Moog Music Forum

Hi

I am very happy to now own a Slim Phatty, which in general I am extremely happy with. I am having an odd tuning issue though.

I have set tuning to "auto" but I am finding the tuning is drifting while I am using it, (am noticing this while recording over a guitar line). I always let the Phatty warm up for at least 15 mins. As far as I can tell I am taking the right steps according to the manual, to set it to AT (master menu..auto tune..set to on..press preset to leave).

When I find it out of tune, what I usually do is change to fine tune on, tune it to a relevant note while in calibration preset or something else 'plain', then set to auto straight away while it is in tune. However then within not too long, it is drifting out. I check the tuner and it has slipped out quite a bit, enough to be noticed.

Am I not doing something while in the tuning menu to "finish off" the process? One thing to note is when I leave the phatty alone for 15 secs, it does not appear to be auto tuning as it suggests (and as I have read in another post here). Which is making me think I missed something.

Anyone have any suggestions? I get the feeling it is "user error".

Is the unit in a location that experiences temp changes (draft or heat vent)? Is the drift in time or up/down the keyboard? From your description it sounds like time, but maybe you are using a different range from time to time. You can always run the calibration sequence as described in the manual, not usually needed often but easy enough to perform.

I've found that the tuning won't be stable after only 15 minutes. Generally it's pretty good after an hour, and after two there's at most a drift of one or two cents which is taken care of by autotune. Of course this varies depending on the temperature in your studio, we've had unseasonal cold weather here suddenly and so it's taking mine longer to warm up. On hot days 30 minutes is enough.

If you do the calibration make sure you've had the unit on for at least a couple hours, Amos recommended to me 2 or even 3 hours. This way it is stable, temperature-wise. Even so on each of mine I've had to perform the calibration more than once and they're both pretty good now.

The auto-tune doesn't kick in at 15 seconds, on both of mine it's about 25 seconds.

Thanks for the replies.

The location of the phatty doesn't experience temp changes. It has been pretty hot lately (QLD, Australia) but generally a constant temp when I am using it.

Sounds like I should try warming it up for 30 mins and try that. Then I suppose calibration may be the next step.

However, how does this work if you are playing live? I can't imagine too many scenarios where you would always be able to warm up the synth for 30 mins or more.

FutureProof wrote:However, how does this work if you are playing live? I can't imagine too many scenarios where you would always be able to warm up the synth for 30 mins or more.

This is exactly what I've been pondering lately. One solution could be to plug the SP in back stage to start it warming up. It doesn't need any other connections just power. Then when you're setting up make sure it's the first thing you plug in. You will find though that once warmed up it can cool down pretty quickly (10 minutes or so seems to undo the 'warmup goodness').

On the calibration, that should work great since you've got a pretty stable temperature there. It's been said we shouldn't have to calibrate because it's been done at the factory but I've needed to calibrate both mine. Perhaps they don't like the journey to the southern hemisphere

Yeah it seems that would be the only option (plugging in backstage) but then there's venues where you don't always get access to power prior to the gig. People obviously use them (and others like the voyager etc) so there must be a workaround..or a lot of use of the fine tune knob and a tuner.

If all else fails then you can always just tell people they don't "get it" if they hear it out of tune..