Negative reponse please do not kill this synth

This is the first Roland board I have ever own but I have always heard great things about Roland products. I current owned a Korg and a Yamaha board. Last year I added the Fusion because of the great price and the free monitors which turned out to be a great buy because of its flexible synth capabilities. I was in the market for a new workstation, and when I read the specs on the G, it seemed very innovating to me. The second thing that steered me toward the G was the acquisition of Cakewalk. I have used Cakewalk and now Sonar since version 2. I figured at some point, they might integrate the G with Sonar similar to what Yamaha did with Cubase. If I had already owned a Fantom X, I would probably have waited a while until the board had matured. I think the features that are missing will get added hopefully soon but they will probably still work differently from the X and user will have to conform to a new way of thinking. I love the idea of this board and I hope it will be a success.

I agree with timp410 on this one. Also, I'm fed up with people who seem to think that their opinion is worth more than anyone else's. Someone thought that Fusion was a great board, and immediately someone HAS TO disagree. Leave it! If you like Fusion...good for you. If you don't, well, keep it to yourself. You're not gonna change anybody's mind anyway by complaining.

The same goes for the G, of course. WE KNOW THAT SOME OF YOU CONSIDER IT A RUSH JOB, OK?!?!?! It's been said in numerous posts already. It's still a matter of opinion and I don't think that anyone will start thinking it's a rush job just because someone else thinks differently.

Please let this forum be a place where we can share ideas and help each other with tips and tricks. Complaining about the G doesn't help anyone.

JG

Thanks JG; my goal for this tread was not to see the same thing that happen to the Fusion, happen to the G. Negativity can spread like a virus and if a company starts losing money on their investment, they could drop the product.

Have we ever seen Roland drop a flagship product before because of bad press?? I don't recall. I do wonder if the Cakewalk aquisition is changing everything- which might be why they rushed out the new gear (to make way for the new line of gear that will have some integration with Cakewalk).
Maybe Roland will do a Neko-like machine with Sonar and all their softsynths included on top of a new Roland engine.
Yeah- not likely.

Roland have to support all FG users and must issue a new OS very soon.

Have we ever seen Roland drop a flagship product before because of bad press??

I think the Fantom-S and Fantom FA-76 might fall into that category. The S lasted one year if I remember correctly.

Did they continue to upgrade the OS of the Fantom S after it was discontinued?

timp410, yes, the S has seen several OS releases for about a year after being discontinued!

And the S is still a great synth!

Thank you Artemiy, that is very comforting to know since this is my first Roland board.

The Fusion went under because it was an uncompetitive product — at any price — in the workstation market ...

If the Fantom-G suffers a similar fate — and gets repackaged into a new model sooner rather than later — it happened because Roland released a product that did not satisfy enough current buyers' needs ...

Time will tell ...

I love the G, simple as that !

It was not that competitive as a full blown workstation but there is still very little out there hardware wise that offered four different synth types and it also included an 80GB HD.

I agree ... that's one of the reasons I bought one ... but ... specs alone do not make a synth "great."

The Fusion could have 100 forms of synthesis ... but without a proper control surface to harness, program and tweak that power, it's all a waste ... the audio tracks are practically worthless ... the sequencing is weak ... and the soundset is as scattershot as a shotgun blast ... the hard drive is a nice idea, but in practice, it's really only good for storing multisamples ...

the main problem with the Fusion is its lack of integration in the various workstation areas ...

however, the keybed is good and so are some of the synth sounds ... it seems well-made but the UI is lame with basically two buttons for all navigation purposes ... that's nothing really great or unique about the Fusion except for the aforementioned synth types and the low price you can get them for now ...

I agree with you on the navigation of the UI, it was a little behind the time even with the shortcuts which made editing anything a pain. I purchased an instructional DVD that help some. The sequencer while full fledged was a pain to navigate but you could lay down a decent scratch track with it. However, I really like the matrix controls. I mainly use it as a sound source with Sonar and it also gives me an 88 weighted keyboard.

The funny thing is, I purchased a Yamaha W5 in 1995 and while the board did not see a lot of success, I still think it has one of the best and easiest to use sequencers.