Moog Little Phatty Stage Edition

This thng s really easy to use if you have even the most remote knowledge of analog synthesis.
The presets are pretty decent, but why use presets on an analog synth?
Although there isn't a knob for everything the interface is very well though out and intuitive.
If you want to name a patch you need the patch editor software, which is lame.
The arpeggiator is a little annoying to turn on,

It's an analog monosynth, with no internal effects.
midi and USB connectivity.
CV in and out.
Audio In and Out
2 osc's.
one amazing filter.
one LFO.
It's a very stripped down synth.
I bought it specifically for leads, basses, and audio processing.

It's not the Voyager, but is a fraction of the price. The filter sounds great and it's very punchy. It doesn't have a ton of motion, but it's warm and the envelope is tight smooth and snappy. The keys feel nice. It easily cuts through a mix. It does leads and basses fantastically, but If you need anything more than that you're gonna need another piece of gear.

it's tank. solid knobs and buttons.

Only had issues with the patch editor, which was eventually fixed but it took a long time. That was a third party company's fault. Moog themselves are great.

I would most likely replace this if it were ever lost or stolen.
I've been playing since about 1985.
I bought this along with a Dave Smith Prophet '08 to replace my ROMpler and virtual analog gear. I got the two for the price of a Moog Voyager, which was my other consideration. I think I ended up with a setup which covers a lot more ground.
I wish it had another Osc and LFO, but i'm satisfied.
It definitely fills it's role in my studio well.

Easy to learn and use. Down-rated slightly since it does not have one knob per function (a cost-saving compromise), but this compromise was extremely well thought-out. It's very usable, easy to navigate, and easy-to-tweak. The keyboard has an excellent feel and response. The mod and pitch wheels are excellent performance tools.

I was looking for a modern Minimoog replacement.

The Little Phatty is a monophonic analog synth with an excellent feature set, given the monophonic nature of the beast. I have an early Stage model, and have loaded it with the operating system updates. The arpeggiator is great, easy to use, and very useful. The overdrive fattens up the sound nicely, and dials the sound all the way from "fat" to "monstrous".

The original Minimoog had 3 oscillators, while the LP Stage has 2; but the LP also adds a dedicated LFO (Low Frequency Oscillator). This (IMHO) makes the LP almost equal in sonic strength to the old mini, since most patches need an LFO for modulation.

Is there a "Moog sound"? You better believe it! And this thing has it in spades. Warm, full, harmonically rich. Very musical. Go dig through the old record collection and listen to all the old Minimoog recordings. Emerson, Wakeman, Jan Hammer, etc... this is able to get those sounds.

I have owned a number of other synths over the years... none of them quite capture the classic Moog sound like the Little Phatty. And I've tried.

No problems in the 2 years I've had it. I love having the auto-tune feature... rock solid tuning stability in an analog synth.

N/A

I think the Little Phatty may be the logical heir to the classic Minimoog.

There's something special, soundwise, about the Little Phatty. It's usually the Moog Voyager (another great synth) that gets compared to the classic Minimoog, but I think the Little Phatty is a real contender as the modern successor to the Mini. It's missing very little that the old Mini had, and adds several extra features:
- patch memory
- arpeggiator
- sample & hold (from menu)
- overdrive circuit
- MIDI
- continuously variable waveforms
- full ADSR envelopes
- auto-tuning
- lots of blinky lights!

I currently own a Roland Fantom X8, Nord Lead 2X, Ensoniq SQ-80, and a Synthesizers.com analog modular synth... in addition to the Moog. I've owned other Roland, Ensoniq, Korg, and Yamaha synths in the past.
All great synths... but the Little Phatty is a gem, perhaps a future classic. It has a certain Moog-ish warmth and richness of sound that is intensely musical and useful.

The following is for version 1.03Sc...

As this is a synthesizer, I shall not spend any time talking about presets. You really ought to be creating your own sounds, and that brings me to the editing. It is really quite easy to make your own sounds on this machine, however, it is fairly annoying. The reason I gave this category a 8 despite being a doddle to use, is because you can only edit one parameter per section at a time. I would much rather see a "one knob per function" interface, but in the interest of keeping the showroom price down, I can understand why it is the way it is.

Moog. Everyone who buys one should be well familiar with this name, and what you will be getting with said association. Monophonic, monoaural, no effects, and still the most desirable sound around. The Little Phatty is just what the name implies. It is my go to bass and lead machine. The LP features the following modules:

2 Voltage Controlled Oscillators, with variable waveshaping, starting from a triangle, moving through saw, square, and pulse shapes.

The oscillators, are full, and for a lack of a better term, fat. They have every bit of "oopmh" I was hoping for. The Little Phatty is very musical in nature, and this is in large part to the sheer quality of the sound sources.

1 Voltage Controlled Filter
Design: Patented Moog ladder filter, switchable between 1 and 4 poles (6-24dB), with built in overdrive

This is the money maker. This is what has built the legend of the Minimoog, and it is in full effect here. You're going to have this filter in 4 pole mode about 90 percent of the time, but it is nice to have the flexibility to change it. I have made a nice TB303 impersonation with the 3 pole, and the 2 pole allows you to do some ARP and Obie sounds. The 1 pole is for pure sonic destruction, so use sparingly! I have found that a smidge of overdrive on most patches gives it the effect of looping the Minimoog through itself. A very nice touch, in most cases.

2 ADSR Envelope Generators, one for the amplifier, one for the filter

1 Mod Bus
1 Source, 1 Destination

Fairly standard fare here, but it should be noted that most Moogs do not feature fully articulated ADSR envelopes. So to have the full compliment is really nice.

The LP has MIDI, and it is a breeze to use. You will be making sequenced basslines in no time.

It also has 100 memory locations, which is nice considering most monosynths do not.

This synth scores a 6 for features, but I did not buy this synth for a wealth of features. And neither should you. Quality over quantity is the name of the game, and I don't think I can stress how good the quality is.

The sound is fantastic. It doesn't matter if you have it dry, or add touches of reverb and delay to it. Both sound great.

Make New Order bass lines, Rick Wakeman leads, Kraftwerk-ian filter sweeps, Cars oscillator sync sounds...you name it. It sounds distinctly elegant and distinguished...until you crank the resonance and overdrive. Then it can sound quite nasty, which i like because most Moogs can play Dr. Jekyll, but rarely can it morph into Mr. Hyde.

Rock solid, plain and simple. It needs to be tuned from time to time, but what non digital instrument doesn't?.

I would gig this thing to the end of the Earth, as the build quality is great.

Moog is always there for you.

If my Phatty were taken from me, the thief had better leave me a Voyager. There is no other Moog that will do (besides the Voyager) now that I have been lucky enough to own the LP. I would recommend ditching your Prodigy, Rogue, Source, or MG1 and grabbing one of these. Sure, its not vintage, but the sound is still there. And you get the added features that most Moogs don't have like MIDI, memory, full EG's, and Pulse Width Modulation!

I love the look, and the sound is just as good. I only wish the machine had knobs, knobs and more knobs.

So many synths promise that Moog sound, but they never really deliver. So stop twiddling on your Triton, and get a real red blooded analog synthesizer.

I've been using the Phatty for about a year. First, the Stage One and now the Stage II. I love the concept that Bob was thinking of when creating this product. In performance it is too easy to grab the wrong dial on the Novation Supernova, for example, under lights; so, the large dials and the rubber light buttons really make it fun to jam live. However, this same setup also limits some combinations. It would be nice to have the same circutry, but have more big dials for certain functions, or even dual destinations and wave forms. Seems like it would be possible.

This is like a saxaphone or trombone. Arpedggiation is great for laying a basic sound, then experiment with pitch, LFO, EG, and filter. Effects? No, why put on-board effects into basic unit? I have a great time using guitar effect pedals. The newer pedals have a ton of easily manipulated presets, 32bit sampling, fairly cheap, and a volume control on the left side! I do find the volume knob placement on the Phatty awkward. My point is that there never was a spring reverb on a Selmer Trombone (now there's a thought). And that is what I believe the Phatty to be: a great solo intrument. Everything you need to manipulate a sound is here. The addition of well, three oscillators would be "more cool." But no, this is not the Voyager, but it is a solid performance tool, and a whole lot friendlier to take on the road.

This is a synthesizer. I believe the sound to be only as good as operator.

I had some trouble with the Pitch bend. But it was fixed by Moog.

The Moog people are a little flaky, they do need some left brains in there. But they got the job done!

I think I will have to have one of these in the synth chain. For my music it is perfect. I love the Rick Wakeman sounds I can get out of it. I love to manipulate the solos on the fly. I hate the volume control placement on the right side. I wish it had more dedicated dials/knobs. I would like a balanced output device that I could kick in to balance presets.

Controlling this synth is quite simple, maybe too simple.

This synth is so simple that features are quite simple. This is why i am beginning to feel bad about it. The best thing is the new arpeggiator feature you can get updating the OS from moogmusic.

I was using a Minimoog Voyager and because i needed some money i changed it for this one. To me, it does not sound good enough. I don't want to say it's crap but when you see the word Moog you think it's going to be great and well, i was wrong with this one. I don't like it anymore, really.

It takes some time to get in tune but then it's ok.

Well, avoid it, if you want a Moog and you have money then go for the Voyager. If you don't have enough money think about any other option, this synth does not worth the money.

Very nice and pretty easy to use, just took some minutes to get familiar
with the "software" part. compared to other synths, this guy is very easy to do!

it's a pretty simple but complete instrument.
monphonic, 2 oscillators, some filtering, it's all!
basically it hasn't got any "pedal" effects (delay, reverb, etc). i recommend the use of an Analog Delay of any sort (the best is the moogerfooger!)

well, no poliphony, no effects, at the beginning it sounds lean and light, but once youknow it, you can juice alot of really Phat and MEAN sounds that digital stuff can't do (ex. korg, roland, and so on). monophonic is a little strange, but fine too! you can do a lot of glides, it's cool and funny.
Personally, the lp can't be played alone, you need some other keyboard to get some support, and some Delay too.
Very good for Rock, funk, electro things, dance.

a real though guy! i put it in my car, smash it around... it never changes its form or sound!

very helpful, kind and friendly, you can find almost any spare part or software support. if you need help, just ask!

if you re looking for a real and natural electronic sound, this is good for you. sounds though and rough, it is born for rock and not for "space" sounds. at the beginning i wanted to buy a synth, i tried some digital ones (compared to this they sound really FAKE!), then i found my own on the little phatty... i wish i could get an Old School one... this should sound awesome!

This is about the Litle Phatty II : this synth might look easy to use at first glance , but there is no way to set arpeggiator , arp hold I think even midi-clock in a global way , so you have to save these settings in each preset... And I find really most of the presets totally unusable , even after tweaking them .

Monophonic , no effects , no aftertouch , not pressure sensitive , no sequencer and the arp only has up , down and as played (with clock divisions)Moog pretended to have invented the hot water with this clock-syncable arp , but my (15year?)old Korg Prophecy has this too but then the arps are editable , a Novation Supernova has hundreds of arp-patterns that are really playable (as opposed to Karma , where you are playing other peoples melodies )

I'd like to say that it's here that it really shines , but quite honestly , it doesn't : to me the sounds are agressive , even very digital , now I can see that some other people might like this , but then again , for example the Prophecy has a much wider palet of different and a lot nicer sounds , and so have a lot of other synths which you can find easyly for a fraction of the money I payed for the LP

Came out of the box totally detuned , takes about 2 hours to tune it. Would never ever take this to a gig . Oh and , along with the LP came a DVD with a Minimoog plug-in on it . Only it doesn't work proprely : random bleeps while you are playing it makes it totally unusable too...

No experience

One good advice : go to a shop and play this thing before you buy it, I didn't and sold it after 3 days cursing at the machine and at myself for buying this from the net. The only really good thing about this Moog is the promotion-team...I predict there's gonna be a lot of these totally overpriced LP's on ??bay within a year. This synth might have been passable 20 years ago , but hey , it's 2008 now !

V1.03Sc. I find the presets interesting, but few of them useful. I'm busily overwriting them with my own! Editing/creating/saving patches is a snap once you get used to how it's done. The LP manual is logical and informative, although probably not in-depth enough for beginning synthesists.
My biggest complaint is the location of the volume control. Every monosynth I've ever used placed it on the left side of the machine, a logical place for right-hand-only playing. I find reaching with my left arm all the way over to the right side a real PITA.
My biggest praise is the LED-lighted controls: I LOVE being able to see a patch simply by looking at the parameters lit up. Makes sound building a treat.

THis is a monosynth, so no polyphony. I find the keys to be solid and quiet, unlike the noisy keys on my vintage synths. The olny built-in 'effects' are portamento, which is easy to access and works as expected. As far as MIDI goes, I do not "do" MIDI...I am an analog-only gal from the 70's. Anyone who mentions MIDI in my home gets their mouth washed out with soap.
NO sequencer. NO arpeggiator. NO noise source. And not long after I purchased my LP Stage, the Stage 2 come out with....arpeggiator and noise. Typical!!!!

As there are very few -if any- normal instrument patches factory-programmed, I can't comment. I have, however, built some decent sounding brass, woodwind, string, and piano sounds from scratch, and some nice drum sounds using the noise source on the optional CP-251 Control Module. My playing is classic rock and electronic (as Jarre, Perrey, Fast, et al), but I can see the LP Stage being useful and happy in any genre. It is exceptionally expressionful (is that a word?), and easy to use in a live performance thanks to the 100 page preset menu, and ease of programming.

After eight months of wonership and reasonably hard playing, I have experienced none of the problems reported elsewhere (software, button problems, and so on). While I would certainly use solo it on a gig in terms of electronic and mechanical reliability, I would not like to be without a noise source and an arpeggiator. Thus, unless I pop for an LP Stage 2, I would have to gig up with a second synth that has those features.

Have not had to deal with Moog on anything serious yet, but repeated attempts to buy a Moog t-shirt and hoodie have failed. They just don't seemd to want to respond to such minor matters. And not to pick nits, but after spending $1500, Moog's "free gift" was a Moog sticker worth about ten cents. OK...it's better than no sticker, but it seemed so chintzy. Really.

If my LP Stage was lost, I'd definitely buy a Stage 2. It's less money, and has more features. Overall, I love my LP, but I HATE the location of the volume knob! Currently my other synths are a Roland SH09 and a Roland Jupiter-4, plus a Yamaha keyboard thingy I use for rythm and the odd preset fill-in sound.
I bought the Moog LP because I always wanted the Moog sound, and the LP definitely has that sound that no other analog synth can match. But I think the lack of a couple of key features, and that darned volume knob issue were major oversights in Moog's thought process. Otherwise, I'm keeping my LP Stage and loving it in spite of those.

It's pretty darn easy. The presets are good but the magic is that you can use them to study how to get various effects with analog controls. For the performer, everything is designed for quick switching. Patches load instantly at the turn of a wheel. It's great. The manual is good.

It's monophonic. Keys are velocity sensitive - used more for filter changes, not so much volume changes. Keyboard action is solid. There's an overdrive effect. It could have used a built in reverb and delay in my opinion. There's MIDI in-out (I haven't used that much yet).

So many neat sounds... so expressive! In my opinion, you can really tell analog vs. digital when using pitch bends and modulation. I personally love dips\bends\wobbles in all my playing so for me this thing is a dream come true. Great for funk, techno, bass lines, jazz, noise, RnB, analog-type percussive stuff, etc... I am really in love with the way this thing sounds.

I dunno. Seems pretty solid. Seems sturdy.

?

It's expensive. But, it's awesome. This is easily my favorite keyboard of all time. I got it mostly to make bass lines with, but, I'm to a point where I'm throwing a lot of time into chops of all varieties with it. If you're a keyboard player, especially a funky one, you basically gotta have this thing. Other folks will probably like it too. It sounds so cool through delay, so, I do wish it came with that built in. Oh well..

Really easy to use. All parameters that you need are right in the front panel. The user interface is very easy going, and a very clever one because if you need to modify let's say waveform, you just press the boton and the actual value is shown in the knob led.

I've never owned an analog synthesizer before and also I'm new on substractive synthesis, and this interface is excelent to learn.

I think substractive synthesis have never been easier.

The main features of this synthesizer I think that everyone reading this reviews knows the main features: Two oscilators, monophonic, one filter, modulation section, etc.

Also there is one small downside, and that is that this unit desn't have any effects at all, but that's one of the reasons why we can get the Moog sound at this price tag. This can be solved by an external effects unit.

A nice feature is the Overload control, it can add a very interesting texture to the sound.

And another great feature is the mono input, you can plug in a guitar to pass it through the LP filter and add some nice distortion with the overload feature.

The keyboard feel is great for my taste, it is really helpful to play fast solos.

This is where the LP really shines. With no much experience I've re created some classic moog leads like the Tom Sawyer lead from Rush, the Shine On Your Crazy Diamond lead sound from Pink Floyd, also some Keith Emerson and Rick Wakeman classic sounds.

You have very deep bases, and ear shattering leads, don't look to recreate any realistic instrument, this is a Moog and that's it.

I've used some soft synths in the past for preset playing only like Arturia Minimoog and Absynth, but there is nothing compared to the real analog sound, I can't describe whit words what is the difference, you will just have to hear for yourselves.

I???ve never used the LP in a live situation, but it feels and looks very solid, this thing seems like is going to last a life time if taken care of. And yes I would gig without a backup.

I'ne never needed to deal with any Moog technician.

This is a great keyboard, may be you can find some virtual synths for a fraction of the price, but computers get obsolete and old, on the other hand Moog instruments become classics and last a lifetime!! This is a Moog, I can???t compare this to other Moog gear because it is my first, but I???m very happy with this synth because I can recreate some of my all time favorite sounds. Of course this is a little expensive keyboard, but it???s worth it.