ROLAND and the big three has lost it!

Sometime soon I'll recreate some of my best sounds I made with XP50 for the Fantom-G, using their common waveforms that reside into Fantom's wave ROM. I'll make sure I'll share them with the Community.

workstations I have owned:

M1, 01/W, Triton Le, Karma, Fantom X, MO6

and now the new breed,

Fantom G, Motif XS, M3

none of them have ever been prefect, but workstations they are. I say the feature set and advancements are coming along, never fast enough, but I could not really afford ($) anymore.

Long live the workstation.

PS>the Virus line are great synths, I finally got the TI-Snow. BUT they are not workstations, they are synths plain and simple.

I think to qualify as a workstation, you need the following; Sounds and sequencer, with arp's thrown in for fun.

The success of a keyboard in my world, depends on the application I am putting it too, and not the specification and feature set it has.

Workstations are for creating complete productions where as synths need other device/instruments/musicians to complete the production. I use this definition loosely. Good, quality music is in the hands of the creator, not the technology.

Hip that Hop dude.

The only thing that really disappoints me, is my lack of funds ($) to buy more.

Disclaimer: some groove-boxes are workstations without keyboards. I have a few, I just can not write good material on them, and that's my problem, not the box.

My suggestion to the big three is, keep on doing it and I'll support you the best I can, you've lost nothing.

Sorry, I don't know how to link from one thread to another, so I have to duplicate my response from another thread. All I can say is the person who started this thread is entitled to their opinion. But, that's all it is:



What was lacking at this year’s NAMM show was innovation – new technology. Yamaha and Korg had nothing new out. Yamaha built up a big announcement about a big new Motif content update, only to discover that the “content” was going to be samples and patches released “over time” on their website. And you must load it into user RAM. Korg unveiled one new synthesizer, yet another MicroKorg.

There was nothing innovative from the big software companies. Live 8 though looks very interesting and seems to have some substance to it. Yes, there are always some cool plug-ins, but nothing that was a really new innovations. Lots of tweaks to current stuff. And then there’s the disturbing trend of many companies trying to get on the “Rock Band” bandwagon – abandoning pro-audio and aiming for the quick buck in the consumer market.

Lack of innovation is significant. Companies are either in survival mode with the worldwide depression or simply not sinking dollars into research and development. (How many cheap controllers, MPC pad controllers and digital pianos does the world need?)

Which brings me to us. Many may be scratching their heads at Roland. But, we were the only company to actually unveil not just new products but new technologies. That’s significant because without R&D and forward thinking we not only don’t get cool new products -- we can’t tackle how to improve and enhance current products.

The V-Piano and the ARX-03 are very important in terms of R&D. Firstly, the V-Piano changes the game for us. Gone is the sampling, velocity switching and other PCM based methods of reproducing the “piano”. The sound engine goes beyond modeling into something that’s more organic and quantum. And it combines a hardware piece, with a very sophisticated software-based front end. Plus our first triple action piano action. This is a big advancement. And there's a reason it looks like an old RD-1000. (Go read up on how the RD-1000 changed up everything when it came out.)

Same with the ARX-03. Combing through the forums, brass sounds are one of the top sound sets that we’ve been requested to improve. And brass sounds are very complex in their nuance. To achieve realistic brass sounds, the organic elements that make up each individual instrument, combined with the hundreds of different ways a player interfaces with the instrument has to be addressed to get really believable sounds. One way is to go with gigs of samples in a conventional PCM engine. The other way is to breakaway from that and go with something more like a 3-Dimensional modeling program for sound.

Tackling the challenges of the V-Piano and the ARX-03 helps us pave the way for more products because we’ve built on the core technology. It’s a process.

The reception of the ARX-03 and V-Piano were very, very positive at the show. People don't hold back at NAMM. They tell you if they dig it or don't. I don’t think the blogosphere gets these products yet, because these are tactile things that you have to see and hear yourself to appreciate.

Traditionally, after the NAMM show, ALL the engineers are flown into Roland US and we have days of talks about the show and current products. Of course, that means discussions about updates and improvements of the current products.

So to wrap this all up look at NAMM 2009 for Roland as a good sign. We’re not working in survival mode like other companies. We’re working on new technology and ideas, which means that we can continue to also support and enhance our current products as well. And not just add tweaks in the next software revision but some cool new stuff too.

Dan, it's really cool that at last we have answers about some things that trouble us. But whining and complaining aside, you have to admit that many people here (I mean this very forum) and outside, were looking forward to seeing an update on the Fantom-G. Not necessarily a major OS update, but something that will give us hope that real support and future evolution is on the way for this really amazing beast the Fantom-G is.

I think that everybody at Roland has to realize that the more this evolution is delayed, the more the users will expect from it, once it comes.

Fantom-G aside, I sure agree about the new products and technologies Roland unveiled at this NAMM. All the major products (like the V-Piano or the VP-770 or the ARX-03) were fascinating and we're looking forward to checking them out once they hit the market.

Dan wrote - "And not just add tweaks in the next software revision but some cool new stuff too."

Dane to what is beautiful writing, but when adding and editing functions OS take several years, so I will not have many owners Phantom G since leaving the other company, which is actually on their existing customers interested in addressing their problems and quickly. The problem I see in that Roland is doing too many species and therefore is not really the time and people to maintain software for existing products.

...Roland is doing too many species...

DOESING species is never to much specially when so many other are extinguishing

Moving this thread to FREE ZONE.