Fat Machine

I bought this synth quite a while ago and I have spent a lot of time being intimidated by it. For more experienced people, it may be simple, but for a... well... bass player like me, anything more than a power switch can hurt my brain.

I'll start with the only criticism I have: The random-preset generator generates REALLY quiet patches. It may very well be for safety's sake, though, since some big, nasty sounds can come crashing out of your speakers if your tweaking goes awry. Still, a non-distorted gain knob wouldn't hurt.

I'll leave out the press-release descriptions of all the features and just comment on the one thing that makes this synth stand out: the three levels of ADSR! Most synths give you the ability to change the ADSR of the amplitude, but this one has independent control of the pitch and the filter, as well! So, for example, during the inital attack phase, the pitch can descend from a higher note or ascend from a lower note or even start to ascend/descend from the root note. Or the decay phase can change the pitch. Or the sustain. Even the release, so after release, the pitch shifts.

And there are more than just the usual controls for these. You can set how much velocity has an effect on, say, the attack. So soft notes can have fast attack and hard notes slow - or the opposite.

Even without these nifty features, Fat Machine is a great sounding synth. With the great sound AND some amazing features all for is a crazy-good deal. The potential for sounds you've never heard before is huge.

EDIT: I had lost the documentation (my own stupid fault) and forgot I ever had it. Now that I've found it again, I had to remove all my criticisms of the docs and now I'm bumping the review up even more!