Just curious..how come not too many people here talk about the Roland Fantom? Just curious.

I don't meant o be short with you, but maybe because it ISN'T an arranger? This is a dedicated forum. We often share other points and LOT's of unrelated fun stuff, but the main attraction to this forum is arranger discussions. Check the dedicated Roland Forum, maybe someone there has some views on it.
Personally .....it never "grabbed" my attention.

I agree with UD.. Every so often we get off topic here and there, but generally arrangers are the topic here... You would get more info and user feedback on the Fantom under the Roland section...

Squeak

KN-fan, I would love to see Roland build an arranger with the sounds and style of the Fantom. This keyboard feels great and sounds great, but as noted, is not an arranger. But we could at least hope that any replacement for the va-7 / 76 will have the XV sounds.
Bill E

KN-fan,

You can see a 20 minute Video here online Roland Fantom Video and it is well explained by demonstrator Scott Tibbs

Uncle dave, what didnt "grab you" with the fantom?, ease of use?, size?, sequencer? ..or maybe, perhaps, the sounds didn't appeal? Well, with the SRX/JV cards available, you'd be hard pressed to find a sound you couldn't use.


Tony

yeah, what didn't grab you UD? Aside from the lack of arranging capabilites, what didn't interest you in the baord? It's got great sounds, great keyfeel, easy navigation, good (always active)sequencer, D-beam and a whole bunch of other stuff... Now a Fantom with an arranger function....., that would be something to see, hear, and play...

Squeak

It didn't totally grab me either. I compared it for weeks vs the Motif and I found that it had nice sounds and a very easy OS to get around in.. I really can't put into words why at this point ( it's been a while since I compared them ) , but the Motif just felt better for me.

AJ

Great "keyfeel" - you must be kidding. I returned it after only one outing and pick up the Yamaha S90 instead. Besides a bit of better piano, I can live without everything else the Fantom has to offer because I can substite it with my PA80.

Yes, this is the arranger forum and both the Fantom and the Yamaha S90 are not arrangers, but if the intention is to "complement" our arranger setup, then they are noteworthy.

..rb

Is it just me or is it that the Fantom doesn't sound the same as the XV-5080. I thought the XV-5080 sounded better.Roland clams that the Fantom got the same sounds as the XV-5080.

[This message has been edited by vic83 (edited 11-11-2002).]

rhumba,
Of course the keyfeel of the Fantom isn't going to compare to the S90, but for a snyth action keybed I think it's a nice feel. Of course if you want good action you'll take the S90. I think Roland cheezed a little bit here by not carrying over the 76 semi-weighted keybed from the XP-80..

Squeak

[This message has been edited by squeak_D (edited 11-11-2002).]

The Fantom is huge, first of all. Too much real estate for my taste. Secondly .... I have a JV1080 with 4 EXP boards and the sounds are not "worlds ahead" of thqat technology. It's a little better, but not enough of a change to make me stand up and notice.
I also have a "thing" for bass, drum & rhodes. I need a keyboard that has a built in drum machine that is easy to operate in real time. I don't need a workstation, because I "work" on stage .... not at the keyboard. I work "with" the keyboard to accompany my singing and provide me with a medium to entertain the crowds.

If ever I get into a situation where I am playing totally "live" music with a full band again ..... most likely, I will be playing electric bass. If I HAD to be the kb player (my second choice)I'd have a Motif 8 for piano & Rhodes sounds, a Hammond or Roland dedicated drawbar organ, and whatever cool "synth du jour" was out for lead lines with real time knobs and sliders. I don't see this scenario EVER happening. I'd rather stay a solo until I retire, and then just play bass with a band that has a horn section, so I can dance around and impress my Redhead with my funkyness.

Thanks guys for the replies.
Uncle Dave, as I mentioned before...I was just curious. I don't own a Roland Fantom, for some reason I thought that the Fantom could still be classified as an "arranger". I thought wrong.

No biggie.

The Fantom does not support chord recognition. I would think that chord recognition would be a requirement to be considered an arranger.

I can´t contribute much to this forum, still I pop by to read some of your comments as I´m allways torn between a workstation and an arranger. I listened to the tyros, 9000, the ketron sd-1, fantom and motif. Ease of use left aside (workstations can learn lot from any arranger!) I never found an arranger with convincing drums - soundwise and stylewise, that is. The Fantom was the first keyboard with ease of use, very good punchy drums, smooth overall sound, but:
A very annoying storage medium (floppy!) that´s incredibly noisy. And no way to open up the fantom for more than the existing user patches except via floppy. This is its biggest drawback if you do not rely on sampling. having to load everything via floppy is something I did not expect from such an expensive keyboard. Even cheap gear sports memory cards of all sorts and much more user memory, roland in that regard is still in the stone age (sorry, my english)...

HEinrich

I have to say that I'm in agreement with U. Dave and Bluezpalyer about the Fantom. I wanted to like it....like I wanted to like the VA 76 too and neither of them impressed me much.

I thought the arps pretty good on the Fantom but that was about it. I did not like the sounds of either board (yet I have an xv 3080 and like the sounds on it).
I thought the singing type voices pretty good on the VA .....but not much more about either board.

Sounds are my primary concern then user interface and intuitive use....neither of these boards fit that criteria for me anyway.
Terry

Heinrich,

Your English is fine, as is your contribution. I am always torn betwen the workstation and arranger too, so I wound up with the Motif and the PA80 as my main setup. I chose the Motif 6 over the Fantom after a good bit of playing around with both. I like the Motif's sounds a little better and I also chose it because it is more compact and easier to move around. It also uses a smart media card instead of floppies ( big plus I think ). The analog modeling plug in is awesome. I got it becuase the store made a mistake and gave it to me instead of the acoustic modeling board I had asked for, but I liked it enough to keep it anyway.

Still, I wish there was a plug in that would add some of the arranger functions of my PA80 or the PSR series. I'd be willing to pay a fair pric e for it. Having the PA80 to complement the Motif is like having a Triton with arranger functions ( minus the arps and some of the expansion features of course ).

I hope that more kb manufacturers will be able to produce boards that work on a stable Windows type OS ( stable being the key word here even if stable Windows os is almost an oxymoron. In that way you could add any kind of operating features or really be able to customize a board to your own specs. Another option would be customizable plug ins that you order from the manufacturer with the OS the way you want it. The manufacturer would accept your specs and then be able to program them into the module from a computer.


AJ

"Windows" and "stability" is not synonymous, you know that, right? When was the last time your KB ..crashed? Go compare that to your windows OS.

I'm not saying Windows is bad, and by no mean bashing the OS. It's just the fact and we just have to live with it.

BTW, I'm a system administrator and, thanks to the instability of the OS, I was able to keep my job for the last eight years.

..rb

hahahahahahaha That Visual will keep me up all night! YIKES!!!

DnJ, how the heck did you do the kissing smiley thing? ha.ha.ha..that cracks me up!

Any websites I can download this from?

Kn check your email.........

Uncle Dave dancing? OUCH! I think that should be something only done in the privacy of HIS own home.

heinrich,
Welcome to the posting side of the forum! Your English was just about perfect.

About the windows operating system.....hmmmm, guess I'm the only guy who thinks it works pretty good 95% of the time. When I consider all the things I do on it and it runs and does it's thing...I have to say I'm fairly impressed with it. Now on the other side of the coin....that 5% of the time I want to take a hammer to my PC. Still though, my PA didn't run flawlessly 100%, it would occasionally lock up or get hung up on a midi note and do other dumb stuff some of the time.
Terry

One thing I really liked about Fantom is the screen and navigation. I think the data density on screen is great, and having all the buttons across the bottom of the screen works very well - no need to reach from one side of the screen to another - way better than all of the arrangers which use selection buttons on both sides of the screen. The bottom of the screen is the perfect palce for them. I hope their arrangement keyboard department learns something from the designers of Fantom.

I thought in all other respects Fantom is not a ground-breaking instrument by any means.

Regards

Dave,
I may never play "Play That Funky Music White Boy" again without seeing the image of you, exhibiting your funkiness, bass guitar in hand, to your Redhead.
Live long and prosper!
DonM

So, change it to
"Eat those crazy Crawdaddy's, Cajun Boy"
.................whatever works for ya !
(I'm NO dancer, that's for sure, but I do move more when I play bass)

thanks DnJ