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Moog Sub Phatty

Moog Sub Phatty

It looks quite basic if judged by the front panel. But most 2 buttons and 10 knobs have a second parameter in the special shift mode. You enter it by pressing Bank 4 + Active Panel buttons. You may leave this mode by pressing Active Panel again.
The 10 additional knob parameters are (original knob name in brackets):

Filter Envelope Section

Amplifier Envelope Section

Oscillator and Mixer Section

And the buttons

And while you are in this mode, you can also do things like setting the note priority, the envelope trigger modes per envelope, set the number of filter poles, MIDI settings (Channel, sending sysex data, ...), initialize the current preset, and note calibration. The keybed's lower notes are used to select values or to start function in this mode. Please read the manual.

Moog Sub Phatty side view

You can't read the black labels for all those connections available on the left hand side in normal studio light, as it they are black on black.

Pro

Cons

The two first cons where fixed when the Moog Sub 37 was introduced: It got more knobs and buttons to reach all those special sound parameters and a display with menues for the MIDI and other options. And an arpeggiator and a sequencer built in. And an additional octave of keys, and ...

Conclusion

To me, the Sub Phatty is the modern equivalent in sound and size to the Moog Prodigy in the early eighties.

And years later ...

Moog Sub Phatty with wooden side panesl
Yes, the white keys are not white anymore.

After owning the Sub Phatty for 9 years, it developed very sticky side panels and wheels. So I bought the wooden Subsequent25 side panels to exchange these for the black plastic ones. I also bought a new left hand section with fresh wheels. But these will become sticky most likely again over the years. And my Sub Phatty suffered the well known problems with the rotary switches for VCO octaves and the LFO waveshapes. So I had to exchange these. The front panel PCB is in two parts, so I just had to remove only this one. Notice the different diameters of the pots axis. And the pointer caps of the rotary switches got little metal adapters on the rotary axis. Be sure to transfer them to the new ones before throwing the old rotary switches in the bin.