Moog Slim Phatty

I’m still digging though my analog synth collection and just writing some notes. I have owned the Slim Phatty for a few years now. I went through a period of buying synths on Craigslist for a while an this is one that I picked up here in San Francisco.

I wanted a Moog synth for a while and at the time I picked this up I didn’t have the Minitaur. This is my first Moog.

If I had to do it again I would probably just pick up a Sub 25. Nice keyboard and immediate knobs. Every time I sit down at my friend’s Sub I’m inspired to get some kind of crazy synth performance going.

I think I will keep this synth just to cover the bases. I’m kicking myself for not picking up the Sirin back when it was discontinued. Or just a Sub 25 would be cool but I don’t really have the space for it.

I think part of this synth is that the presets are pretty uninspiring. The more I mess with it the happier I am with the sound of it. The filter overload setting is super sensitive and I’m finding that just the tiniest bit of it influences the sound a lot.

So for those times when I want to have a Moog sound that goes higher than what my Minitaur can do I will reach for the SP. Which probably won’t be all that often.

Update: Just a footnote that there are a few things on the SP that are cool and some drawbacks. One drawback is that there isn’t a noise source. The modulation options are pretty interesting though. One of the mod options is a noise source. I have been trying to get this to work modulating the filter as a noise source but it’s not that great. It’s interesting though.

One bonus I think is that one of the modulation sources is the filter envelope. You can use this to make kick and drum sounds using the filter envelope modulating the pitch.