Just about to go pick up another Little Phatty...

[tastychops]

So yeah ... I am a guitarist / writer and I used to love having a Little Phatty in my music room to make some noises, work on bass lines, and also to fatten out the sound of a two piece rock act I play in. I had to get rid of it when I had a tight money situation but one has come up again locally for a decent price and I am pretty keen ... until I see the new minibrute ... and the minitaur.

I am not very knowledgeable when it comes to synths ... I just want to have something that is easy to play around with, easy to carry around and can sound really fat and sometimes nasty. I'm thinking the minibrute and the minitaur combo could get me there in style.

Probably wise to let the Lil Phatty go for now until these new contenders are released?

[Popbott]

Originally Posted by tastychops

Probably wise to let the Lil Phatty go for now until these new contenders are released?

Aside from videos, I haven't seen either the Minibrute or Minitaur in person, so it would be hard to say how either will fair up until I actually play one or demo one in my own studio. The LP walks on proven ground for now, many artists and users around the world swear by it. IMO, the new contenders better sound pretty special for not haveing preset locations.

[CountingToes]

I don't know why everyone is so hung up on preset locations, in a synth as basic as the minitaur, how long can it really take to dial up any patch

[soundxplorer]

I was intrigued by the Minitaur at first too but it lacks some features that I use on my Phatty all the time - the main one being keyboard tracking on the filter. I often like to tune the resonance to the notes I'm playing. Also keep in mind that the Minitaur is mainly intended for bass since it doesn't respond to notes above middle C.

[LiveFromKyoto]

Originally Posted by CountingToes

I don't know why everyone is so hung up on preset locations, in a synth as basic as the minitaur, how long can it really take to dial up any patch

For somebody who's not familiar with synths? Forever. Presets take people places they didn't know the machine could go, and save tme trying to program the right sound.

To the OP - for your needs I'd recommend sticking with the Phatty. You're already familiar with it, and it's more capable than the other two, particularly if you're going to be hands-off for much of the performance.

[tastychops]

thanks peeps ... appreciate the helpful replies. especially as i'm a noob here.

its true the lil phatty is proven (to both myself and many more accomplished than myself).

the other consideration is cost. this phatty i'm looking at is $850AUD ... the minibrute is about half of that ... so i could swing that when it comes out and then save for the minitaur. looks like it could be a very cool combination.

i guess i'm hoping someone will say "don't buy the phatty" as it will save me a bit of coin right now. but i appreciate its very hard to make any judgements until these hit the market.

[controlvoltage]

Originally Posted by soundxplorer

I was intrigued by the Minitaur at first too but it lacks some features that I use on my Phatty all the time - the main one being keyboard tracking on the filter. I often like to tune the resonance to the notes I'm playing. Also keep in mind that the Minitaur is mainly intended for bass since it doesn't respond to notes above middle C.

Please allow me to correct! The Minitaur does have filter KB tracking.
Continuously adjustable from zero to full, via MIDI (at 14 bit resolution if you like).

Also, the Minitaur responds to notes up to C above middle C (MIDI note 72).

On the units I've tested so far, the filter tracking is *amazingly* tight - you can dial in just a certain harmonic balance and absolutely track it up and down the keys across several octaves.

Not trying to be the synth huckster here, it's just that there's so little information out there right now that I do want to correct misperceptions before they become what "everybody knows" about it already.

There are a ton of parameters under the hood in addition to what's on the panel. We're working on a cross-platform editor which will let you tweak all the hidden parameters easily, in addition to saving and managing Minitaur presets. This editor is being done in-house, not by any third-party developer.

That's all for now... just wanting to add some good info to the discussion.

[soundxplorer]

Originally Posted by controlvoltage

Not trying to be the synth huckster here, it's just that there's so little information out there right now that I do want to correct misperceptions before they become what "everybody knows" about it already.

Not at all, I'm glad you corrected me!
The keyboard tracking is good news indeed. I now see where you mentioned it in the Minitaur thread - I stopped reading that thread a while ago and never caught up. I'll have another look.

Cheers!

[LiveFromKyoto]

Originally Posted by tastychops

thanks peeps ... appreciate the helpful replies. especially as i'm a noob here.

its true the lil phatty is proven (to both myself and many more accomplished than myself).

the other consideration is cost. this phatty i'm looking at is $850AUD ... the minibrute is about half of that ... so i could swing that when it comes out and then save for the minitaur. looks like it could be a very cool combination.

i guess i'm hoping someone will say "don't buy the phatty" as it will save me a bit of coin right now. but i appreciate its very hard to make any judgements until these hit the market.

Then by all means check out the Minitaur, as long as you have a MIDI keyboard you can use it with (I'm personally not as sold on the Minibrute as a lot of people here, it seems pretty plain to me).

[Ausgeno]

Originally Posted by soundxplorer

I was intrigued by the Minitaur at first too but it lacks some features that I use on my Phatty all the time - the main one being keyboard tracking on the filter. I often like to tune the resonance to the notes I'm playing. Also keep in mind that the Minitaur is mainly intended for bass since it doesn't respond to notes above middle C.

If I understand correctly, they refer to the keyboard tracking as note sync in this video and demo it from about 2:30



Or is this something different?

[synthguy]

In one sense, the MiniBrute is plain. It's a one OSC plus Subosc monosynth, so how big can it be?

On the other hand, it does sound pretty beefy with the right patch and player. And it has two huge pluses for me: a MIDI to CV capability, so you could use it as a synth voice and MIDI driver for a modular synth, or any other that accepts CV in. Plus it has the Steiner-Parker filter. In a world overflowing with Moog, ARP, Obie and Roland filters, this one is different.

The skimpy two octave keyboard isn't so limiting if you have another keyboard to play it with.

[soundxplorer]

Originally Posted by Ausgeno

If I understand correctly, they refer to the keyboard tracking as note sync in this video and demo it from about 2:30
Or is this something different?

I asked about "Note sync" in the other thread and someone said it re-triggers the oscillator cycles with each key press so OSC1 and OSC2 maintain their phase relationships. I guess we'll have to wait until the software is done to know the full feature list for sure.

[ctrlshft]

Originally Posted by controlvoltage

Please allow me to correct! The Minitaur does have filter KB tracking.
Continuously adjustable from zero to full, via MIDI (at 14 bit resolution if you like).

Also, the Minitaur responds to notes up to C above middle C (MIDI note 72).

On the units I've tested so far, the filter tracking is *amazingly* tight - you can dial in just a certain harmonic balance and absolutely track it up and down the keys across several octaves.

Not trying to be the synth huckster here, it's just that there's so little information out there right now that I do want to correct misperceptions before they become what "everybody knows" about it already.

There are a ton of parameters under the hood in addition to what's on the panel. We're working on a cross-platform editor which will let you tweak all the hidden parameters easily, in addition to saving and managing Minitaur presets. This editor is being done in-house, not by any third-party developer.

That's all for now... just wanting to add some good info to the discussion.

Proof-positive of Moog awesomeness, just sayin'.

[Mardi Gras]

Originally Posted by tastychops

So yeah ... I am a guitarist / writer and I used to love having a Little Phatty in my music room to make some noises

but it has no noise osc

[tastychops]

Originally Posted by Mardi Gras

but it has no noise osc

noises / noise .... you know what i mean