Vintage Synth Explorer Forums

Alright, so, after seeing a video showing how it's done, I have the itch to get in on polyphonic moog action. Every "Polyslim" setup I've seen so far, though, has the Little Phatty as the first voice and/or midi controller. They do state that you don't NEED it as a midi controller, but does anybody know if you're losing anything in the area of controls or modulation by using a regular MIDI keyboard? Would adjusting the controls of one poly-chained slim adjust all the others? Forgive the noobish questions, but I'm rather new to the hobby, and the minutia of MIDI escapes me.

If you do not have a little phatty, you will have to program the midi command codes in your controller so that each parameter of the slim phatties will turn in unison. That is to say, the little phatty already does this, and without it you either have to do each slim phatty on its own, or program that code into the controller(based on which knob/slider you want to control that function).

I had six slims for a long time, and it's a wonderful setup up. I eventually bought a LP because this was extremely annoying. Personally, after my experience youre better off just getting a polysynth on its own. One that can do multitimbral easily. This was the deciding factor in buying my Xpander. I also believe the PolyEvovler can do this as well(setting mutilple patches in a performance mode of sorts).

As far as midi goes, it seems more difficult at first than it really is. Out to in, out to thru, thru to in. Midi is not audio infomration etc etc. This pretty much sums it up, lol The most difficult thing is the midi CC's, but the manuals always have this information in the back. Essentially, if there is a conflict, it is generally due to conflicting cc's(two different things have the smae code) or the midi parameters in your machien are not set to the appropriate setting.

Most forums are the absolute worst about getting pointers when you are new, especially really simple stuff like midi. Lucky for you, this is one where people arent j**k(well, not truly. some of us are j**k for fun ).

Also, as stated earlier, midi is only midi, it doesn't transmit audio. Not sure about the little phatty, but dave smith instruments has a poly chain mode, but you need a mixer so you can hear all the outputs of the modules at the same time. If the slim phatty works the same way, your going to need a mixer, and as many line ins as the slim phatty has outs. So a four voice polychain, is going to need 4 line ins.

Actually, I THINK they said it was just MIDI cables, not the DSI setup (that's the tetra, right?). Not 100% sure on that. Phesago, it's so great to hear from someone who's actually done it. I have to wonder about the sound, though - if you had to compare it to a polysynth, what would it sound like? I mean, it has the characteristic "moog" filter and there haven't been many moog polysynths; also factor in that newer moogs sound different than older moogs, and that the memorymoog didn't really sound "moogish", and I'm left at a bit of a loss as to what it could be compared to.

It def sounds like a poly LP, lol

Another thing i remember being kind of annoying/awesome is sometimes there would be slight differences in each voice(due to that analog nature) even though each patch on each sp was identical. Cool but could be annoying to some. It was in my opinion at best a bad a*s arp/sequencing machine. Would re-do it if i could pick up three sp's and a a lp for 1500 or less. Other than that not really worth it. If you you shop a used dsi p8 is 12-14ish

tristantene wrote:Actually, I THINK they said it was just MIDI cables, not the DSI setup

midi cables don't do audio....

looks like it works almost exactly the same...

Oh yeah I guuess I missed that part lol It is actually kind of a pain in the a*s to have to mix them to, however a cp 251 IS awesome, and has a four part mixer. Or you could free up some space on your actual mixer. But yeah that is kind of a thing. Another reason to get just a regular a*s poly synth.