Worth it to go Duophonic?

I am a new owner, and despite my trouble with the VST editor, I love the sound and design of the synth so much that I am already tempted to get another and go Duophonic. My question is this: is it worth the money to get a second phatty for duophony? Or is it only worth it with 3 or more? I am especially interested to hear from people who have a Duophonic phatty setup, but certainly would entertain all opinions! :smiley:

If I had two Phatties, duophony would be neat, but just a bonus. I think I’d use them to make two different monophonic sounds at the same time or stereo image the same sound with the modulation slightly offset between the channels or a 4 OSC beast.

Lots of uses for 2 phatties.

I don’t have a duophonic Phatty setup but I do have one with Mophos (module + keyboard). ā€œWorth itā€ is always subjective, and going duophonic with Mophos is a little cheaper than it would be with Phattys, but I’m finding it even more useful than I thought it would be. It doesn’t get anywhere near real pad territory even with all the Mopho modulation options, but it’s still very nice for texture to be able to grab an extra note. Also, when soloing (if you play that way) it can be really nice to play dyads every now and then for harmonic implications or, again, texture variation. One thing I wasn’t expecting but I like especially: even when playing monophonic melodies if the decay is long then the decays of subsequent notes will overlap which gives a nice thickness to the sound almost like a guitar or piano with light damper. And some patches which sound a bit uninspiring monophonic can really come alive when you add even just one extra voice. So I’d say that it’s not exactly a no-brainer, but it certainly opens things up nicely. It’s been inspirational enough that I’m even considering getting an SP to go with my LP so I’ll have duophonic Phattys as well as duophonic Mophos, although I might not actually do it…

It might very well be. Having two voices sure is nice…having three is nice, but being able to play them all with one hand is nicer.

I can’t sync the Voyager and Taurus like they SHOULD BE ABLE TO which is what I wanted to achieve with them.

It is a very nice thing, but it seems to me that it would be nicest when you can do at least triads as opposed to second intervals only.


Eric

You know, if you multitrack audio, you could create an entire band from a single Phatty. And that’d be largely for free.

I gotta agree with narrowcaster, two notes sounds much fuller than one. I simply use a voyager with an oberheim SEM. Voyager low not priority, SEM high note. Sounds fantastic. It’s a unison sound when one note is played, and then spits up as I play a second note. Works great, very intuitive, and a simple midi implementation. Worth it.

Thanks for the insights folks. It certainly gives me something to think about. There is a LP Stage II on my local Craigslist for a pretty good price. It is looking pretty darn tempting! Adding that to my SP would give me two voices, and as time goes on and $ permits, I could add another SP for #3…

The problem then becomes how to set them all up in my limited space, lol.

Like this:

:wink:

I have a quad setup and I love it! …although I’ll be pissed when the day comes that there’s an 8-voice LP with 3 OSCs.

That’s a great setup you’ve got there! Man… i so envy you right now lol.


I’m waiting for a SEM too!! Can’t wait to try it with my SP

Wow! I would love to noodle with a 4 phatty setup. It must be nice!! Also love the Moogerfoogers with that CV out option. Have any videos demonstrating the possibilities?

I wish – everything’s mothballed right now while I move, unfortunately. I love the setup; I can only imagine what it would sound like in the hands of someone who’s skilled at keys. I’m a guitar guy in real life…

One thing that’s frustrating is that the CV out only works on whichever voice is coming from the Little Phatty. I wish there was a way to set it to be ā€˜global’ so that it sent its CV signals no matter which voice was triggered by the keyboard.

i played around with a 2 voice little/slim setup at sam ash a while back. it was quite amazing! not just for duophonic playing but for multitimberal as well. set up and bass drone on the first phatty and stacto arpeggiator on the other :open_mouth: or playing duophonic and having two different patches setup you can do a ā€œcall and responseā€ type thing with yourself. lots of fun to be had with multiple phatties

Or even better, CV out on the slims.

+1,000,000

Worth getting 1 more Slim Phatty to go duophonic.
Worth getting 2 more Slim Phatty to go triphonic or add one each to various MIDI keyboards, bass pedals
Worth getting 8 more Slim Phattys to go hog wild and make the ultimate Moog Constellation / MemoryMoog.

I plan to just keep buying as many as I can per year


If you were a model train enthusiast, you would save up and buy a cool model train car per year until you had this amazing layout and trainset. If you’re into Moogs, you owe it to yourself to buy a cool Slim Phatty per year until you have this amazing layout and Moogset. Maybe you will find something under the Christmas Tree

I believe this constitutes a great argument for why their poly needs to be totally self contained, so you can draw CV straight from the source (keyboard).

I thought purchasing the Taurus with my Voyager would allow me to do some of the same duophonic things that Colorform described, but as of yet they can’t play with eachother properly through MIDI or CV.

Is it worth it to go duophonic? For me it hasn’t been.


Flametop…I have plenty of space under my tre if you are buying.