E-MU Planet Phatt

As Reginald said, I also control the Phatt through Cakewalk Sona 4 Producer's Edition, and it was pretty easy to use (more on the "was", keep reading). The fact that Cakewalk doesn't have instrument definitions for the Phatt, even at this release of Sonar is a serious complication, taking into account that the arrangement of sounds is far from intuitive. Presets are interesting, yet somewhat limited for anybody to profit from. Editing is as easy as it could be with strange sounds and a tiny LCD screen. I used Sound Quest XL as editor for this purple can with no real difference, so I don't blame on the tiny LCD screen (probably I should blame myself or the programmers). Manual is less than memorable...

Old polyphony (28 voices/16 part), no FXs, no expansions, no sequencer (just the "beats" mode!). Full MIDI capabilities. Just one word will describe this unit and you'll get the picture: O-L-D. There's nothing here that hasn't been utterly surpassed by either the Turbo Phatt or the Mo' Phatt, or even sounds that you could easily achieve with more modern technology. IMHO Buying this one would be a waste of your money and time. Notwithstanding, I might well be the only living soul that likes the way it looks...

Realistic is a concept that's completely out of the question here. This is not a General Midi module, so is something to expect. I play a mixture between Heavy Metal and Industrial, using a tripping drums and bass array, and hoped this module would have something to contribute at that, given that it was primarly designed for dance and hip hop music. Surprise! It was as HiFi as a chinese toy and as creatively inspirational as a kazoo. Nothing impressive here, just one or two booming bass sounds here and there. In addition, this can is as static as a mummy. How it reacts to velocity and aftertocuh? Any guesses?: Poorly.

Let's cut a long story short here. This is an old module, I know, but after 3 months of use (I bought this used, but the previous owner hardly used it -I imagine that was due to the unit's limited potential-) the main board died on me. Just like that. Neither the power source, nor the transformer. Nothing wrong with the rom. The main board!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Fixing this would cost three times more than getting another one (God Forbid!). This can is crap.

If I would use it on a gig without a backup? I would gig exclusively with the backup!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've dealt with local distributors and they were friendly and helpful, something that unfortunately did not revive this crap. I don't know if there's spare parts available to attempt a repair.

No upgrades, so there's nothing to buy beyond the can (thank God for that).

The good news it that I tried to get it repaired, so I've got an opinion on that. The bad news is that I did that a few weeks after purchasing it, so I've got an opinion on that as well...

I would never buy it again (that would be MY mistake). I strongly recommend that you don't buy it either. There's plenty of options today (including the Mo' Phatt, which is great and some sampled ROM). I bought it for my personal studio (which I consider well loaded, with some 7 other modules controlled by a 88 note keyboard). The only thing I loved about this module was the metallic purple colour. I hated everything else. To be honest, I did not have time to hate it more.

I control the Phatt through Cakewalk, so it's been pretty easy for me to use. The only drawback is that Cakewalk doesn't have instrument definitions for the Phatt.

The polyphony is 28 voices. There are no expansion capabilities(as far as I know) and it does not have a sequencer.

I LOVE the bass and drums sounds. I actually use the Phatt for mostly acoustic drum sounds, which I wouldn't have expected from this module. I like most of the bass sounds(good synth and acoustic basses). There are a lot of sounds I probably wouldn't use(just because of the type of music I do) and I don't need the drum loops.

I would feel comfortable using it without a backup, but I bought this module primarily for sequencing.

Haven't dealt with them, but I was able to download the manual from their website, which was cool.

If this module were lost or stolen, I would probably get the Mo'Phatt, just to get the more recent sounds. For what I use it for(bass, drums, some synth sounds), I am very happy with this module.

Good enough out of the box. If you just plug it in and play, you get a pretty good, genre-specific array of patches (4 banks worth, which isn?t too bad), and a pretty cool beats mode. Turn the dial to select the sound, hit the arrow keys to change banks ? should be familiar to most synth users.

Using it in the studio is a piece of cake, but using it live may cause you some trouble if you have to bounce between patches a lot. There?s no way to punch in a program change; you have to spin the dial. So if you want to switch from one sound to another that?s say, 50 patches away, you better do some pretty damn fast and accurate spinning. I mainly used patches I had edited which I then saved close in close proximity to one another, so was able to get around this.

Planet Phatt was made for people who want rap and hip-hop and it delivers: good beats, nice basses, and a variety of unique pads and leads. I think the only attempts at acoustic emulation are the drums and an upright bass patch. The patches out of the box are good enough if you?re looking for hip-hop or rap, which tend towards loops and sparse accompaniment anyway. When people say the sounds aren't "inspiring," I can see where they're coming from. But in rap and hip-hop you don't want prominent, "Whoa!"-worthy sounds. You want a fat groove first and then a smooth mix, and Planet Phatt is good for that.

The preset beats are strictly rap and hip-hop. Good for faking the funk. The beats mode also has an X-Factor feature, which lets you shift the beats up and down on the keyboard (ie, the bass drum is C, the snare is G ? move the X-Factor up one degree and now whatever sound is mapped to C# is playing for the kick drum and G# is the snare). For some reason this really impresses people. If you change the X-Factor when listening to a beat, it?s still one of the 99 beats that come with Planet Phatt - it?s just being played on a different "kit". What?s so great about that? I?d imagine it?s good for pre-choruses or breaks, but it?s not like you get thousands of extra beats.

What made Planet Phatt worth my money was its engine for editing sounds. Planet Phatt has excellent editing capabilities. The factory presets are the usual hip-hop and rap stuff with some good pads, but editing lets you recombine sounds and tweak them out with phasers, low-frequency oscillators, different wave shapes ? and you can randomize the degree of any effect. The manual is excellent in explaining this stuff too ? I was clueless about synthesis techniques when I first bought Phatt, but with the manual I was able to educate myself pretty quickly.

I used Planet Phatt in ? brace yourself ? a progressive hard rock band, and with a little tweaking I was able to make great, unique patches. I used Planet Phatt for everything from a squawking "Luckyman" lead to a sinewavy lead that reminded me of Beth Orten?s "Central Reservation" album. I also made big, warm synth-string pads and trippy ?white-noise? pads. Even though it was made for hip-hop, Phatt?s editing engine gave me a big sonic palette with which to find (or make) the right sound for any song. How many other tone modules let you do that?

In fact, I used Planet Phatt for all of my ?synth? sounds; the only other part of my rig was a grand piano synth. Aside from the beats mode, synthy sounds are all Planet Phatt is good for. The attempts to emulate ?real? instruments are lacking ? the electric pianos: are *heavily* processed, and when you remove all the effects they sure don?t sound like any EP I?ve ever heard. There?s a few guitar sounds, but these function more as samples than patches. The organs are likewise heavily processed. They?re fun, but they?re also so unique that you won?t want to use them more than once (though I made a passable organ+leslie sound by messing with the Ay-Ee-Oo filter, which changes the hypothetical "mouth" shape of your patch, and can sound like a Leslie on the slow setting).

I used it during marathon practice sessions and gigged with it and it didn?t flake on me. I gigged without a replacement because I can?t afford backup equipment. If I had my druthers I?d back it up with a Triton, B-3, and baby grand. And the chicks from ?Dream? would be my roadies?Oh baby?

N/A

I?ve been playing for 10 years on some pretty cruddy equipment. I?ve rarely bought gear new ? I prefer to let the hype and price drop, and then buy it used. That said, I think Planet Phatt is my ideal piece of equipment; it?s unassuming, underpriced and underrated.

The presets are adequate but limited to one genre. If you spend some time editing the presets you?ll have a great tone module whose sounds are all yours.

If lost it I think I would definitely replace it, even though now I can afford fancier gear. It?s a solid machine that allows for a lot of creativity.

Be warned ? unless you live on the whitest street in the whitest part of town in Whitesville, your bandmates will recognize the name "Planet Phatt" and its atrocious design as the horribly embarrassing attempt at "urbanness" that it is. And then they will mock you. Really, this thing looks like a cheap Kmart skateboard. Just show them the cool sounds you can make and they?ll leave you alone (well, they?ll still make fun of the name and design, but at least they?ll stop making fun of you for buying it).

If you?re going to buy it used (which I recommend, there?s almost always one or two for sale on E-bay) either make sure it comes with the manual, or download or order the manual via E-mu?s website. The manual is the key to unlock the patch editing mode, which is what makes this little beauty worth the money.

Latest OS. Presets suck. Patch editor is unintuitive and completely uninspiring.
The manual was surprisingly good, however, and I was programming sounds in no time.
The module is extremely simplistic, with hardly any frills to speak of. That said, it
was a breeze to use. Nothing complicated about it.

32 voice, 16 part multi, all that good stuff. No built in anything, just basically a ROMpler.
No expansion capabilities, nothing of any kind. MIDI implementation is standard but I never got around
to using it because the module is so bland that it doesn't make you want to do anything exciting. Probably just
me. After I sold my Phatt (thank God) I got a roland MC505, and, no matter how much Roland's synths ressemble
toys, this box outkicks the Phatt buy a HUGE margin in EVERY category. It was even cheaper than the Phatt!
I have to give it a low score in light of what other modules can do.

None of the instruments come close to being realistic. It was almost like using straight MIDI sound off your Sound Blaster,
althought Phatt had some bass end to it. What types of music does it work well for? It doesn't work for anything in my opinion, except
maybe hip hop or trip hop, but there are FAR better boxes out there suited to this. No onboard effects, and the module is completely
static. The sounds seem to lack any luster and anything in the higher registers. The sounds are muddy and sound almost...lo-fi. However,
I did write a song where this lo-fi sound seemed to work well. If you like lo-fi without having to use filters this could be the box for you.

Never hung once. Took it on plane trips with me many a time (before I owned the MC505)
and never had a problem, except for with security who always thinks it's packed with C-4
or something.

Never dealt. Sold it too quickly.

I would never buy it again. I recommend that you don't buy it. Simply put
there is not a single thing that sets this module apart from any other. The
sound module market is full of great boxes that can do so many more things.
As I mentioned before my MC505 is just a fantastic array of functionality
packed into one convenient box, and much more inspiring than the purple Phatt.
I owned it for 8 months (cringe). If you want to do dance music, the Phatt is
not for you. I couldn't make it do anything impressive at all, and God knows
I tried (limited budget makes you maximize what you have). Please Emu, go away
from the synth market, or at least don't make anything even remotely close
to this thing. Worst piece of musical equipment I've ever owned, and was very
glad to see someone take it off my hands. I hate to be cynical but this will
cause you more grief than glory.

For examples of what I used it for, and how completely flat the sounds sound, hit
www.mp3.com/plusprotocol and download songs Emerald Falls and DreamlandWorld. Don't
laugh too hard at the vocal, those songs are extremely old school =) For a good example
of what the 505 can do get Meet Me In the Middle, Believe, or Sing Along.

Easy to use right out of the box. The manual is very helpful, well, at least it was to me.

MIDI dependent, no sequencer, no built in effects, no expansion capabilities, however, you can drastically edit the patches to your liking. However, without effects, this is not quite as good as it could be.

I LOVE most of the sounds. I am into hip-hop, r&b, and dance styles, so the sounds suit me just fine. In fact, I can use most of the presets the way they are. The only thing that pissed me off about the sounds is that there is no acoustic or grand piano at all, and only one set of strings that are not realistic at all. I think that every module out there should have at least one piano and maybe 3 or 4 strings. But very impressed with the sounds.

Don't know yet, only had it 2 days.

N/A hope I never have to deal with them. However, I called the number provided in the manual and it was DISCONNECTED.....

I render it as a must-have for my home studio. I love it so far.

I am controlling my Planet Phatt module through Cakewalk Pro Audio version 8.04 and the ease of this is down to Cakewalk's instrument definitions other than E-Mu's hardware. Having said that -and despite the tiny 2-row backlit green LCD display- it is a joy to use and very easy too! PLanet Phatt has 2 modes, the general synth mode and the Beats mode which deals with Rhythm loops (with the odd bassline loop included). Whilst the manual was easy to understand and offered a comprehensive backgroundon sound synthesis, it did not explain at all well enough, how one triggers beats mode from within a sequencer.
In the end I recorded rhythm loop MIDI information from the phatt into Cakewalk and then set the port to trigger from Phatt on playback. The added advantage being that you can then transpose the rhythm loops by small increments to utiulise different percussion from within your chosen beats bank whilst retaining the actual rhythm
I give it a nine because it was so easy to get used to but the beats mode enigma gave me a real headache and I've "got around" the problem as opposed to "solved" it.

Fully feautred and a bargain now it's down from #899 to #459, it is exactly what my studio needed as I record RnB/Hip Hop/soul/swing styles of music. Its presets which can be fully edited and saved in the User Banks, would also lend themselves to dance music, especially Garage and happy house but it ooozes the flava of TLC, Janet Jackson and so forth.
Around the backside, the Phatt offers a main stereo out along with 2 subgroups. I find this very useful by grouping the Bass and Drums into subgroup 1 and the rest in Subgroup 2. This way I can really make the already punchy drums and pounding bass sounds even more so outside of the unit.
The only thing it lacks is effects, I would like to see a minimal spec like that of the MU90R. With that kind of manipulation, I would be able to cut out a lot of other routing in my system and concentrate on knowing the unit inside out instead of the task of making it interface with other effects units. Gets an 8 for the lack of effects although E-Mu haven't marketed it as a workstation, I think these days, with the increase of fully comprehensive synths on the market, they would do well to take note
oh, I didn't mention the horrid colour tho' did I? Its pink glow is a nasty touch and as I am so impressed with this unit, I wouldn't fuss about something as irrelevant as colour - BUT I think it detracts from the professional image that this unit SHOULD have.

The actual sounds on the unit are lushly layered cheezy organs, record hisses, rhodes, hits, brass stabs and guitar licks that vary from Bob Marley to wailing guitars that are reminiscent of Janet Jackson's "If". Also featured are a wealth of worms - the sine-wave type pipe sounds that are ubiquitous in so many rnb acts today (Toni Braxton, Babyface, Brownstone etc) and these are very varied too!
The sounds are very clean if that is not a contradiciton in terms with presets such as "Dirty Roll" and "Dirty Organ" and "Noize" and "More Noize" and stereo panned for you (although this is changeable at the flick of a few buttons. The only thing missing are a few of the more older industrial sounding samples for which I must rely on CD-ROM samples.

This rugged 19" unit take up the minimum space in a rack, has a solid "click" to the jack sockets at the back, and although I haven't yet, I intend to use it for my sets so I guess I deem it reliable enough, don't you? It hasn't flaked out on me and I doubt it will.

Hmmm.....I must confess that I am not that impressed with E-Mu as a company and this ghas nothing to do with my Planet Phatt but more to do with the fact thai have e-mailed them so many tiems and never had an Autoresponse let alone an actual reply. Yamaha, they are not!
Planet Phatt is not an old synth, it hasn't been around for years and so the upgrades and need for support do not figure big in my experience. This does not preclude it from the possibility of needing it in the future, and for me, I hope that day never comes
In case you're intersted, my reason for contacting E-mu is because I couldn't fill in my registration card due to the absence of a serila number sticker on the product. I can't register becuase I haven't got a sticker - absurd ain't it?

I would have paid a lot more for this unit had I known it's capabilities and I would have also bought it a lot sooner. On a personal note, the purchase of this unit - and subsequent joy with it - prompted me to take out specific Home Contents Insurance.
The only drawbacks are the lack of effects and the beats mode enigma! You may think my overall rating is very high; if you knew what a difference this has made to my music, you would understand why.