Moog Music Forum

There areally many comments online over the years regarding the Slim Phatty's tuning difficulties. Although they've discontinued the model, on my recent visit to the factory (very cool!), I saw that they were still churning put the last units. Can anyone who has purchased/used a Slim over the past several months comment on whether the fickle and slow tuning has gotten better on recently-produced units? I really like the Phatty sound and like the small dimensions of the SP.
Thanks for any input!

I bought one a few months ago right after the close-out announcement. It is slow to tune-up, sometimes taking up to a half-hour. Even after it has been ON for several hours, if you power down then back on again, it will be out of tune for a few minutes. I was quite surprised to find the tune-up time to be just as described here on the Internet.

That said, I love it and would do it over again if I had a spare cash for another. I mean think about it, you can get a used LP Stage II with CV Outs and a new Slim Phatty for about the price of one new Sub37.

You really have to let it warm up before playing it otherwise the internal tone/tuning gets completely out of whack. If it does, just go to Master > System Utilities > Master Reboot.

The process I settled on was to turn it on, change MIDI In to a channel that isn't used so it isn't receiving any note data. Then go back to Master and select Tuning > Auto and Cursor over so you can wait until it gets to 60. At that point it's ready to go. Yes - by modern standards, this is a ridiculous approach. But that's why I bought the LP at a cheap discount (original owner returned it within a week) and have now the Sub 37.

I have to turn mine on at least an hour before I use it.

Anyone just leave it on all the time?

Mine takes about 30 minutes in summer, about 45 in winter. Depending on where you live you may have to calibrate the whole thing 2 or 3 times a year because of temperature differences. Still, totally worth it. You just leave it on, do something else and come back later, no problem.

grenert wrote:Anyone just leave it on all the time?

I leave them all on all the time.

I purchased my Slim June '14, and I have to agree with other posters and say (generally speaking) to turn it on, let it warm up, you are good to go.
I've had few problems with mine. A few times I thought it was out of tune, but it was the 2nd oscillator detuned in the preset. It warms up in under 30 min most of the time but I live in the Southern US.
When it was really cold this past winter I had the most problem with it not being in tune, and it would take longer to warm up.

I was wondering if people have theirs set to Fine Tune off? I just leave mine on and if it seems out, I turn Fine Tune off, sometimes it seems like the value will jump to whatever it is, (like -44), I dial it back to 0 and turn Fine Tune off again and it seems to be in tune.