The original Phatty lineup, produced between 2006 and 2013, consists of the Little Phatty Tribute (2006) and Stage (2007), Little Phatty Stage II (2008, with USB interface), Limited Edition, and Slim Phatty. Amazona provides a nice (german language) article.

I have no clue whether the circuitry of the Sub Phatty also was borrowed from this product line or is closer to the Sub 37 (which I sold about 5 years ago) and Subsequent 37 lineup (Synthway provides a comparison). Since I assume the latter, this posting probably does not apply to it.

According to the specs, the features of the Phatties are rather limited, so I never paid attention to them. Just recently, a friend of mine mentioned it during the conversation about the Minimoog Voyager. The Phatties are the last synthesizers influenced by Bob Moog (though he died before the release), so I decided to get one 2nd hand.

I’ve played a lot of synthesizers during the last decades, and there were only a few which were outstanding. The Phatty is one of them. Its sound engine can do only a couple of tricks more than the original Minimoog did. But its sound is completely different from what I knew from digital synths, VAs, software plugins, or even several other modern analog synths. Drift, saturation, and its feedback loop play important roles in its sound design, all elements seldom to find elsewhere. In short, I absolutely can recommend that you try this machine. Here’s a couple of pitfalls and information potential buyers should be aware of.

• I would have preferred a keyboard version, e.g. the Stage II. However, users report that the wheels and side panels get sticky and the keybed yellow due to out-gassing. So I purchased a Slim Phatty instead, avoiding those issues.
• Though it is class compliant, USB connectivity on a Mac does not work (the machine does not show up at all). Apparently macOS is quite picky with its friends. It works well on Windows, though. Mac users should use a USB-MIDI-cable attached to the Phatty’s DIN ports.
• I once had some issues with MIDI not triggering any notes. It turned out to be a phatty issue. “MIDI IN” was correctly set to “DIN/USB”, but after I changed it forth and back the synth suddenly responded to MIDI events again. This only happened once and does not seem to be a general issue.
• Tuning issues. It is common sense that the machine needs 30-45′ to warm up before running stable.
  • One issue is that the 2nd oscillator is not in tune with the main oscillator, and additionally it does not scale properly over the octaves. The menu provides some calibration routines (note that the note calibration will last for about two hours), but those didn’t fix the issues. Eventuelly I noticed my machine ran firmware version 3.12, whereas the latest was 3.21. Fortunately Moog still provides it as a download. After the update, I ran the calibration process again, as adviced by Moog Tech Support and finally the 2nd oscillator is in tune. Here’s some info of the firmware release notes which may be related to the issue:
    »V3.21: Bugfix update. Note Calibration would not tune all octaves if Local Control was off; also removed Local Control: “noKB” option from the Slim Phatty (which has no keyboard).«
  • One further issue is its master tune, which is often not at a0 = 440 Hz. The menu provides three settings:
    1. Auto. Interpreting the abovementioned Moog Tech Support posting, it probably is not meant to be enabled permanently, but to be re-run every now and then after the environmental temperature did change significantly.
    2. Off. This deactivates the front panel pot “Fine Tune” and allows to enter a tuning offset manually using the value encoder. That’s the setting I’m using, e.g. -711.
    3. On. This is the setting which activates the front panel pot “Fine Tune”, so the user can tune the instrument just like it was a guitar. I don’t use it, since the pot is placed in a way that I often touch it accidentally while using the edit menu.
• Understanding SysEx dumps is important. My recommendation is to do a backup before sending any SysEx to the device, since it will eventually overwrite stuff you didn’t expect. The following is unverified but my current understanding what happens.
  • “Send cur preset” dumps the currently selected memory slot. When such a dump is sent back to the Phatty, it will overwrite the currently selected memory slot. For me this was an unexpected behaviour I’ve never seen on any other synth. I expected it to be written either to the edit buffer or to the original location, but not to the currently selected location.
  • “Send cur panel” dumps what other synths refer to as “Edit buffer”. It’s a bit misleading, since “Panel mode” on other synths usually means that the synth engine reflects the current position of the physical controls. Besides the menu command, here’s the command to request a panel dump via a SysEx message:
    F0 04 05 06 03 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 F7
  • “Send all presets” will dump all presets as one huge 0xF0 System Exclusive 0xF7 block. This should be used in case you want to share your presets with other users.
  • “Send Bulk Dump” will send both all presets as well as all global settings, including the tuning tables, as one huge 0xF0 System Exclusive 0xF7 block. I recommend to use this dump frequently for personal backups. I once transferred a preset bank from the web to my Phatty, which was a bulk dump of another machine. This exchanged my global settings and tuning tables with values of another machine, so I needed to re-run the whole calibration process. My recommendation is to never share such a dump with other users.
• The various Phatty editions shipped with different factory presets. I accidentally found this link somewhere, which contains the factory presets of the Tribute, Stage, Stage II, and Slim editions. I actually want to recommend the additional material, it’s well worth the effort.
• The Phatty’s engine is quite simple, and its interface makes it easy to understand how a preset is composed. Until now, I didn’t feel the need to work with any editor or librarian. In case you want to use some software librarian or editor, here are some links.
  • The soundtower editor is available as a demo version, which I recommend to try first. I used it to rename a couple of presets on the device.
  • David García Goñi shares some still maintained librarian for Linux, with access to some menu parameters.
  • Mougue – Big Skinny is a simple, MIDI-CC-based panel for the Ctrlr project.
  • About 10 years ago, Jean Pierre Cimalando shared some editor code on Gitlab. Its source code is a rare documentation of the SysEx encoding (e.g. see tools/codegen-fmt.lisp and the generated phatty-fmt.x).

Seit heute Nachmittag schneit es anhaltend. Spontan treffen sich Autofahrer bevorzugt an Kreuzungen und Kreisverkehren, um sich bei Warnblinkanlagen angeregt zu unterhalten. Geschätzte Landsleute, bei solchem Wetter sind nunmal bereits 30 km/h grenzwertig und 50 km/h jenseits von gut und böse. Davon abgesehen ein wirklich nettes Intermezzo.

Edit: Nach einer Woche Tauwetter (zumindest tagsüber) liegen erstaunlicherweise noch immer Schneereste.

Over 15 years ago, I bought a Gudereit LC-R thanks to the hint of some friend. I learned a lot using it, so selling it also marks the end of an emotional relationship. Unfortunately, usage dropped significantly (read as: near zero) as I moved from Karlsruhe to Weissach, a quite hilly region, which triggered me to buy a Möve Voyager (and BTW, Möve unfortunately became insolvent last autumn).

Back to 2010. What did I do with the LC-R?

• Oder-Neiße-Cycleway.
• Black forest trips. Before this bike, I always avoided hills. With this bike, I entered the black forest numerous times, including a few standard tours:
  • Take the urban railway to Forbach, then heading up to Rote Lache by bike, then down to Baden-Baden and then back to Karlsruhe using Deutsche Bahn.
  • Take the urban railway to Baiersbronn, then heading up to Obertal-Buhlbach to help solving some trout issues, then further up to the Ruhestein pass, then down to Achern and then back to Karlsruhe using Deutsche Bahn.
• Numerous visits to the Bienwaldmühle restaurant. In case you are looking for an excellent kitchen with traditional german dishes, this is one of the N°1 places to go. You won’t regret!
• Numerous visits to Wissembourg. For the countless concerts, I mainly used a car, but I’ve often been there by bike as well. Don’t miss to visit Daniel Rebert.
• Strasbourg several times.
• Various biking trip along former railway lines.
• Countless further tours.

The bike quickly payed off. Former bikes of the 600 € class usually gave up after about 3 years. The Gudereit was about triple times the price, but did last much longer, avoiding a lot of stress during tours. Two years ago, I needed to replace a couple of parts, which means they did last for about 12 years.

The LC-R served me extremely well. It was purchased by a guy of Monnem who will continue using it as a city bike.

…laden viele zu Aktivitäten an der frischen Luft ein.

I’m still impressed by (but unfortunately not familiar with) polyrhythms. Frederick Viner shares a video with contribution of Cordelia Williams. The analysis starts at 43 seconds.

Seit fast einem Jahr fahre ich fast ausschließlich ein Elektrofahrzeug. In Summe funktioniert das Ganze deutlich besser, als ich erwartet hatte. Lademöglichkeiten gibt es meist genug, auch Schnelladesäulen, wenn man unterwegs nachladen muss (die Preise sind allerdings, auch an 22 KW-Säulen, häufig saftig. Kürzlich fielen 84ç an.).

Allerdings kann das Ganze durch die nicht ganz triviale Gemengelage aus Betreibern, Zahlungsarten, Ladesystemen und Fahrzeugelektronik manchmal auch tückisch werden. Mit 25 km Restreichweite suchte ich heute eine Lademöglichkeit. Ergebnisse:

1. Eine Ladesäule eines großen Mineralölkonzerns war nicht in Betrieb (Display aus).
2. Beim Discounter direkt nebenan meldete das Fahrzeug mehrfach einen Fehler in der Ladeinfrastruktur (eine Meldung, die recht häufig auftritt).
3. Beim zweiten Discounter nebenan war Laden nur mit dessen Ladekarten möglich.
4. Glücklicherweise bot einige Meter weiter ein Gewerbebetrieb 5 öffentliche Ladeplätze mit QR-Codes an, die mit der App sogar funktionierten. Für die etwas mageren 7 kW war ich extrem dankbar, um zumindest so viel nachzuladen, dass es bis zurück reichen sollte.
5. Einige Kilometer weiter steuerte ich eine 150 kW-Schnellladesäule an. Auch dort brach der Ladevorgang zweimal noch während der Initialisierung mit einer Fehlermeldung ab. Ein weiterer potentieller Kunde hätte dort gerne mit Kreditkarte geladen. Diese Zahlmöglichkeit gab es dort aber nicht.
6. Endlich zurück, lud ich das Fahrzeug an einer 22 kW-Ladestelle, an der das Fahrzeug bereits einige Male das Laden verweigert hatte. Heute ging es dankenswerterweise.

Als Elektrofahrer gewöhnt man sich schnell daran, dass einzelne Ladesäulen aus einem der obigen Gründe hin und wieder nicht funktionieren. So gehäuft wie heute hatte ich das aber bislang nicht.

Wer gewohnt ist, Musik anhand von Lead Sheets zu spielen, sollte wenig Schwierigkeiten haben, zu verstehen, wie die Generalbass-Notation funktioniert. Zumindest nicht mehr nach diesem Video.

Auf dem Bild versteckt sich mutmaßlich Dieterich Buxtehude. Tipp: Er sitzt nicht, wie man vielleicht erwarten würde, an den Tasten.

About 10 years ago, I started to learn playing baroque pipe organ music literature (and contributed to a concert a couple of weeks later). As an autodidact, I started by just playing the pieces by sight-reading. I soon realized that this is neither an effective nor efficient method to master them. As a consequence, over all those years, I incrementally filled my practicing toolbox step by step. And I’m still not done yet.

Yesterday, I visited the University of Music and Performing Arts in Mannheim. The overarching topic was »Herausforderung Üben«, covered by the following sessions:

• “Neurowissenschaftliche Grundlagen des musikalischen Lernens” (Prof. em. Dr. med. Eckart Altenmüller)
• “Üben und musizieren mit Apps und Gamification” (Kristin Thielemann)
• “Üben geht klar! Impulse zur Gestaltung kreativer Lernwege im Instrumentalunterricht” (Corina Nastoll)

I especially enjoyed the first talk, which was extremely worthwhile. Since the format is established and will continue to take place, I’d like to recommend future issues.

Matt demonstrates his rig, including the Rhodes piano.

How Pianists Actually memorize Music

My musical taste was mainly coined by several 70ties musicians such as Joe Zawinul († 2007, Weather Report), Chick Corea († 2021, Return to forever), or Klaus Doldinger († two days ago, Passport). All of them left an incredible heritage, so thanks for all of the music, Klaus.

Letzte Woche war ich wiedermal bei den Silbermann-Tagen in Freiberg. Am Samstag konnten wir mit Jan Katzschke diverse Instrumente in der Umgebung aus der Nähe erleben, unter anderem einen handbetriebenen Zimbelstern.

Am Abend gab es dann ein “Zwillingskonzert” an den Silbermann-Instrumenten in St. Thomas, Strasbourg und im Freiberger Dom, bei dem es jeweils eine Live-Übertragung an den anderen Ort gab. Jan Katzschke spielte außerdem am Sonntag ein Konzert im Silbermann-Museum Frauenstein.

Seit gestern ist auch der XVII. internationale Gottfried-Silbermann-Orgelwettbewerb abgeschlossen. An insgesamt 6 Tagen konnte man den öffentlichen Wertungsrunden beiwohnen und bekam dabei Musikleistungen auf höchstem Niveau geboten.

In order to attach physical MIDI keybeds to divisions in GrandOrgue, just right click (or Ctrl-Click, in case you’re on a Mac) on one of the keybeds in the UI. In the dialog, select »Detect complex MIDI setup«, then press the lowest and highest key on the keybed when being asked to do so.

Recently I had the occasion to get in touch with several historic Iberian instruments, which all challenged us with some short octaves. As a consequence, I wanted to practice with one. First I thought I need to update the Palma organ definition file (ODF) accordingly, but it’s much simpler. From the popup labeled »Event:«, just select »9x Note short octave at low key«. And that’s it. The MIDI events of the lowest octave of your console are rearranged by GrandOrgue, e.g. C through D# are silent, E represents C, F# represents D, G# represents E, and the remaining keys work as usual. Don’t forget to save the settings in case you want to keep them.

The 14th season of vespers on the Dubois organ in Wissembourg is past. Due to other activities, like visiting historic organs in central spain and central Germany, this was the very first season since 2012 in which I was not able to attend (almost) all concerts. Actually, I only attended the first and the last two. Last sunday, Thomas Kientz, who already performed in 2013 and 2018, played an absolutely outstanding closing concert and left an absolutely exited audience. Here’s the programme:

I enjoyed the whole concert, and I have to admit that out of the many phantastic baroque composers of classic French organ masses, Guilain is one of my all time favorites. Thanks Thomas!

As always, I’m extremely grateful to all who contribute to make those outstanding concerts happen.

BTW: Chris Jarrett will perform on 2025-10-05 at 4 PM (note: not 5 PM).

During the MuSeg festival, an organ course with about one dozen of participants took place. We learned a lot from Bine Bryndorf (just one example: historic fingering techniques) and Ángel Montero (for example, how to perform Glosas). Both shared an incredible amount of knowledge, positive energy, plus Angel was quite busy to ensure everything worked smoothly “behind the scenes”.

The course took place at several historic instruments: The two main organs of Segovia’s cathedral, a positive organ in one of its chapels, and the organs of the churches in El Espinar, Abades, Sangarcia, and Marugán (BTW: this valuable instrument has been replicated). Four concerts have been performed: an opening concert by Angel in Sangarcia, Bine on Monday at the smaller one of the two cathedral organs (recording), and course participants on Saturday in El Espinar respectively Sunday in Abades.

There were a couple of reasons why I subscribed to this course:

• I have a couple of spanish baroque organ pieces in my repertoire, plus I started to learn two more only recently (Andrés de Sola, Primer Tiento del Primer Tono plus José da madre de Deus, Fuga in d minor). I simply know little of how to perform them best, so the course came in handy to further develop my skills.
• I used several sources to learn more about the specialities of baroque Iberian organs. I learned a lot, but still a lot of questions remained. So the chance to have access to several historic instruments promised to better understand their particularities.
• I use a digital sample set of the Echevarria organ in Segovia’s cathedral. The work with the sample set also left a couple of questions unanswered. So the chance to see the original instrument was extremely tempting.
• Sound. Of course I listen to recordings and use sample sets. However, nothing is beating the real sound of an authentic instrument, including its imperfections, the typical meantone temperament and the analogue sound if the horizontal pipes.

The course was very rewarding, since I learned much more than I longed for. As a consequence, I’m extremely grateful to all of the people who contributed to make it happen. I met a lot of nice, skilled, and highly motivated people. Plus Segovia obviously is an extremely nice holiday destination.

Pictures:

Grégoire Blanc et Thomas Pellerin @ Angers Cathedral.

Yesterday three students of the Musikhochschule Saarbrücken performed the first concert of this year’s season. Michael Schwedt played the Suite du premier ton of Louis-Nicolas Clérambault, Helena Fontaine his suite de deuxième ton (which I also play myself) plus two pieces of Jean Adam Guilain (one of my favourite composers of the classic French organ), and Doyoung Ahn performed the pièce d’orgue de Bach plus two pièces de François Couperin.

It was a great joy and pleasure to meet friends and listen to the instrument played by young masters performing pieces composed for exactly this type of instrument.

Thanks a whole bunch to all involved.

I grew up with the sound of early synthesizers, especially musicians like Keith Emerson or Chick Corea playing Moog synthesizers. Still, the Minimoog is often seen as a reference to other synths.

Of course I always wanted to have that sound right at my finger tips. However, an original Mini (or even the Voyager) was expensive to buy and service. I once owned a Sub 37 which I had to bring to the service workshop at least twice. It’s a nice synth, but it’s not a Minimoog. I sold it during the pandemic.

Behringer provided two reincarnations, the Model D and the Poly D. Both sound great, but lack memory. The Roland SE-02, developed by Studio Electronics, provides memory and sounds phantastic. However, the tiny interface and its cryptic control labels make it hard to use.

A recent reincarnation was the Moog Messenger, an affordable Moog monophonic synthesizer with patch memory and lots of features to make it a modern synth. It just arrived yesterday and I am quite impressed of what it is capable of. More deep dive sessions will follow.