Poly Phonic Moog?

[T7]

There are a lot of folks around here who find "Little Phatty" to sound too "90s street" and would likely prefer a name with a more '70s vibe, how about Moog Gnome?

[Christopher Winkels]

I can't help but agree. Anything to bury the "Phatty" name. Nothing says "1990s" like any moniker derived from the word "phat".

The '90s produced some of greatest synth based music ever, so...

Well, that's a matter of opinion. Mine differs.

Into prog rock?

Only Floyd and Genesis, and even then fairly infrequently these days. I spend far more time listening to Ultravox, Patrick Cowley, The Human League, Cabaret Voltaire, Yazoo, early Bowie, New Order, et al.

I found the '90s to be a large black hole when it came to good synth music. How else can I characterize the decade that gave us 2 Unlimited, The Lords Of Acid, OMC, Ace Of Base and EMF? So many paragons of '90s musical excellence to choose from!

[Carey M]

How else can I characterize the decade that gave us 2 Unlimited, The Lords Of Acid, OMC, Ace Of Base and EMF? So many paragons of '90s musical excellence to choose from!

You're forgetting (or ignoring) Underworld, Leftfield, Orbital, 808 State, Portishead, Moloko, Tricky, Massive Attack, Red Snapper, DJ Shadow, Morcheeba, Sneaker Pimps, FSOL, Prodigy, Nightmares on Wax, a couple of Depeche Mode records and many many others...

- CM

[T7]

I can't help but agree. Anything to bury the "Phatty" name. Nothing says "1990s" like any moniker derived from the word "phat".

The '90s produced some of greatest synth based music ever, so...

Well, that's a matter of opinion. Mine differs.

Into prog rock?

Only Floyd and Genesis, and even then fairly infrequently these days. I spend far more time listening to Ultravox, Patrick Cowley, The Human League, Cabaret Voltaire, Yazoo, early Bowie, New Order, et al.

I had a feeling you were an '80s enthusiast. That's the trend people are stuck in these days. I can appreciate some of it but so much of it sounds dated in bad way, Yazoo and Human Legue being examples.

[T7]

How else can I characterize the decade that gave us 2 Unlimited, The Lords Of Acid, OMC, Ace Of Base and EMF? So many paragons of '90s musical excellence to choose from!

You're forgetting (or ignoring) Underworld, Leftfield, Orbital, 808 State, Portishead, Moloko, Tricky, Massive Attack, Red Snapper, DJ Shadow, Morcheeba, Sneaker Pimps, FSOL, Prodigy, Nightmares on Wax, a couple of Depeche Mode records and many many others...

- CM

Precisely.

[Voltor07]

Extreme Phatty.


Like Extreme Toilet Paper

Made from burlap

Stop right now.

[Subtronik]

I found the '90s to be a large black hole when it came to good synth music.

Anyone that finds gaps in decade from the 60's on for good synth music just hasn't looked hard enough.

Great bands were making great music in the 90's, Front 242, Revolting Cocks, Skinny Puppy, etc.

I love every decade's music, from The Beatles to The Prodigy.

[mayidunk]

There are a lot of folks around here who find "Little Phatty" to sound too "90s street" and would likely prefer a name with a more '70s vibe, how about Moog Gnome?

How about the Moog Prism?

[Voltor07]

There are a lot of folks around here who find "Little Phatty" to sound too "90s street" and would likely prefer a name with a more '70s vibe, how about Moog Gnome?

How about the Moog Prism?

How about the Megamoog? That fits no matter what decade you're living in.

[mayidunk]

There are a lot of folks around here who find "Little Phatty" to sound too "90s street" and would likely prefer a name with a more '70s vibe, how about Moog Gnome?

How about the Moog Prism?

How about the Megamoog? That fits no matter what decade you're living in.

They should also build its case so that you can stack a Voyager or a Phatty on top of it! That, along with the new Taurus pedals, and you truly have "The" MegaMoog! (A modern day Constellation!)

[ColorForm2113]

How about the Moog Prism?

nah sound like a hybrid sedan that runs on vo power and s-trigger lol

[Christopher Winkels]

How else can I characterize the decade that gave us 2 Unlimited, The Lords Of Acid, OMC, Ace Of Base and EMF? So many paragons of '90s musical excellence to choose from!

You're forgetting (or ignoring) Underworld, Leftfield, Orbital, 808 State, Portishead, Moloko, Tricky, Massive Attack, Red Snapper, DJ Shadow, Morcheeba, Sneaker Pimps, FSOL, Prodigy, Nightmares on Wax, a couple of Depeche Mode records and many many others...

- CM

Honestly, I listened to most of those bands in the '90s and haven't bothered to since. They had zero resonance for me in the long run, with the possible exception of Prodigy the second Massive Attack album, and Depeche Mode (though I think pretty much all their output since MFTM has been rather uninspired). The '90s stuff has not aged well to me.

[Christopher Winkels]

I found the '90s to be a large black hole when it came to good synth music.

Anyone that finds gaps in decade from the 60's on for good synth music just hasn't looked hard enough.

Great bands were making great music in the 90's, Front 242, Revolting Cocks, Skinny Puppy, etc.

I love every decade's music, from The Beatles to The Prodigy.

See, here's the problem. I love music from each of the last five decades, but somehow my personal opinion that the '90s were a bad decade for synthesizer music (notice that I said synthesizer music, not all music) is taken as a great heresy, causing people to toss out lists of their personal favourites from that decade in a misguided attempt to correct me.

It doesn't work like that though.

I happen to like the naïveté and simplicity of a lot of early '80s stuff, something which was absent by the '90s. You'll notice I mentioned at least two artists whose most important work was actually in the '70s, but that fact was glossed over. I'll also point out that my iPod is chock full of Arctic Monkeys, Bloc Party, Orson, and other bands that are associated with the current decade (but who aren't closely identified with synthesizer based music). Any attempt to pigeonhole me into some '80s throwback is laughable. But hey, it's easy to reach ill-founded assumptions about someone based on a few lines on a screen; I can't blame anyone for making that obvious mistake.

I think that because the '90s were so guitar-centric (particularly in the first half) there simply were fewer people making music with synthesizers and the lack of volume was reflected in the relative dearth of quality. I'll split hairs even more finely and state (again, as an opinion that one can disagree with without vomiting out seventeen names you think buck the trend) that synth music in general had already started to decline by 1986 or 1987 when compared with the first three or four years of the decade. Why? Because of the proliferation of digital synths that caused many artists to stop doing their own programming and the profusion of samplers and high-end workstations like the Fairlight or Synclavier which caused a lot of good artists to ""throw the baby out with the bathwater" and ditch their still-viable old gear to chase some ephemeral hip new sound. It made me sad to read Gary Numan proclaim in 1988 or 1989 that he would gladly trade 50 Minimoogs for a D-50. Somehow I don't think Gary would say the same thing in 2009.

Lest we forget too, there wasn't really much good gear released in the '90s (again, this is in comparison to the decades that preceeded and succeeded it - no lists, please). The number of boutique manufacturers was a fraction 15 years ago of what it is today. Dave Smith and Tom Oberheim weren't doing anything synth related (unless you could the MSR-2, which came and went without a ripple, or the Wavestation, which was a good idea hiding behind crap execution), and Bob Moog was pretty much only building theremins and dabbling at the peripheries of synthdom. Instead you either had to go sniffing around for vintage gear or console yourself with a matte black box from the Big Three in Japan, whose offerings were pretty much all variations of sample playback or FM and largely devoid of knobular goodness (yes, yes, I'm aware of the JD-800. One swallow does not a Spring make).

Anyway, back to my earlier point: can a person not have an contrary opinion? It's a simple fact of life that people's tastes will differ, which was the very point of my first post on the subject. "Phat" is a relic of decade that was probably the weakest in terms of my perception of good synthesizer music.

[Subtronik]

Any attempt to pigeonhole me into some '80s throwback is laughable. But hey, it's easy to reach ill-founded assumptions about someone based on a few lines on a screen; I can't blame anyone for making that obvious mistake.

I didn't make that mistake. I figured you liked music from most decades.

can a person not have an contrary opinion? It's a simple fact of life that people's tastes will differ, which was the very point of my first post on the subject.

I think you're being a little touchy here.

I was simply saying you must have missed the same great synth music I found from the 90's, but it was mostly underground stuff.

If you're talking about good 'commercial' synth music from the 90's, then yes, I agree with you.

[Christopher Winkels]

Any attempt to pigeonhole me into some '80s throwback is laughable. But hey, it's easy to reach ill-founded assumptions about someone based on a few lines on a screen; I can't blame anyone for making that obvious mistake.

I didn't make that mistake. I figured you liked music from most decades.

Actually, the "throwback" part of my reply was to T7. I should've made it clear my post was an omnibus response to several posts. Sorry for any confusion.

I won't comment on the "undeground versus mainstream" debate, since it's largely become a moot point in the last 15 years what with the proliferation of internet tools a band can use. The web has become a great leveller of both information access, and like it or not file sharing has made obtaining a bedroom demo from a nobody almost as easy to as acquiring as the latest U2 single. The only truly "underground" now are those with no online presence, and that's a vanishing small number of serious artists.