E-MU Mo Phatt

Switch it on and jam. Dead easy to use

Great FX, you can add more sounds

Sounds are devastating! ESP drums and basses. Yes, there are oldschool chords, but they are useful. Once, during a party, but useful. But other sounds are just great. That's what we call sound programming

No problems

Never use it

Buy it for sounds

Really quite intuitive, as long as you ignore the manual.

The "audition" feature is cool. I have yet to really explore what it can really do.

The sounds are not "realistic", but that's not really what this machine is about. They are, however, very well suited to the genre. My only complaint is too many sounds are moving/arpeggiated sounds, or riff-based. I suppose that's OK for some people. Non-musicians can find a great deal of inspiration from some of these riffs and get to making music themselves, but for the musicians like myself who want to create their own stuff, I wish there were more "pure" sounds.
The pure sounds that are there are fantastic.

Haven't had any problems yet.

I wouldn't know.

OK, here goes. The drums sounds, the bass sounds, the leads, and some of the ambient sounds and pads are great, but for a real musician, that's all it's good for. The rest is pretty useless for anyone who actually knows how to play and has their own ideas. Even so, I think it's very good value for the money.
I can see, however, how it might be of even more use to a non-musician. With the beats, the arpeggiators, and the riff-based presets, anyone can make music on this thing.

Moving from a Planet Phatt (another review here), this unit sounds like heaven. OS is 2.26. Bought this to use with Cakewalk Sonar 4 Producer's Edition and the only drawback was the lack of instrument definition for it, which I get after some web research. Editing the patches is very easy straight off the front panel, and I had a ball tweaking presets here and there.

It came with a small "Quick Start" manual which is fun and useful, together with the full 280 page manual on CD (PDF format), which I would have preferred in a hardcopy (minus 1 point for that, since EMU is cost sharing with me there). The manual is complete and readable.

64 voice polyphony, and like most others have already said, is enough. No keyboard (is a module!), 32 MB, 12 real-time controlling parametres, humongous syncable arpeggiation, pole filtering, Z plane filtering, 2 effects processors, one expansion slot, full MIDI capabilities and a strong, powerful synth engine... what could you ask for in addition to that?. Aside from its "Superbeats" Mode, something really cool that I never found use for, this has no sequencer, which I found natural since this one was seemegly designed to be sequenced.

Extremely useful "audition" mode for demoing presets within a pre-programmed short sequence, is a feature that renders this module into a "must have", at least for me. All this pack deserves at least 9 points.

If you are into dance, trance, DnB or hip-hop its a must have. For other styles or genres (I play Industrial), you've got to be creative, but you might find plenty of meat here. Instruments (of course) are not realistic at all, yet I love them all. Want realistic? Go buy a General Midi module.

I dare to disagree with some previous reviewers, since I don't think that the Mo'Phatt presets stink... at all. It is a pretty strange sounding unit vis-a-vis most units in the market, true, but if you find it suitable you'll love it as much as I do. I do agree, notwithstanding, with most people here that the drums (some 50 of them!), bass (almost 150 of them!) and other fxs based sounds (e.g. the uncanny moany synth!) are very good, and if you like to program your own presets you'll be extremely pleased. Use those front panel knobs to tweak while playing!!!!!!!!!!!. C'mon if I play industrial/metal and I use this exhaustively, you'll find room for it!

The Proteus 1 (with its little ugly plastic case) is virtually indestructible, and mine (I've got four of them -1, XR, Orchestral and Procussion) never had any problems. This one is bolder, newer, better. I'm very confident in terms of reliability of this unit.

I quit gigging a while ago and keyboards were never my primary instrument. I never played without backups, but what the hell!

Don't know yet (probably never will, this one looks cool and SOLID!).

Fantastic value, one of the best "uncommon" units around, hands down.
Good for everything, fantastic for hip-hop, urban dance sounds. Comparing this unit to others is difficult, and is exactly there in where the true beauty of this unit resides. Together with my Korg Triton rack, this unit contributes heavily to my music's present style. I like to believe that my personal studio is well loaded (check at www.electricguitar.50megs.com for more details) and this purple rack unit is under the spot every single time. Love it!

I use to own a protues 2000 so using this was a cakewalk.
As with all of emus modules its setup so that using it is easy.
Getting in there and programming is a little more involved but the manuals are EXCELLENT.

I really liked the "beats-mode" feature on this thing......I dont particularly like the effects on ANY emu product BUT these sounds are already processed and dont need any effects other than reverb.
This thing has the best drums ive ever heard bar none!
If you do hip-hop its a must have.
For the price you can get these right now they are a STEAL!!!

This is were the rubber meets to road so to speak.
The sounds are incredible!
The drums and basses on this are the best ive ever heard!
The thickness of the sounds really shocked me.
I also was surprised at the guitar and keyboards sounds....very very good.
The brass and orchestral sounds were good to with lots of very very very usuable loops.
These sounds have been expertly programmed and like i said need very little effects added to them.

Dont know yet

Believe it or not ive gone to EMU's headquarters before in scotts valley.
They are very helpful people and its beautiful down there.

If you do hip-hop or any kind of dance music this is a must have.
Buy emu!!!

OS is 2.26. Easy to use the basic features and when in performance mode, but when you start editing presets it can be a royal pain scrolling through choices and punching buttons to move the cursor all over. It came with a small "Quick Start" manual which is good, but the full 280 page manual is only included in PDF on a CD. The manual is well written.

64 voice polyphony, 32 MB soundset,12 real-time control parameters, syncable arpeggiation functions and E-MU's exclusive SuperBEATs Mode. Dynamic 12 pole filtering, Z plane filters. Two built in effects processors. Multi-timbral mode. One expansion SIMM slot. Very cool "audition" mode for demoing presets. Full MIDI capabilities.

The effects are OK, but not great. You can have multiple channels arpeggiating at once, which is wild. Using 'patchcords' you can assign controllers to just about any parameter, very powerful stuff.
Has a cool 'randomize preset' function.

I bought the MoPhatt used, as a companion to my EMU Planet Earth, which I love. This MoPhatt has the Vintage Collection ROM in it also. MoPhatt is basically geared towards Hip Hop and Rap, which I dont play, I just wanted the killer drum and bass sounds. And with the Vintage ROM in there, this thing can really smoke.

I have to agree with a previous reviewer, a lot of the MoPhatt presets stink, and seem to have some kind of major seventh chord imbedded in the actual sample, which is pretty strange. I can see using that once or twice, but there are TONS of presets that use this, and they are worthless in my opinion. However, the drums, bass and other keyboard based sounds are very good, and once you program your own presets you're in good shape. Having the front panel knobs to tweak while playing is great. These EMU modules have a very powerful synth engine inside, and if you take the time to program your own sounds you WILL be rewarded.

MoPhatt makes a killer drum\groove machine if you use the BEATS mode, crank it up and wail on top of it. Great for practicing, I doubt I would use it live for that, but you could if you wanted.

Seems pretty reliable. My Planet Earth has never crashed on me.

I've never dealt with them. Their website is better than it used to be.

I got the MoPhatt with the Vintage ROM for $380 bucks used, which is an outrageous deal IMO, for all the great sounds I got. The Vintage Collection ROM is killer. I also have a Planet Earth with the Protozoa ROM, so I now have just about every sound I could every need (other than a great acoustic piano, but I'm no piano player anyway). With everyone going to software synths on their computers, these EMU hardware synths (and ROMs) are dirt cheap and a real value. Get one and get a ROM of your choice for it. The interface can be a pain when programming, I admit, but it's still a great box. With the Vintage ROM installed, I have to give it a 9. By itself, probably a 7.

Well, I don't have Mo'Phatt itself, I have PurePhatt ROM installed in Proteus 2000 (also XL and TSCY ROMS), which makes the same Mo=Phatt (just different colour). But they are the same all the way, except Proteus gives me more channels, polyphony etc. It's easy but not comfortable to use, scrolling through pages is an annoying thing, as well as lack of up and down cursors. It's logically laid but requires too many button pressing to do a single setting. Manual is basic Emu - allright. I dodn't read it anyway.

Effects are not so good. I use only reverbs, they sound very muddy to me. I have Roland XV and Trinity and they sound pristine clear warm and fresh to me. I have yet to dig Proteus effects. Maybe I'll find some settings which make me happy. I don't have other complaints yet. 64 multisetup is pretty a limitation.

Now about the sounds. The problem with Phatt's sound palette is that it's incomplete,even as for hip-hop producers. No wonder these units are not popular - as a single sound module it's totally defective. The biggest problem is that overwhelming majority of sounds are either chords, or fx-type of sounds. The problem with chords is that (as I can hear) they are even not fifths, which still can find some use, they are some kind of strange mess chords or something. Not major or minor, something like c1 e1 f#1 a1 - try to play it - do you like it? Do you believe you can put it somewhere in your song? That's what I'm talking about. And fx are mostly "cat breaks the window while droping a bucket into the glass plate with woodpile while there is somebody playing heavymetal in the backyard, where neihbour tries to start the engine of 57'Thunderbird" type of thing. . I think the person who sampled these sounds was retarded, as well as that (or those) guy (s) who approved them and let them go to the mass production. Or maybe they were deaf and didn't want to admit it. Anyway, Emu suffer financially, we suffer creatively. I think they'd better release Phatt soundset as a sample CD (wav), these sounds don't need to be processed with synth powers. 99$ CD - that's what it really cost. Don't get me wrong, I still like Phatt, and I don't regret my purchase, no these sounds are just tiny part of my Proteus (still 2500+ sounds to go), so it's not a painful problem for me. I have plenty of normal sounds in other modules as in Proteus itself, so it just adds a variety to my sound collection. Emu sounds are really unique and beautiful. The sound designers have really plenty of imagination and excellent taste, I only wish they'd not be so stupid.Ok, now let's go to number. I spent some time counting the programs (it didn't take that much time as you might think), so here come results. Usable mean single note (not chords or fx) sounds, so you can play a melody or a normal chord with them without sounding stupid. Also many of sounds have one dominant single-note sound with chord somwhere in the background. I don't count these as usable. I suppose you already know what those abreviations mean, otherwise it's not too hard to guess.
bts-54
amb - 15 (3 usable)
bas-68 (some strange kick-drum like and fx-like)
brs - 9 (all chords hits)
gtr - 65 (13 usable, rest - chords, riffs and fx)
hit - 19 (all chord and fx)
key - 45 (about 23 usable, rest are chords and fx)
kit - 59
led - 20 (all ok)
pad - 32 (about 15 usable)
prc- 29
rom -2 (all fx)
sfx - 14 (mostly too complex)
str - 22 (10 useful)
syn - 32(12 useful)
vox- 19 (all vocoder-type things)
So what do we have - 76 usefull sounds (144 with basses, 203 with basses and drumkits) out from 512. Quite a depressing statistic. Not much material to write a song, but plenty to add a flavour. That's how Phatt should be treated, I think. "To add some flavour". As for the quality - it's good. It definitely lacks a CLASS feel of Roland, Korg of Kurzweil, but it's still beautiful nonetheless. I bought it relying on demos on the Emu site, they are cool,I think and they show 110% of what this thing is capable of. Btw, I think it's more suited for new-age, space-electronica, then hip-hop or r'n'b. It's too weird for hip-hop.
And I have to note that drums have quite tiny feel.Tonally (ugh) they are ok, they do have punch, just too accurate, they totally lack massivenes and... errr... breadth. Some people say Emu units are thin. They are not. They are just allright. Not fatter or thinner than, say, Roland XV. Pretty much the same. For some reason demos on the Emu site givea wrong impression - probably they were recorded badly or processed afterwards, I don't know. So I'd give 9 for those 76 normal sounds, and 3 for the whole sound colection. Average 6.

Well,I don't regret I bought it. 250$ is not too much for what I've got. I wouldn't ever buy a module itself, though - not worth it. I also have Roland XV3080(full of trully pro sounds), which is my favourite, Korg Trinity (use it mostly for pads and dance percussion), Korg Wavestation SR (don't use it at all) and Emu E4XTUltra (use it rarely, mostly for drums). Proteus2000 unit comes second after Roland. I bought because I needed some variety of unique and beautifull sounds, which Roland lacks, and Trinity doesn't have at all (WS's sounds are too dated). And my Proteus2000 now has over 3000 programs. I only wish it had better reverbs. So the mark is: 8 - for the ROM itself, 2 - if I'd pay for the Mo-Phatt module, so the average is 5.

I have just purchased a used Mo Phatt (from a local pawn shop, in excellent condition), but without the manual, so I have downloaded it and have yet to read it. But I am familiar with Emu products enough to get into them without the manual for most things. And it is fairly intuitive.

Presets are geared towards urban dance sounds -mostly the rhythm section-, and seem fairly current (I suppose by industry standards) and sound pretty good, except for some guitar sounds which is sad. The Nylon guitar sounds, in my opinion was weak, but could be tweeked into submission I am sure. I also was disappointed in some of the chucka and whah type guitars thinking they could have been a bit more diverse and useable. They seemed a bit locked into 2 tempos (83 and 113 if I recall currectly) and spread across the keyboard instead of mapped as octaves with the same tempo for each octave or section so they could be more musical. Instead you have the slow "darth vader on downers" effect at one end and the "squirrel on speed" on the other. However, I was quite pleased with the punchy horn stabs and the warm and funky tine and clav sounds as well and some cool bass and synth sounds. There were no pianos (except a "piano jam" effect), a few strings and pad sounds, a few decent organs and what not which is fine since you are probably getting this module for its drums and bass sounds, and probably have a kajillion painos and strings on other pieces of gear.

I liked the drum sounds and thought them pretty punchy and groovy when they needed to be, and even a few sexy kits as well.

64 voice polyphony, and like others have already said, is fine since you are most likely using this as a beat box.

Its a module, mah-joo-ul, which means no keyboard hence no keyboard action ;)

Dual effects when used as single sounds and global when used for multi. Thats cool enough for its purposes, and you can upgrade it with individual outs should you need more outputs. Effects seem easy enough.

Yep on the exansion - up to 128 voice polyphony, extra outs, MIDI B ports, etc.

No onboard sequencer - but it does have an arpeggiator and the beats function which, if handled properly can kind of be very sequency like. Especially since it can play an arp' on each channel. There are 200 factory patterns and 100 user definable patterns for some cool effects. I also like that you can slave it to external MIDI clocks or use its internal clock for timing control.

Most of the sounds are pretty dang good sounding. And fun to play. It is an URBAN dance sound collection best used for R&B, Funk, Hip-Hop (and the other hops out there like trip-hop, house-hop, trance-hop, acid-hop, electro-hop, funk-hop, psychedelic hippy-hop, rabbit-hop, sock-hop, hop-skip-and-jump, hop-to-it, and etc-hop. A veritable cornucopia-hop), and many other styles. I am going to deliberately use it for techno and trance and see what it does to those genre. Wheeeee!

Didn't you just ask me about effects?

How does it react to _MY_ playing? It runs like hell, but I always catch it...

No static unless I cross wire it with my AM/FM reciever. But I rarely do that anymore. But seriously...no, seriously, really it is fine. Just fine.

I think you could depend on it as far as you could throw it. but I wouldn't do that too often, as sturdy as it is, I am sure everything has it's limits. But as far as its reliability I would say it is aces, as have most Emu products I have used and known (personally or through other connections). Though I doubt you could leave it to watch the kids while you run to the shop for a bit. It's not THAT dependable.

Well, I think I could perform with it as my sole sound source for some projects and not bat an eyelid.

Don't think I have ever used their customer support since the early days of the Proteus shortage way back when, and they were quite courteous and whatnot- considering they were probably hounded and haggard by all those impatient types...but that was a long time ago, and I think they have been pretty good at meeting demand these days.

Actually, they were really quite cool- they lent us the early Planet Phatt and Orbit for use in our Booth at NAMM back when I worked for Zendrum some years ago. That was neato, and they were fun to chat with.

Well if it were stolen I think I'd hunt down the thief and give him the what-for upside the head with it, and still be able to play it later after I tore it from his/her dying hands. Even if I did only pay 200 bucks (US) for it, it is well worth its current street value as I have been wanting one for a while.

Gosh, I guess I have been playing on keyboards as long as I have had hands...well okay maybe since they could reach the keyboard. But most seriously since I was 16 or 17 which was roughly 19 years ago.

Well in our current studio, My band mate and I have the following (assuming I can remember them all):

Novation BassStation keyboard, Novation SuperNova Pro II keyboard, and SuperNova rack, Korg Triton Rack, Waldorf MicroWave XT, Emu Xtreme Lead-1, Akai Z-8 sampler, Akai MPC 2000XL Millineum edition, Yamaha CS2X and EX5, General Music Equinox work station, Peavey DPM3se, Kurzweil PC2X Digital Piano and MIDI controller Keyboard, Event and JBL monitors, Behringer Eurodesk mixing console, Zendrum MIDI Percussion Controller, assorted soft synth, sampling, sequencing and audio editing programs on a beefed up PC, some generic MIDI keyboard controllers, assorts mics, stands, etc....

Yeah it helps me make music. But is it good music? Well...yoube the judge.

www.fluxdelux.com
www.mp3.com/fluxdelux
www.rogueprojex.com (in progress)
www.glensutton.com (no i am not vain- but am an artist and use the site for self promotion- it hasn't been updated in a few years, but I am working on it)

drop me a line if ya want

Most of the presets sound good. I still haven't felt like reading the book to find out how to edit sounds properly and save them. The manual seems OK. Overall, very good at first. Will supply you with at least 10 good beats, but you start to run out of sounds.

It's a synth module, how hard can it be to use? :) The filter knobs on the front are nice for those who not blessed with a master keyboard with lots of extra knobs. In I'd say that the design of the unit is very user friendly, especially considering it's only 1U.

The polyphony is 64 which is not at all limiting, most of the sounds you will use from this unit will be drums/percussive sounds, not 8-fingered thich pad sounds :).. you get the picture..

Something that I DO find limiting however is the lack of outputs. One stereo pair is simply not enough :( Fortunately you can upgrade your Mo'Phatt to the turbo version to get 2 additional stereo output pairs, however, at around $400 the upgrade is quite expensive if you get it only for the outputs. The other features on the 'standard' Mo'Phatt are very satisfying in my opinion, such as 2 proteus expansion slots.

This is the one reason people buy this module. I have a Novation Nova II for analog/synthish stuff, a Roland XV-5080 (well expanded) for pretty much everything else. But what the Roland lacks (even with expansions) are phat and current drum sounds. The Mo'Phatt is filled with yummy kits suitable for hiphop, rnb, 2step, jungle etc. Some people think modules of this kind are crap because, basically what you get is just a small fragment of a cool sample-cd with some effects/filters. But trust me, I have a bunch of nice sample cds in the genre, like Black Butta 3 and Da Nu RNB, they sound smashing, but you don't get easy hands-on intuitive use of the sounds like you do with the Mo'Phatt. I LOVE being able to just select a kit and JAM and get ideas out, and as little as 32MB is, this box cover your drum sound needs if you're working in the genres mentioned above + include lots of other cool sounds. It's very hard to find GM-type sounds (harmonica,honkytonk,harpsichord,church organ etc :D),that you're never going to use on this machine, you can see that they've put alot of time into sound selection at EMU.

Haven't had it that long but I don't see why a machine of this kind would stop working for no apparent reason. Both software and hardware feels solid and reliable.

Never had to deal with EMU.

If it were stolen I would call my insurance company, and then buy a new one. I'd probably look for a used one though, as cool as this module is, it's current retail price is very pricy, and that's the only reason I'm only going to give a 9 instead of 10 for overall rating.

This sound module is easy to use, but the manual make it more difficult than it is. You can chose a sound by category (Synth, Key, bass, etc) wich is very usefull. It's very easy to edit a preset and to create your own sounds.

The effects are great. Good reverbs. There are 4 sends for the effects instead of a send per channel (like any Roland JV), which is a little bit stupid and confusing for a machine of this class. Only two outputs, but you can upgrade wit the turbo kit.
The filters are amazings!! You can really program very good analog sounds.

The sounds are AMAZING !!!! If you are a Hip-Hop/R&B/Rap producer you NEED this machine. The drums sounds are great (but I still prefer to use my Akai MPC). The bass sounds are very very good (sub, analog). The guitars are outstanding, better than any sample CD. Strings, synths, hits, pad, talk box sounds. You'll find every thing you need to bring your track to another level. But be aware, it's not a "GM" sound module. There is no pianos, and conventional instruments here. It's strictly hip-hop!!

Good!

The customer support is ok... I ask them a question via email, they took a little bit long to answer.

Fantastic value. Not so expensive. Fresh tight new hip-hop sounds for the year 2001. Will it sound dated in few years ? Yes, I think so. But for now, it's definitely the best sound module for Hip-hop R&B, with the Korg Triton of course! Anyway, you can upgrade with an expansion board (Techno, Orchestral, etc). Buy the Mo Phatt and an Akai MPC for sampling and sequencing and you'll be all set!!!
Thank you E-mu for this wonderful machine!!

Peace.