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

[Biigm]

Hi everybody.

Last night I was playing a gig at a pretty large venue, and I was going to use my little phatty for the first time. I had been looking forward to this siunce getting it a couple of weeks ago.

Unfortunately it didn't work out well at all!

I had planned to connect the Phatty to my pedalboard which is connected to my bassamp. But when I did this, the Phatty showed wierd behaviour. The parameters changed slowly by themselves, and it was impossible to change it back via the preset button. As soon as I pulled the Jack out it seemed to be fine.

I tried everything and I eventually found out the it didn't even matter if the jack was connected to anything. Sometimes it did this with the jack in the audio out and just touching the jack would do it.

Since it was a festival setup and changeover was only 30 min I wasn't able to test further. I did try another power outlet but it was probably on the same phase.

Has anyone seen this behaviour? It makes it impossible to trust the phatty to work, thus rendering it useless

Heeeeelp

[Prime NL]

Sounds to me like a grounding problem...better check how you Phatty is connected with the powerstrip and if this one is grounded yes/no.

[Biigm]

Hi all

Well I just pulled the phatty in from my car and checked it out. This is the deal:

When i plug it in the same place as i always do it works fine. It's the same placxe that most of my studio gear is sitting in.

But since I was also suspecting the power to be the problem I tried the wall outlet on the other side of the room. And there was the bug again.

None of these outlets have a hole for a grounding leg (is that what it's called?) and the this is very common in Denmark.

The powercord the phatty came with dont even have three legs either.

If this is normal behaviour for the Phatty I'm afraid I will have to return it (To Germany GRRRRR!!!). This behaviour is simply not reliable enough for professional use.

Is it just my unit that is faulty?

[Prime NL]

Like i wrote in my previous mail....it is not your Phatty...it is your power supply/power outlet which is creating a issue.

Having decent grounding in your home/studio/live situation is one of the most important parts of your setup.

So you can send your Phatty back....but that will not solve your problem and any other synth/equipment will have grounding issues with certain power outlets which are not decent grounded.

[Biigm]

Hi Prime.

I appreciate your advice. And you are probably right.

But....

First of all I have never seen anyone with problems like this. I've played pro for 15 years from the smallest to the largest venues and festivals in Denmark. And I have never seen people have problems like this even though they use ungrounded power cords. Analog or no analog.

So it seems to me that if grounding is the problem, the Phatty must be way more sensitive to this than other gear.

Another thing. It seems very odd that Moog supplys a power-cord with no grounding if using it will create these kind of problems. I mean, 3 out of four outlets I've tried been bad.

There are probably also big differences from country to country in how to deal with the grounding issues.

I will have to dig out a power-cord with a grounding leg and see if that helps. But I have to say again that it seems very unreliable to me.

Any input on this will be appreciated.

[Sir Nose]

The LP needs to be properly grounded, all 3 prongs and make sure the outlet is grounded.

A midi loop ban also cause strange behavior, but you most likely had that set correctly.

[Biigm]

Damn....

That is a big problem. A lot of smaller scenes in Denmark simply doesn't have three holes in the outlets.

Why is the phatty so sensitive to this? My friend has the Voyager, and I havn't seen him have any poblems.

[Prime NL]

Time to step up to a Voyager then.....

Maybe Amos from Moog can explain better to you why the Phatty is so sensitive to groundloops and such things...???

[Biigm]

Amos' expertise would indeed be very welcome.

I'm still trying to decide if I should return the phatty.

[tyrannosaurus mark]

I've platyed venues in europe without grounded power and I haven't experienced this. Sounds to me like it's your unit man, if mine did that I'd have taken to it with a baseball bat!

[EricK]

Wait for Amos' imput before you smash your phatty with a bat hahaha or at least before you send it in.

Sorry about your problem.

[Biigm]

Ok, i'll do that.... so.....

Amos to the rescue please )

[soundxplorer]

Have you emailed Moog? Don't wait for them to read the forum, I don't know how often they come around here.

[Biigm]

I pm'ed Amos to read this thread. But you are probably right. I'll do it later on.

[Biigm]

I just checked, and I can't even find anywhere that sells an powerchord with 3 prongs. Thomann for example, who has everything doesn't have them as far as i could see.

So I guess that if Amos comes back with a "grounding is the only fix" answer, I'm out of luck.

I contacted Moog Service too.I hope they are fast, cause i'm getting near to the 30 days return policy