First gig with Phatty....or so I thought...Major Bug!!!

[Amos]

contact techsupport at moogmusic dot com... they have a definite fix for any "dancing lights" / parameter drift you may be experiencing.

[pierrotlefou]

Thanks for the suggestion. I did this a day ago and just received a reply that there exists a grounding modification. Hopefully that will correct the error in the original Little Phatty.

[Biigm]

Hi All.

I'm the OP. I went to the importer of moog in Denmark and had this fixed. At first he didn't want to believe that this was even an issue, but when I showed him, he was pretty surprised.

After much thinking, he ended up having the grounding inside redone in a better way, and since the I've had absolutely no problems. So this is definitely a design flaw no matter what moog are saying in here, and it CAN and SHOULD be fixed.

One of my friends bought a patty too, and ended up having the exact same repair done, with same good results.

[pierrotlefou]

I'm glad for you that you had it solved! And it's good to hear there's actually a solution.

Very strange though that this is a design flaw in all (older?) Phattys and not more is known about it (I searched for hours on the internet for a solution).

One question: I hope to avoid long discussion with Moog about the costs of fixing this error, because I think it's something that should have been correct in the first place... but how much did it cost you?

[David Smyth]

Hi All.

I'm the OP. I went to the importer of moog in Denmark and had this fixed. At first he didn't want to believe that this was even an issue, but when I showed him, he was pretty surprised.

After much thinking, he ended up having the grounding inside redone in a better way, and since the I've had absolutely no problems. So this is definitely a design flaw no matter what moog are saying in here, and it CAN and SHOULD be fixed.

One of my friends bought a patty too, and ended up having the exact same repair done, with same good results.

An electrical engineer is currently looking at my Slim Phattys for this or a similar issue (my older Little Phatty Stage II is fine, but my two Slim Phattys have self-moving dials when plugged into power only). It looks promising that we have found the cause of my problem. I'll post on the forums when I know more/have a solution to my Slim Phattys' issue.

Regards,
David Smyth
NZ

[pierrotlefou]

Great, David, I hope it works out for you!

[Mike]

It looks promising that we have found the cause of my problem. I'll post on the forums when I know more/have a solution to my Slim Phattys' issue.

An EE?! Amazing the lengths a love for the Moog can send us to. Kudos for sticking with it. I definitely look forward to more info!

[ollie633]

If I wanted to get this grounding modification done, would I have to send it to the Moog factory or is there anywhere in the UK that will help me get this done, as I can't live with this problem much longer! Im glad to hear there is a solution though! but yes I agree with pierrotlefou

"how can a product by a well-established company like Moog exhibit this kind of behavior for so many users?"

Sure you have to deal with a few more things when buying analog, but I have a few analog synthesizers that are 30 years old and never have suffered anything like this.

[David Smyth]

If I wanted to get this grounding modification done, would I have to send it to the Moog factory or is there anywhere in the UK that will help me get this done?

I'd imagine you could get your country's Moog-contracted technician to install the ground mod. In my case (in New Zealand), the Moog-contracted Technician here was going to install the ground mod into my two Slim Phattys, but it turned out the SP's already had the mod from the factory (I assume that since SP's came out later than LP's, they include the mod in SP's when they're built). So my Slim Phattys have the problem regardless of having the ground mod - but my situation is probably different to yours as it seems grounding is not the issue in my case (I'm still testing one of my SP's with an Electrical Engineer).

Anyway email Moog Support about it - they informed me of the Moog-contracted technician (and their contact email address) in my country (in my case a repairman for my country's Moog-distributor music store), and they offered to send the instructions to the technician if it was an unfamiliar mod. I emailed the technician to discuss the mod, and then I took my units to my local Moog-distributor music store who sent them to the technician for the mod installation.

I hope this helps!

Regards,
David Smyth
NZ

[ollie633]

If I wanted to get this grounding modification done, would I have to send it to the Moog factory or is there anywhere in the UK that will help me get this done?

I'd imagine you could get your country's Moog-contracted technician to install the ground mod. In my case (in New Zealand), the Moog-contracted Technician here was going to install the ground mod into my two Slim Phattys, but it turned out the SP's already had the mod from the factory (I assume that since SP's came out later than LP's, they include the mod in SP's when they're built). So my Slim Phattys have the problem regardless of having the ground mod - but my situation is probably different to yours as it seems grounding is not the issue in my case (I'm still testing one of my SP's with an Electrical Engineer).

Anyway email Moog Support about it - they informed me of the Moog-contracted technician (and their contact email address) in my country (in my case a repairman for my country's Moog-distributor music store), and they offered to send the instructions to the technician if it was an unfamiliar mod. I emailed the technician to discuss the mod, and then I took my units to my local Moog-distributor music store who sent them to the technician for the mod installation.

I hope this helps!

Regards,
David Smyth
NZ

Cheers David! Just contacted Moog support and they gave me the details of a qualified engineer that has dealt and is familiar with Moog Products in the past, so hopefully I can get this all sorted out!

thanks once again!

[Sore_Knee]

does anyone know the details of the modification?

[David Smyth]

does anyone know the details of the modification?

I'm not 100% sure, but if it is what I think it is (when opening up one of my SP's), it looks like a grounding wire is installed from the back of one of the front panel PCB's to one of the corner screws holding the PSU board to the base of the chassis.

I could be wrong.

Regards,
David Smyth
NZ

[pierrotlefou]

Just contacted Moog support and they gave me the details of a qualified engineer that has dealt and is familiar with Moog Products in the past, so hopefully I can get this all sorted out!

I did the same, contacted the service center that Moog recommended, and got back a very friendly reply that I should use a D.I. box.
I don't blame the local service center, because they never heard of the problem apparantly. But I am quite frustrated that Moog recommends me to contact someone who will solve the problem, but doesn't know how to solve it!

In addition, "we cannot regulate the pricing of international service centers, so I can't promise that this work will be covered under warranty."
It seems kind of strange that I have to pay for Moog's design errors.
(As a comparison, I know that when Roland had problems with their 'Ivory touch' stage piano keys, they renewed the keys of all of the pianos with this problem for free.)

[diddi_jo]

So, finally there is a mod. There had to be an internal workaround. I had a LP Stage II. Fine in the studio but random dancing lights and no control of parameters at random stage events. Eventually I got rid of the instrument. I will probably buy another one, once this is taken care of. Regards, Sid

[namahshaman]

Are most of you having these problems outside the states? So far, I've only played 2 gigs (in the US) with my SP, but it's been fine so far.