NAMM 2013: New Product Round-Up

Moog Sub Phatty

The revival of the Moog brand over the last decade is one of the biggest success stories in electronic music and it shows no signs of slowing down just yet. Following the release of the Minitaur last year, Moog continue to target the lower end of the market with the new Sub Phatty. It’s the most affordable Moog keyboard ever released, slotting in below the Little Phatty in the range (although admittedly it’s still more expensive than the Slim Phatty and Minitaur modules).

The Sub Phatty has clearly been designed with aggression in mind. It’s certainly dirtier than the Little Phatty, thanks in no small part to the all-new Multidrive distortion circuit, which performs a similar role to the feedback circuit on the DSI Mopho Keyboard or the ‘Brute Factor’ control on the Arturia Minibrute. In fact, it’ll be interesting to see how the Sub Phatty fares in comparison to those cheaper rivals.

The Sub Phatty will be available in late March/early April, priced at £819.

Apogee ONE, Duet and Quartet

A few years ago, Apogee were best known for products like their their ultra-high-quality Ensemble interfaces, Rosetta converters and the pricey Big Ben master clock – products more likely to be found in big recording studios than the average dance music producer’s setup.

Having made a concerted effort to move into more affordable sectors of the market, Apogee now boast one of the best ranges of small but top quality audio interfaces. We rate them as some of the best choices on the market for electronic music producers. Who wants dozens of channels of mediocre preamps and converters when most of us only really need one or two top quality inputs?

Apogee have revealed updated versions of all their smaller products. The completely redesigned ONE (upgraded from 1-in/2-out to 2-in/2-out) and the Duet (2-in/4-out) have been tweaked to integrate smoothly with iOS recording apps, making them even more appealing for mobile recording. A firmware update will also allow the Quartet (4-in/8-out) to work with the new Maestro iPad app, which can be used to control all three interfaces.

The Maestro app will be available from February. We’re expecting the ONE and Duet (which reverts to that name despite the fact that the previous generation was called the Duet 2) in March, priced at $349 and $595 respectively.

Next: Arturia SparkLE; NI Reverb Classics…