Quote:
Originally Posted by
Spider76
β‘οΈ
Honestly I don't remember how I came up with the timeline above, it was probably a summary of the information gathered here among the various topics, but that's the extent of its reliability
On the other hand, the LP was not Bob's last synth, but the first that Moog Music made without him. It was designed by Cyril Lance who was brought on board to replace Bob as the chief synth designer.
There is a nice video on youtube that they released when the LP was discontinued, where they tell the story of how the company went on after Bob's passing, and how after the Voyager he wanted to make a more affordable synth.
So they started that new project but only had some conversations with Bob at the very early stages, then he fell sick and they felt the responsibility of "how do we do this synth in a way that would make Bob happy?"
Thanks for chiming in and the video, that's a great video! Some nice technical history there that clarifies a lot. So it sounds like the Little Phatty had some possible input/influence from Bob (not designed like I mistakenly mentioned), but was completely designed by the new engineering team. And it was just a one-off design that hasn't been brought back since.
It seems like when Moog decided to make the Sub Phatty and all of its derivatives (Sub/sequent 37 and 25), they decided to focus all their energy into refining their design and completely end the Little Phatty era, not to be brought back into any Sub designs.
In the video, I found it entertaining that they looked at the Moog Source interface design for inspiration as it's not fun to use at all.

It's an improvement to the Source design, but pales in comparison to knob per function, which most Moogs employ. The Little Phatty prototype had all those nice knobs on the front and I don't think I understand why they chose a lesser, albeit cooler looking, interface. I suppose the obvious reason is cost cutting.
That team always seemed to learn and listen to it's users though as they brought back more knobs with the Sub Phatty and continued to bring more of the functionality into the front panel. I'm glad they've made that paramount with all their designs since.