Some tips about using Phatty (or why I love phatty so much)

[sergiovalente9]

In the last month I read in this forum and in KT group, people asking for patch or advice in programing their own sounds in the excelent phatty.

Sorry for my bad english but spanish is my native language.

I want to share some tips (or general considerations) i found using my Phatty SE I for about two years (i buy me two months later the SE start selling).

The phatty was my 1st hardware synth but i was programming vst for abour 3 years before i own the phatty.

I think that any preset is an instrument. Some instruments gives a lot of octaves of good sound and others give only a few "good sounding" notes. So I divide in two mayor categories the sounds i made with phatty:

1) I call "instruments"

2) I call "sounds".

In the "instruments" i have 1 or two full octaves of sounds i really like. You can play notes, melodies. In phatty a good example is basslines. In this category (basslines) the phatty kick ass.

When i want to program any sound in phatty i start with an initial preset. Is very simple and give me a very control start. Only one oscilator, no modulation. Filter knob about de middle. Envelope volumen with start knob in 0, decay in 2 or 3, a little sustain and very little release. Envelope filter all knobs in 0. EGR in the middle, no filter res, no overload and no kb amount.

I consider this patch my initial "creative" preset.

I start playing (as a game) with the waveform i like. I start tweaking the wave form of oscilator one until i found one i really like. This is important, but more important for the accoustic "nature" feeling of the sound is the envelope of the volumen.
If you want a bass, a good start is 0 attack, a little decay (o few movemnts in ths area gives diferents sensations), a little sustain (or no sustain if you want) and very little release (i think that the ammount of release is related with what the filter will do). All this parameters in the volumen envelope.
After this you add the second oscilator, and you can reedit your work in the 1st oscilator. You can double the sound in OSC 1, give a "vibration" to the sound (if both osc have similar but no equal waveform) or you can have equal waveforms but in very similar (no equal) pitch. For this you have the freq knob in oscilator 2.
If you use both osc, one of then can be in diferent freq (en 2, 4, 8 or 16). So the freq field of the sound will be more wide.
After this i went to the filter area. The cutoff is very important. You set it to the freq you want and after you found it you can move it to have a more grooy sound. This movement you do, can be done for the filter envelope so is time to adjust your filter. You can start with one sound (with attack in 1 o r 2) and the sound chance. If in the filter envelope you have an 1 or 2 attack, decay en 3 or 4, sustain in the middle of the knob or more and realease near the left top of the sound you can have a very cool bass. Bright at 1st (in the attack part) and a little "low" in the rest of the sound. The decay ammount is very important because it gives the ammount of "bright sound" of the general sound. In the case of bass, gives you more fingered or more slappy sound, etc.

The MOD area, the LFO, give more live or complex sounds. Is (i think) the 3rd step in creating a sound. You can mod the pitch, the filter, waveform. All destination gives you diferents feelings. I choose 1st the destination and after the wave of the lfo. After this i choose the speed of the lfo (the rate) and after this the ammount. The ammount is very precise because is the mix of the mod weel position and the rate.

In phatty you can have 2 destination mod of the lfo. The second is in advance presets in the menu.

I give only a "bass" expample, but you can do other sounds like leads. If you start in the same way i write (in the same order but with differents knob positions you can do it).
I think this way of programming phatty is the clasical way.

The second way is using the phatty to make it sounds. You use it as a sound generator. Only a few notes sounds well for you C1, D1, E1 or a few notes in one octave and 1 or 2 in other octave (C1, D1, C4, E5, etc).
Phatty give you very powerfull sounds. Phatty all analog cirtuit give the chance to have very personal sounds. In this way i made some powerfull bassdrums, snare, etc.
I start with my initial preset in the same way i write before. But at 1st i choose very carefull the note i like more the sound more.
I record the sound and i put this in a simpler (i´m an ableton user). C3 is the note of the original sound, but now i have a polyphonic instrument. Some this an octave down in the simpler gives me another sound that 1 octave down in the phatty. But always i have a phatt, personal and powerfull, sound.
If you want snare you can use the 2nd osc as noise (as is shown in the Phatty manual).
I found this way of creating sounds very intereseting. I madre a preset in the phatty, record it and put this sound in a simpler. Is the combination of analog and digital procesing sounds a very very cool way to work to achive phatt sounds. The personality of the phatty transfer to the "digital" and "cold" simpler and, of course, you have always the control of the situation, because you can record another sound with the phatty that fits more with the sound you want to sound.

In my sounds i use phatty a lot. Some times as "instruments", sometimes as "sound generator". The bassdrums, snare (even close hats or tikis) i use in my tracks always some kind of sounds i program in the phatty.
Put sounds in simper (or another sampler) expand the phatty power and, in same case, gives a lot of found in making intereseting sounds.

If you want to listen some works I made with this way of work you can go to www.soundcloud.com/neither to listen it (is not necesary to register).

I hope my tips were helpfull for the people who read it and, why not, other people gives some general advice too.

Cheers from Argentina.

[Bryan T]

I enjoyed reading through your workflow process. I usually start with the Calibration preset and work from there. Lately, I'll have an idea for a modulation technique that I want to try ("What if I route a triangle wave to OSC 2 when it is Sync'd to OSC 1?" "What if I route the Noise Source to the Filter?"). From there, I'll experiment with waveforms, octaves, filter setting, and ADSR to see what I can accomplish.

I find I'm incredibly lazy about naming patches, so half of my Moog is filled with patches names Calibration.

[sergiovalente9]

I enjoyed reading through your workflow process. I usually start with the Calibration preset and work from there. Lately, I'll have an idea for a modulation technique that I want to try ("What if I route a triangle wave to OSC 2 when it is Sync'd to OSC 1?" "What if I route the Noise Source to the Filter?"). From there, I'll experiment with waveforms, octaves, filter setting, and ADSR to see what I can accomplish.

I find I'm incredibly lazy about naming patches, so half of my Moog is filled with patches names Calibration.

Thankz for your words Bryan and, again, sorry for my bad english.

To be honest, the idea of an initial patch and the settings i taked from here.

One of the best things of being part of the moog community is the flow of ideas and the exchange in ways of work with it. So I want to add my point of view.

[Voltor07]

A very nice post! My technique entails starting with a patch that sounds like something I want, but not really. Then, I start editing the oscillators, and changing mod destinations. After that, I mess with the filter and finally the envelopes. There are so many ways to create patches on the LP. Sometimes, I turn all the settings to 0 and start from scratch. That's a lot of fun when I have a couple hours to kill.

[jlugomiller]

i love making percussive sounds with the LP. the filters are so sensitive that you don't need to have any level from the oscillators to trigger them. try using sample & hold on oscillator 1 and using a noise source on oscillator 2 with a high resonance and the EG anywhere from 11 o'clock to 1 o'clock. sweep the cutoff and adjust ADSR to taste.......yum, delicious bass drum heaven.
...by the way, you english is great.

[fidooda]

thanks for sharing Sergio.

Here's a thread i bookmarked that offers another way to start crafting patches (with Amos' approach too):

http://www.moogmusic.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4813

[sergiovalente9]

thanks for sharing Sergio.

Here's a thread i bookmarked that offers another way to start crafting patches (with Amos' approach too):

http://www.moogmusic.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4813

Yep, i think this is the post i used to my initial patch!

[sergiovalente9]

A very nice post! My technique entails starting with a patch that sounds like something I want, but not really. Then, I start editing the oscillators, and changing mod destinations. After that, I mess with the filter and finally the envelopes. There are so many ways to create patches on the LP. Sometimes, I turn all the settings to 0 and start from scratch. That's a lot of fun when I have a couple hours to kill.

Voltor07, I know that there is a lot of ways of makeing patches. I don´t know why but i don´t feel confortable in start with a patch that sounds like something i want and editing. I feel there is always some parameter i don´t look after in the original sounds that limit me in same way.

Now I have 2 hardware synths, phatty and virus ti snow. The matrix modulation in Ti is so complex that if you don´t furn off all of it, you probably don´t came to sound you want.

In the phatty if i use a factory preset i always messed up with some mod destination or something like that. So I always prefer start from my initial patch.

Factory patches in Phatty are great (instead that the one´s in Ti, that really sucks) and i learn a lot about synthesis from them.

[sergiovalente9]

i love making percussive sounds with the LP. the filters are so sensitive that you don't need to have any level from the oscillators to trigger them. try using sample & hold on oscillator 1 and using a noise source on oscillator 2 with a high resonance and the EG anywhere from 11 o'clock to 1 o'clock. sweep the cutoff and adjust ADSR to taste.......yum, delicious bass drum heaven.
...by the way, you english is great.

MMmmm, last days i made a similar percusive preset in the phatty and in the virus ti snow. I want to made some "monophonic percusive sound", the sound you listen in minimal and techno. Same kind of 1 or 2 ocatves high bassdrums to play a little 1/16 or 1/32 notes.

The diference was great. The Ti patch was complex and with effects (reverb for example) but the Phatty preset (much more simple) was so phatt so warm so unique that the one that finaly appears in the mix.