”
Under preferences in Ableton I have the MPK49 set up perfectly, and underneath I dont have the option everyone else talks about to select the Slim Phatty as a controller, yet I do have my Pro Audio selected for input and output. Please note all the other threads where people were able to select their SP or LP were using USB for midi, I am not.


Here is the problem:
I searched all the other various threads and found a few threads similar to my problem, but when I tried their resolution (if they posted it) it did not work for me.

I can record midi notes with no problem, but when I try to record automation it is very sporadic and imprecise. I have tried setting the SP to “Local Control off” under midi setup and using my controller, but to no avail. I have tried reboots/resets.
Then randomly it starts to record automation again, but when I playback, the automation itself starts about 1 second after it was suppose to start, and moves very clunky. Then it stops working all together again.

Another problem, when I simply play back notes on my midi controller and manually adjust the filter and resonance the knobs act very sluggish, at first I figured it’s because it’s analogue mode is set to “track” but when I try “pass-thru” or “snap” they do not work. It will catch up under pass-thru but randomly stop functioning and get stuck in a certain position eventhough I am moving the knob, same for “snap” setting.

Another problem, even though I am letting the unit warm up properly, I HEAR my knobs through my speakers when I move them. Especially the filter knob. When I am not playing anything and simply just moving the knob I can hear it almost too clearly through my speakers.

Tomorrow I will post up pictures of all my settings in Ableton in case it wasn’t clear to anyone, I hope I can resolve this. I mail-ordered my Slim Phatty, it took forever to get here, has been nothing but problems to this point, and I think I will have a problem trying to return it. I won’t even get into the hassle I had even ATTEMPTING to run the “Slim Phatty VST editor” in Ableton on a Windows PC. Just didn’t work for me at all, and dealing with the annoying pop up every few minutes did not give me enough time to properly try everything without constantly getting interrupted. It’s just not professional, and has left a sour taste dealing with this whole experience, sort of glad I didn’t end up getting the Voyager now.

2

Nevulus,
I have sort of have the same set up as you but i use WIN XP
I would say get a USB Cable
Saffire Pro 24
Ableton 8
novation midi controller
Slim Phatty

I set it up like this using usb for the slim & usb for my midi keyboard:

open a audio track it name it Phatty Audio
open a midi track with the External Instrument on,
set the drop down box to MIDI TO as USB Audio Device (this is my slim phatty yours might be named different) and the next drop down box to ch1
on the midi track the MIDI FROM I left as All ins & All channels
Set Monitor to to Auto
Set Audio to to Phatty Audio (this is the audio track u named before)

On the audio track next set Audio From to Ext. in & 3 (3 is the channel i have the slim phatty audio going in my focusrite pro 24 (sound card) make the channel that the slim is on in your Sound card it muted so you don’t get feedback
Set Monitor to In
Set Audio To to Master

I have to set the Track Delay to -35 ms on the Audio Track

Have a go of that, that’s how i do it and works

3

Mesa, I have it setup like that now, except the for the usb midi wire, I am using regular midi wires.
I can record notes no problem, but recording automation to the clip is very clunky and awkward, and when it does record the actual automation in the clip envelope in Ableton has a little over a 1 second delay.

Also I am unable to use analog mode: snap or pass-thru, just doesn’t work.
If possible can you post a screen shot of your preference/midi setup in Ableton?
I am going to head over and purchase a usb cable to use for midi to see if that can solve the issues with the delay.

4

u really dont need to create an audio channel just for the SP sound, u just need to choose in the external instrument plugin “audio from ch1” or whatever other chanel you plugged the SP into ur audio interface.

5

Also, update to the latest Slim Phatty firmware! It should improve the response to MIDI CC automation considerably.
I’ll be posting an official update Monday to the Moog website, but can post the updates for you here in a bit.

6

Currently I have version:3.03 617/31 according to my SP.

I figured out some of the craziness going on with the automation. Ableton is receiving filter automation, but since I have the SP set to 14 bit for the filter knob (set by default) Ableton is receiving the first set of CC messages just fine (CC19), but the second set of CC51 is all erratic.

By setting the SP to transmit 7bit for the filter knob resolved the chaotic behavior, I also copied and pasted the information from cc19 to cc51 in the Ableton clip envelope and it sounded perfect, lol, but the responsiveness is still delayed by a good 1.5 seconds.

I am going to look up information on updating my firmware now

7

point.source to get the most out of it you do need the audio track, its for any EQs, Delays, compression ect. and to bounce the AUDIO

Nevulus I have the Track Delay to -35 ms and my buffer latency on the Pro 24 is at 224 so the Track Delay would need to be different if the latency is an yer update firmware as Amos says.

I dont know how to do a screen shot sorry

8

latest official release firmware for all models of Phatty is in here:

http://seamslikereality.com/moog/Phatty_v3_all_updates_mac_windows.zip

(Unzip, look in the Mac or Windows folder for your model of Phatty, all instructions and documentation are in there)

Individual downloads coming Monday… will be the same as what’s in here though. cheers!

9

also, the “hearing the knobs” through the speakers thing - that is what’s called a ground loop, somewhere in your system.
I had this crazy bad at one point recently… it turned out to be a bad audio cable from my computer sound card to my mixer; I also had the phatty plugged into the mixer and was sending MIDI from the Phatty to the computer… I heard every bit of MIDI data as this loud “zzip” from my speakers.

I changed the audio cable from the computer, changed nothing about the Phatty setup and the sound went away.

In some other cases the ground loop can be caused by power cables… you can try making sure that everything is plugged into the same power circuit, or you may try using a ground-lifting plug adaptor on one or another piece of gear. There’s probably one single thing causing it which if you can find it, will be the fix..

10

I updated the firmware.

I replaced the audio cable, but the knob sound was still there when turning the filter knob. After letting the unit sit for over an hour the sound went away. Now the knob sound is gone completely, even after turning the unit on and turning the knob immediately. I am going to assume the unit had to get comfortable with its new home :slight_smile:

I still cannot get smooth filter automation in Ableton live at all, but after reading numerous forums I have come to the conclusion it is a problem with Ableton Live 8.2.2 and not the slim phatty. At first I thought I had it figured out in Ableton, but it was a false alarm

So I decided to try it out in a different sequencer to oncfirm my recent findings ont he internet. I downloaded/installed Reaper and drew in automation for the Phatty and it played back perfect, something Ableton Live failed at. I have not recorded live automation into Reaper just yet, because I just got the application so I have to play with it some more to figure out everything, but I am going to try sometime tomorrow when I have some free time.

11

Nevulus,

Sounds like you are having similar problems like I am. Read my posts in the OS 3.1 topic. It seems like ableton is sending midi data that the Phatty does not get along with. If I unplug the midi in cable to the phatty this all goes away. My only issue is that I have DSI synths as well, that are not having this issue when I record, so I wonder what is the difference in the code?

Geoscience

12

Ableton Live does not support NRPN nor SysEx. There have been plenty of user requests in the Ableton Forum to implement this, maybe they’ll get their act together come Ableton Live 9. :mrgreen:

13

In the meantime, why don’t you stop treating this marvellous piece of hardware as a VST and use your hands to tweak the knobs an buttons?

I mean, that’s one of the reasons you buy hardware, right??

Instead of automating the cutoff, why don’t you record it on the fly? IT’s so much easier i think…

14

Oh but I do understand what you mean point.source! :smiley: It’s just if I use live as a sequencer, not to record audio, but just to automate, as Live plays back to the Phatty these envelope glitches can be audible. I may have the Phatty running on “auto pilot” while I knob tweak another peice of analogue gear!