Little Phatty Stage II or Sub Phatty?

[unicornking]

Hey friends,

I am in dire need of some advice. My pal is willing to sell me his Little Phatty Stage II for $900. I was looking at the Moog Music website & see that the Sub Phatty is on sale for a very similar price. I know that the LPSII is normally 1500+, but do you think it would be worth it to wait and go for the Sub Phatty? Would really appreciate anyones input!

Thanks

[EMwhite]

The answer lies in what you are looking to do with it.

If live playing, the additional several keys is a plus and many would say necessary.

If this is going to be your only synth for a while, and you are not so much into using a DAW on your computer for sequencing, etc, then you might find that the Arpeggiator of the LP is fun and not available on the Sub Phatty at least today. LP can also 'send' clock which means if you have a drum machine, you can have the two in sync and use the LP as the master; however Sub Phatty can certainly receive clock for sync'ing the LFO, as the LP can.

Tonal range is something to be considered, Sub Phatty, with the sub OSC and with noise right at your fingertips is more useful for sound crafting and the overdrive circuit is quite different; as is the mixer section which looks to have it's own brand of overdrive quite a bit different from what the original Little Phatty had.

I mentioned 'noise' above. Little Phatty, on the later firmware has Noise but it's derived from the digital circuit and some menu diving and changes to modulation sources must be used in order to do anything with it; then again, either synth will allow you to send in Audio from an external source, however Sub Phatty has a CC based control for this and I don't think that Little Phatty has any controls in the mixer for this (you can only decrease the volume of the two OSCs): [will have to double check this one]

The 2-octave vs. 3-octave keyboard for live playing is a head scratcher. You have to be rather quick and adept with the Octave buttons or the OSC range buttons in order to shift the 25 key Sub Phatty around while playing across the range (either above or below); BUT you can certainly do much more in the way of live tweaking of controls due the majority of it being hands on/up front; Little Phatty on the other hand affords the additional octave and depending on what you are playing, you may find that you never need to shift octaves while playing a particular part; but tweaking, while possible certainly requires additional skill because you'll need to shift the envelope generators via stage buttons; and forget about tweaking the # of filter poles while playing; that requires menu-diving, one slip up and you just changed the patch or grabbed the master tuning know on accident (whoops!).

No answer here, just a few things to think about. Both are G-R-E-A-T; Little Phatty is under rated and Sub Phatty is hopefully about to put Moog back into the forefront and raise the bar in quality and design.

[stiiiiiiive]

What EMwhite says.

I was just thinking of the keyspans differences vs. knob quantoty differences. But the multidrive and sub+noise are also to take into account.

I don't know how much costs a Little Phatty where you live, but if your friend's proposal is a good deal, and you were not especially planning to wait for the Sub Phatty to come out, why wouldn't you take a coin? I doubt you would loose much money re-selling it in case you change your mind.

Just thinking outloud, huh?

[ricknboogie]

I don't know if this will help you decide, But I own a Little Phatty Stage II, and while I'm also interested in the Sub Phatty, there's NO WAY I'd get rid of my LP to do it. Both are great little synths, so either would be a great choice, but 25 keys vs 37 keys is a BIG deal.

[EricK]

Also, if you must make a decision quickly, I would consider waiting several months after the Sub Phatty has shipped to give Moog time to perfect any bugs that are discovered once there are units in the field. This way you avoid losing the "connection" with the synth while waiting for said bugs to be addressed.

I also think 900 is a little high. I'd try to talk him down to 700 if you can.

Eric

[unicornking]

Hey all,

Thanks so much for your input.

Ideally, I would like to use this synth for sound design. I've heard really good things about the LP and don't know much about either one.

I've been looking for the Oberheim Matrix 6 & Juno 60, but in my area they are scarce / very pricey.

The only reason why I'm opposed to the SP is the fact that the keyboard is much smaller- I think it might be wise to wait for bugs to get fixed & hopefully in the future they will come out with a larger version?

I was under the impression that $900 for the LP is pretty decent, considering it normally costs over 1500- 700 is what it is really worth?

[David Bulog]

Sub Phatty its state of art and where Moog is right row
Im going to put my reputation on the line and say based on what i see here the Sub phatty is even better than the Voyager
I just bought a Voyager EB brand new 4 months ago BTW

Sub phatty
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... YfhIMAwjVM

[Voltor07]

I was under the impression that $900 for the LP is pretty decent, considering it normally costs over 1500- 700 is what it is really worth?

I might go $800, if it was in like-new condition. $900 seems a bit steep.

[Portamental]

Little Phatty is under rated and Sub Phatty is hopefully about to put Moog back into the forefront and raise the bar in quality and design.

My thoughts exactly.

The more I read and hear about the Sub Phatty , the more I like it. My big big turn-off is 25 keys but 12 keys more, like the LP, is both a lot more and not enough, so I have come to terms with the fact that I will want to use it with an external midi keyboard. I do have a beautiful Arturia 61 notes midi controller waiting for it. I like knobs, there's plenty. I don't want a LCD nor presets. but a few, accessible directly with buttons is totally cool. CV in's, I don't ever want to do without them, and they are there. Multidrive... wowww can't wait.

It's no secret that I like the sound of the LP better now that of the Voyager, so again, bringing the best of the LP and from either the recently designed Minitaur or T3 is a coup de génie. Street price a bit lower than 1100... Bring it on!

[EricK]

EM,
So you dipped into your Oberheim 2-voice fund for the Sub Phatty I gather?

[EMwhite]

EM,
So you dipped into your Oberheim 2-voice fund for the Sub Phatty I gather?

A bit off topic but I'll address here:

I've given up on Tom and the new Two-voice. 2nd year in a row that I've sold gear, move things around, scraped together extra dough in order to afford it then found it was not going to be available for an unspecified number of months. $3,500 is ALOT of money to be honest so I always had reservations.

So I went out and bought two second hand Tom O SEMs (patch panel version), sold 5 of my STG Time modules which were MU in order to pickup Euro version of the STG Volt stores (for 2 x 8 steps), and will be picking up this once Hex (Stacey) has it available:




So yeah, enough money left over to buy a Sub Phatty but I'm going to wait until summer just because I want to get my 2nd modular cabinet built (it's a modest 12 space MU cabinet that goes above my existing).

[kslight]

$900 seems expensive to me, I've seen them used at Guitar Center for that, and they tend to price high (so you can beat them down on it later). Looking at eBay Sold Listing shows that $750-ish isn't uncommon, and a seller would eat about $100 of that in Paypal and eBay fees and have to pack and ship it...so $700 would be a fair offer where both parties win, IMHO. Unless you just want to give your buddy above average because you can. For a hair above your buddy's asking price you could get a brand new Sub Phatty (just got to shop the merchants, play their game, yes there is wiggle room on their prices).

Not to be overly negative but this does kind of aggravate me...ultimately it comes down to which "crippling" features you can live with more, either 25 keys or very little hands on control...and if you want a more flexible sound engine or an arp. I give marginal bias to the Sub Phatty, if it were my money, because I really don't jive with synths that are light on control, and in hands on experience with the Little Phatty was not impressed...but in online videos the Sub Phatty does more for me (WHY 25 KEYS THOUGH SERIOUSLY how much does an extra octave of keys cost?). I'm assuming though you have messed with your buddy's Little Phatty (sounds so wrong!) and you like it so that doesn't matter. Sonically it is pretty safe to assume that the Sub Phatty can do everything the Little Phatty can (minus arp), but not the other way around.

[klos]

Little Phatty connected to Slim Phatty(s) can be polyphonic. It can be microtuned as well so you can play with alternative scales or "just intonation". I am not sure about microtuning on SP. Anyone?

[T.R.O.Y.]

I'm looking to make my first Moog purchase soon. I was set on the LPii but the emergence of the SP has got me in a bind. I dont play live, its more for home recording, and Im not a keyboard player by far. But I've always read that the LPii is "player's keyboard." can anyone elaborate on this? I own a Roland 106 and a MicroKorgXL (might trade for the original) and Im thinking either the LPii or the SP will be my last addition (granted I dont come across any steals). I like the fact that LPii has 100 presets, as opposed to SP's 16 pres. But the small frame and knobs are what attract me to the SP. Anybody got any advice for me?

[Voltor07]

T.R.O.Y., the best advice I can give you is to try both units when the Sub is available in a music store near you. The Sub Phatty sounds significantly different, and you may prefer its sound to the LP's. Also, knob per function is always great to have.