Little Phatty + Slim Phatty + Oberheim SEM = Perfect.

[Spitfire]

Everyone,

Hello. This is my first post here and will keep it as short as possible. (reading it after its completion I realize that I fell short of keeping it short! oh well...)

For nearly a year, or maybe a bit longer, I have wanted true analog polyphony to complement the digital side of my studio. The Dave Smith Prophet 08 was my top pick for a while, but I have been disillusioned by his products before. Essentially, problems with "parameter jumping" knobs on three separate Evolvers and posts on their forum revealing similar issues on the Prophet 08 turned me away from the brand altogether. Compliments to their tech support and Mr. Smith himself for handling the issues with the Evolvers I used with the utmost courtesy and good will. The company is composed of sharp people; nevertheless, I just didn't want to occupy the little time I have for music with troubleshooting or worrying about probable future glitches. Others have used his pieces with great success and that's awesome. They sound fantastic and his is a splendid company. It's just my luck I suppose.

So, I bought a new Oberheim SEM to use with my unmodified Little Phatty Tribute. The LP TE would have low note priority and the SEM high note priority, creating an "interesting" form of duophony/polyphony (I think one of the first Arp synths of the 70s did this). Last week, I added a Slim Phatty to my 100% Made in the USA analog setup (made in the USA means a lot to me, especially as jobs continue to be outsourced... I try to buy American as much as possible, even if it costs an extra few). My old Mackie board sends the signal out through stereo to my interface, and man does it sound good. Now, I can play triads and the sound is just simply incredible. The LP TE plays the first note, the Slim plays the second, and the SEM still has high note priority, so it plays the third in the triad. Its different filter adds a unique sound to the Moog filters in the LP TE and Slim. Very nice.

My next step will be to add another Slim at some other point. This would permit the following: LP TE gets voice 1, Slims get voices 2 and 3, and the SEM gets the fourth with low note priority and shifted one octave up would form a complete major/minor chord. If I play intervals or even single notes, the SEM follows those notes and the sound will always be a combination of Moog and Oberheim oscillators and filters. The Oberheim oscillators never truly lock to each other, so they are never absolutely perfectly in tune with each other... a wonderfully analog trait. I truly recommend this setup to anyone interested in such an experiment. (add some reverb and brace yourself!)

Finally, with any luck, I would like to have the LP/Slim/Oberheim be a dedicated polyphonic analog "synth" on its own and have a Voyager as my dedicated mono. Ha! That would take some good fortune indeed!

The moral of the story: this is a great way to achieve analog polyphony. Moog products have always impressed me and the customer service provided by Amos and a couple of his colleagues who have helped me over the years give me a good reason to buy from Moog again. The fact that their products are made here in the USA also helps a great deal... in fact, were they built in China, I would probably overlook what small complications I have experienced with DSI and opt for their American synths instead. Who knows... and I would never want to know! Keep it in Asheville, please! Besides, an extra few bucks on the price tag of a quality product are worth preserving American jobs... but, I digress again. We're talking synths here, not politics!

Moog, keep up the good work. Oberheim's SEM is another fantastic piece I recommend. Cheers to all of you, and may you make music that makes you happy.

Cheers,

Spitfire.

[Krinor]

Thank you for sharing your story and thoughts and welcome to the forum (allthough I'm not a regular myself).
Just a thought: Isn't some of DSI's stuff made in China and only assembled in the USA ? I think I read that somewhere...

[Sir Nose]

Thank you for sharing your story and thoughts and welcome to the forum (allthough I'm not a regular myself).
Just a thought: Isn't some of DSI's stuff made in China and only assembled in the USA ? I think I read that somewhere...

Not sure about DSI, but the LP's boards are manufactured in China.

[Spitfire]

You're welcome Krinor, thanks for reading! And thanks for welcoming me to the forum.

Like Moog does, I'm sure DSI does as well with Chinese components. I am not entirely sure, though. In any case, at least they assemble their products here. Some companies like Mackie as of a few years ago (my Mackie board is from the days when they still manufactured here), Alesis, etc. that are based here in the US are just that: based here, but the entire manufacturing process is done overseas. JBL still manufactures some of its PAs here, but those are only the most expensive models. This is sort of like what Allen & Heath do, as they have their less expensive models built in China and their top-of-the-line products built in the UK, their home base.

These days, all these little differences count. If I cannot find a synth made entirely in the US, that's fine I suppose... as long as it is at least built here, that is good enough. Many fine products are made in China, don't get me wrong; still, I like to know that my money is going to support American blue-collar jobs somewhere whenever possible.

Now, back to the original topic. I will try to post a song with my polyphonic LP TE/Slim/Oberheim setup sometime in the next couple of weeks. For now, here's a piece with just the LP TE and Oberheim playing duophonically. The Slim arrived after I composed this song:

http://soundcloud.com/cam-suarez-bitar/prologue

Have any of you done something similar? Recently, before opting for the Slim, I tried using a Future Retro Revolution as the third voice in my polyphonic experiment. Since it has last note priority by default, it would have worked well with the LP TE on low note and SEM on high note priorities. This would mean that I would have to change my playing style a bit, since I would need to ensure that the middle note was always the last one I struck. As it turned out, the Revolution's envelope did not have a sustain/release phase and the decay was not what I hoped for. After paying an unexpected $75 restocking fee, I returned it to FR (on their site they did not specify this, and it took some bargaining with the company owner to get them to accept a return after using it for only about 30 minutes and possessing it for just under 4 days). I would have referenced the implied warranty law, but I just wanted to return it and avoid any additional hassles. Remember this should you consider buying a Future Retro synth some day. Implied warranties and restocking info are not common knowledge over there from what I gather... maybe their policies have changed, though. Who knows... who cares.

In any case, a polyphonic setup utilizing synths with different "tonal characters" makes for an interesting instrument. Too bad about the Revolution... it would have been nice to have a Moog, Oberheim, and Roland TB303-style filter all in the same polyphonic setup. Hmmm... I wonder if there are simple 303 analog filter modules out there. No synth, keys, nothing but the analog filter by itself that would receive signals from other synths. Imagine routing a Slim through an analog 303 filter and blending the 303-filtered sound with the raw analog Moog ladder filter signal and assimilating it into a poly setup like the one I have described. "Hmmm" indeed...

[Spitfire]

... by the way Krinor, I listened to your Youtube track "Blue Skies" and it sounds great! Good job!

[Spitfire]

Friends,

I just added an eventide space to my analog rig... people, this must be done. This sounds simply amazing.

[soundxplorer]

I have an SEM Pro along with my LP too. The only problem with the Low Note/High Note priority method is that to keep the illusion going you can't lift your finger off a note - you have to play legato style all the time, pressing the next note down before lifting up on the first one. Example - if you're holding two notes down and the SEM is playing the higher one, then you lift up the higher key, the SEM will jump down to the lower note being held. It's a bit annoying and I stopped trying to get polyphony out of these two together. I mostly just run one through the other's audio input to get a 4 osc mono synth.

[slabwax]

Friends,

I just added an eventide space to my analog rig... people, this must be done. This sounds simply amazing.

I'm thinking real hard on the verb. Its just a costly little box. And I just ordered a cluster-flux. I want use it at the end of my fooger chain. And now back on topic. The LP and the sem play real nice together. Also try the cp-251 and mp 201 with SEM small and powerful.

[ColorForm2113]

@spitfire : very nice track, I love the texture of those two marvelous synths together