Sub 37 & Slim Phatty Poly Chain

[Nohijo]

I recently acquired a Sub 37 (amazing) and shortly afterwards learned about the potential to build a nice, big fat, slim pahhty poly chain. Delighted with the prospect I got myself my first Slim Phatty with a view to building a bit of a poly monster. Initially I wanted to get going with my Sub 37 + 2 Slim Phatties and go from there.

The reason for this post is two fold.

First, I was very disappointed to learn that it is not possible to send patches from the SP to the Sub 37 and vice versa.

Bummer.

I'm not one for using purely presets but they're a damn good place to start and the prospect of building all of my Sub 37 presets from scratch on the Slim Phatty is not one that I'm attracted to.

So, does anyone know of any shortcuts around this or if not, are there any plans to build this functionality into the Sub 37?

On to issue number 2........

Having done a bit more research, I landed on the option of using my Sub 37 as a controller for the Slim Phatty chain so I acquired a couple more Slim Phatties. The set up I have now is as follows:

- Sub 37 (Connected to my DAW through USB, Poly off)
- Slim Phatty 1 (Set to Poly 1/3, midi in connected to the out of the Sub 37, midi thru to SP 2)
- Slim Phatty 2 (Poly 2/3, midi thru to SP 3)
- Slim Phatty 3 (Poly 3/3)

All units have the latest firmware and the Slim Phatties all have the same presets loaded. The poly definitely works. In fact, it's amazing. The problem is that I'm getting some very odd and frustrating results. I can use the Sub 37 to change patches and it changes them on all 3 phatties. Awesome! I can use the cut-off filter, resonance and ADSR on the Sub 37 and it replicates across all units. Amazing!

Alas, that about as far as it goes. If I try anything more than the cut-off, for example, LFO modulation it's very sporadic. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes the cut off filter even stops working across all units; a reset of the patch normally fixes the problem but other times not.

To boot, if I use the Sub 37 just for playing notes, and use the first SP to edit a patch, it still doesn't replicate across SP 1&2. From what I've read, whatever I change on SP should also change on SP2 & SP3, and whatever I change on SP2 should change the same parameter on SP3. This simply does not work. Also, if I change the patch on SP1 (by editing SP1 and not the Sub 37), it doesn't change the patch on SP2 or SP3.

Arggghhh.

I've tried local on and off on all machines (although, assume local needs to be ON so you use 3 different patches), experimenting with different midi merge options, and power-cycling them in order. None of these seem to make a difference.

Is there something simple that I'm overlooking here? Do I need to have a Slim Phatties connected to the DAW through USB or something? Should I just forget using the Sub 37 as a controller and just use a midi controller and edit the Slim Phatties directly? Even better, is there a comprehensive guide hidden somewhere which I can get hold of?

Please help! I think this has amazing potential but if it's too glitchy I'll have to boycot as I can't afford to lose the studio time.

[Nohijo]

Ok, I think I've pretty much sorted this issue out after much more research and experimentation.

I found another post where this was touched upon and the solution to the issue of changes on the first Slim Phatty not replicating throughout the chain was because I had SP1 connected to SP2 via midi thru. As it's the first in the chain, it needs be from the midi OUT, otherwise it will only play notes and patch edits are not transferred.

So switching from midi THRU to midi OUT solved that problem.

Then I went on to try to get everything hooked up in the DAW. The perfect implementation as far as I can guess would be to connect Slim Phatty 1 through USB. Essentially, this would be idea for me as it would leave midi din channels free for other kit as I only have a midi 2x2 box and I'm using both channels.

So, I connected it up and BINGO, it all worked absolutely perfectly. Polyphony was working as expected, I had partial control over the chain through the Sub 37 and the patch could be edited on Slim Phatty 1 with all changes being replicated across the other Slims.

I had to close everything down after that to run some errands and when I returned to switch everything back on unfortunately it completely stopped working. The main issue was that the first Slim Phatty was acting up, with midi notes holding continuously and some very odd noises coming from it. The chain was not working and it kept crashing me DAW (Cubase). Now, I had a similar issue with the Sub 37 and this was resolved by switching out the USB cable to one of higher quality. Unfortunately using the same cable had no impact on the Slim Phatty.

Going back to basics I switched poly off and just tried to get the first SP working as a standalone unit. No joy!

So there is a clear issue with USB. It worked for a while, the stopped, then started crashing Cubase. It could well be the DAW or my PC but unlikely as I have quite a few other bits of kit connected and everything has been working fine for months. It was the introduction of the new Slim Phatty which started causing problems.

So, I decided to go for the midi DIN connection option, connecting the Sub 37 midi OUT to the midi IN of Slim Phatty 1. Unfortunately, polyphony completely stopped working with this option. If I connect the midi THRU on Slim Phatty 1 to Slim Phatty 2, polyphony is restored but any patch changes aren't replicated throughout the chain.

The solution: Midi MERGE on SP1. This restored polyphony AND allows patch changes throughout the chain. Problem solved!! I'm not sure if this is how it's supposed to work but is definitely resolved my issues for sure.

In addition, this seems to have restored some of the functions on the Sub 37. After comparing the Slim Phatty and Sub 37 manuals, it's clear that the reason the Sub 37 doesn't control all of the Slim parameters is because they do not share the same CC numbers for the key parameters. Cut-off, resonance, ADSR all work. What was a bit disappointing was that the modulation parameters aren't married. The weird thing is, both models share CC 3 for LFO rate, however, earlier any changes to LFO rate on the Sub 37 were NOT resulting in corresponding changes on the Slim Phatty. However, after connecting everything through MIDI as opposed to USB, this now works!!!

Crazy right?

I only seem to have one issue outstanding in that any patch changes made on Slim Phatty 2 DO NOT affect Slim Phatty 3, and I believe they should. (Maybe the midi out/merge solution outlined above may fix this, however, I'm not too bother about that right now).

If I can keep everything stable I will be adding a few more Slims to this set up as the results are OUTSTANDING

[Chimponaut]

Thanks for documenting all this here in the forum. I'm thinking about picking up a SP at some point so this will be very helpful info. 1 question though...Have you noticed a difference in the basic sound of the synths? SP vs S37? Many claim the SP has a more organic/analogue character. It has analogue envelopes, as opposed to the digital ones on the S37, and different oscillators. I have never heard the SP in person but I'm thinking it is something I have to check out. I love the S37 and had plans to get a Mother 32 to sit next to it. But from what I've heard the SP might be the better choice. Especially for the prices they are going for used.