Another gear conundrum post

I’ve decided to sell my little phatty. It’s great but I’m not a keyboard player and I think you have to be to get the best out of it. Would free up some guilt free funds for a couple of new gadgets. I want something to pair with OT2. Like hands on, fun, but also deep. Flexible on digital, FM, analog - just has to sound good! Options
Digitone
Moog dfam
Moot mother 32
Analog 4
Lyra8
A combo of two. Dfam needs cv to sync so a4 looks good, combo is a bit over budget but fukit.
Digitone and dfam is appealing but need to find way to sync dfam.
Any thoughts appreciated.

Blockquote

I want something to pair with OT2. Like hands on, fun, but also deep. Flexible on digital, FM, analog - just has to sound good

Clearly the Digitone. Add a monophonic analog Synth Like Minibrute/Microbrute/MS20 for analog goodness

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Your list leads to so many different directions … from well-tried Moog to very experimental Lyra8. It’s hard to guess, what kind of music or sound you would like to create.

Selling the Phatty and getting a Mother 32 instead, seems to be a bad choice. I have two Moogs in the studio and can say, they have much in common … soundwise.

I would suggest to use the MIDI sequencer of your OT to get the Phatty singing … you don’t need to use the keys … check the MIDI-implementation of the Phatty and if enough CC can be received from the OT, it might be, that an OT-Phatty combi is much more flexible than putting together an OT and a Mother 32.

How do you want to use the OT. More as a creative sampler, or more as a rhythm machine? The OT goes well with a dedicated rhythm machine (AR, TR-XoX-like), a flexible monophonic synth, and/or a polyphonic synth. The A4 or the Digitone would be great synths, even if polyphony is limited.

Have you considered to complement the Moog sound, which you already have, with the new Behringer Neutron? Particularly the filter of the Neutron is worth to be checked out. Beeing semimodular makes it most flexible too.

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yeah, your shopping list is too vague for proper suggestions. Details pls?

  • what sized box you looking for?
  • how many voices of poly?
  • MIDI or CV/dinsync, or both?
  • analog, digital or doesnt matter?
  • Do you prioritize good MIDI CC implementation, excellent sonics or UX/workflow?
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Is there a possibility of talking you out of selling the Phatty? :upside_down_face:

Get the Analog Four MK1 secondhand and you’ll almost have enough spare change to get a Digitone too.

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Ha! Yes I’m kind of a sound whore, I like to make soundscapes with pulsing rhythms. I studied film scoring and lean towards experimentation. So I can see a use for pretty much anything, which can be problematic. Right now I don’t have a lot of space living in Hong Kong. The phatty is relatively big and heavy in my studio. Definitely in the creative sampler side of OT. So something I can reach out and tweak while focusing on OT which I find very hands on.

Yes, absolutely. I love the sounds. Perhaps I should try using OT sequencer on it. It’s funny I just don’t enjoy playing the keyboard on it.

Hook it up and MIDI sequence it. Don’t have to touch it :slight_smile:

I also think it’s too big but it sounds so good I carry it across the country just for one show. An alternative which I contemplated a lot is to get a slim phatty. They are pretty cheap, much much smaller, you can rack it and you keep the sound.

The small boxes work for me in current circumstances.
Poly would be ok, not essential.
Use midi a lot just for clocking several things,
Don’t have any cv stuff right now, except volcas I got the kids. One option is to ‘borrow’ the volca FM and sync the dfam to it, love the dfam interface and volca may satisfy FM side of things for a bit.
Hardly ever use cc, sonics and UI are toptoptop priorities for me.

A used SP is a great thought. Might look into that. Cheers

My vote goes to Digitone, I own the Mother32 and not crazy about it, I dont think the dfam is that geat. Cheers

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By the way I own the SP too and would take it over the M32 anytime

So UI and sonics, ok… but you also mention that you like to do filmscape sorta things, which IME rely heavily on subtle parameter automation…?

Elektron A4 is quite a sound design powerhouse, but its UI is perhaps not super immediate unless you already have sound prepped with parameter macros…

The digitone is also great, and surprisingly flexible, way more flexible than yamaha dx fm, but also here the immediacy is a questionmark, no parameter macros at all!

But then again, unless you want to go with monophonic 1-knob/function, most of the deeper synth modules are a PITA to program… certainly less fun than the elektrons even.

I sold off my moog little phatty and got a SE-02 instead. Haven’t really missed to moog tbh, but then again I also have a Karp Odyssey desktop and A4 mk I so am pretty well covered in analog mono sounds.

Having both 2-pole and 4-pole LPFs was nice though…

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The SP was a great recommendation, I haven’t been two crazy about the mother 32 demos, most of them are layered with other stuff. I do really like the DFAM demos, and it looks like fun. I’m messing about on OT now before work and would love some thing just to the side I can tweak once the OT is in it’s groove. So twiddly and small is probably where I’m at, maybe someone should make a synth and call it the Pygmys cock.

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There are a bunch of desktop-sized analog monos on the market, so unless you are ansolutely in love with all aspects of the lp, except size, you have alot of alternatives to choose from:

dave smith mopho
roland se-02
behringer model d
dreadbox synths (they have several options) - I heard these sound sublime?
circuit monostation
and many, many more…

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strangely, I am travelling on business in US and the local guitar center has a used A4 mk1 on sale, mmmm…

You can assign four destinations to the mod wheel…and use that as a parameter macro controller. Same for breath controller and aftertouch.

Are you from the US? If not you could claim sales tax back making that deal even sweeter.