Fantom 7 Frozen White Logo Screen

flyingace wrote:

So the repair center called Friday to tell me that the part for the main board, which he believes is the problem, is $1366 plus shipping, along with 1.5 hours of work at $65/hr. This is going to cost me dearly!! I'm so sad, because I have to do it, it's my main keyboard for my studio/life!

Did you tell them that a lifespan of 3 years is far less than what is reasonable to expect for a 4k synth and that you think they should repair this for free? Also, have you contacted your dealer?
I don't know how this works in other countries, but where I live all sales by norwegian dealers are subject to norwegian laws and regulations. So the dealer is responsible to the customer, regardless of the manufacturer warranty period. The warranty period is 5 years for products where a lifespan of more than 5 years is reasonable to expect and the failure is not caused by the user. If the manufacturer does not cover this, then the dealer has to pay for the repair or a replacement item. Actually, it was a case where a smart phone broke after a couple of years. The case ended up in supreme court which concluded that even a smart phone has 5 years warranty.

That is a good match for the logic supporting the 5 years warranty I got when registering in Spain.

flyingace, check yours...

osflaa wrote:

flyingace wrote:

But it's still hardware and it will still fail. 3 years is too soon to lose a main board though. I'll keep this thread updated.

Ironically, I use my 35 years old DX7 as a reliable backup when synths fail 😄

Native Instruments FM8 sale rages on at Plugin Boutique! FM8 from Native Instruments is a detailed recreation – and also an overhaul – of the venerable Yamaha DX7’s FM synthesis engine.

https://www.gearnews.com/deal-native-instruments-fm8-is-just-usd-10-until-early-september/

FGM wrote:

osflaa wrote:

flyingace wrote:

But it's still hardware and it will still fail. 3 years is too soon to lose a main board though. I'll keep this thread updated.

Ironically, I use my 35 years old DX7 as a reliable backup when synths fail 😄

Native Instruments FM8 sale rages on at Plugin Boutique! FM8 from Native Instruments is a detailed recreation – and also an overhaul – of the venerable Yamaha DX7’s FM synthesis engine.

https://www.gearnews.com/deal-native-instruments-fm8-is-just-usd-10-until-early-september/

Nothing beats nostalgia and the feeling you get from hardware, my friend :-)

😃😃😃😃

How common is it for Fantom 6, 7, 8 motherboard to break in a few years?

sepi wrote:

How common is it for Fantom 6, 7, 8 motherboard to break in a few years?

My first Fantom 8 was returned after some 10 days due to locks, December 2019.

My current one, January 2020, works ok, except for the Analog Filter, that does nothing that could be heard via the Main output.
Not having the time to test it through the ANALOG FILTER OUT outputs to see if it is ok via them, since I use XLR to TRS cable to connect the Topping PA-5 power amp and the new connection would need either TR to TR or TR to TRS.
I know I used it on a scene to change a harpsichord, then forget about it and some months later, when trying to help other people that had an issue, I discovered mine wasn't working. Might be 3.01 is to blame, don't know for sure. Not going back to check it, either.

I purchased mine from Musician’s Friend Sept 2019. There was not a 5 year warranty for registering. They claim it was only 1 year.
Roland got with the repair tech and contacted me to let me know the most they can do is discount the part from $1360 to $905. Ugh.

I guess they just don’t care. Sad for the flagship model to die after 3 years. What if this is just the beginning for all of us that bought in Sept 19??

I’m pissed but what can I do but fix it and move on. Probably the last Roland product I ever buy and I’ve been a customer since 1986 when I bought a Juno 106.

flyingace wrote:

I purchased mine from Musician’s Friend Sept 2019. There was not a 5 year warranty for registering. They claim it was only 1 year.
Roland got with the repair tech and contacted me to let me know the most they can do is discount the part from $1360 to $905. Ugh.

I guess they just don’t care. Sad for the flagship model to die after 3 years. What if this is just the beginning for all of us that bought in Sept 19??

I’m pissed but what can I do but fix it and move on. Probably the last Roland product I ever buy and I’ve been a customer since 1986 when I bought a Juno 106.

Thank you for the update. You have done what you can to reduce the price and 905 is after all much less than 1360. But still a lot to pay to repair a 3 year old synth. But as you say: Fix it and go on is the best thing to do. I have a tendency to keep thinking about things like this and remain frustrated and angry, which is only waste of energi and does no good.

My experience is that quality control is not particularly good at any synth manufacturer nowadays. I had to return about half of the synths I bought over the last five years. This includes products from Elektron, Korg and Novation. I have also experienced a lot of firmware bugs with synths from Dave Smith/Sequential and Elektron. Roland/Boss has actually been among the best, both when it comes to firmware and hardware. So the Fantom main board issue is my only negative experience with Roland/Boss products. But I had no idea a synth main bord could be that expensive.

My conclusions so far is:
- I should always investigate and emphasize the warranty period when I buy expensive synths (UK based gear4music offers 6 year warranty if you pay a little extra)
- Expensive gear breaks just as often as mid-priced gear
- Putting all the eggs in one basket can be risky. It might be a good idea to buy more synths in a lower price range instead of one high end synth. Also with regard to the fact that it can take many weeks to repair a synth.

Anyway, I hope you can enjoy your Fantom for many many years when this is fixed!

flyingace wrote:

What if this is just the beginning for all of us that bought in Sept 19??

Yes, this would be a disaster for Rolands reputation and particularly the poor customers. Let's hope that will not happen. But my Fantom is probably from that period as well. It is a demo model used by Roland in Norway which I bought from a dealer with full warranty May 2021.

UPDATE: So my fantom is repaired and I'll be picking it up today. It cost me a total of $67.50 in labor since Roland decided to pay for the part.
It was the main board that failed, and for no reason that the repair tech could see, he thought it was likely a poorly made PCB that shorted out the memory chips or something that would not allow it to boot from the memory. I'll find out more when I see him today.
BUT, at least after much prodding and discussing on many online channels, they covered the part. They should have paid the whole amount for a failure like this but they quit talking to me completely and communicated with the tech only. Ugh.

All in all, I'll be happy to have my Fantom back, now to hope that I have a recent backup, which I usually do whenever I make big changes, otherwise I'll be starting from scratch.

Thanks all!

SO.... my backup failed
So I'm starting over after losing songs, scenes and expansions

I go to load expansions today, I’ve downloaded new ones from Roland cloud, loaded to usb (newly formatted drive that has always worked), followed their instructions etc. any ideas? Keeps saying “incorrect file”. Reload system?

Final update: The tech did not register the new main board to my serial number or model of keyboard. He sent me a pdf of the pages from the service manual on how to do it myself.

I'm able to load expansions and models now but my BU was still corrupted trying to load it the first time. I've done a few tests to see if BU is now working properly and it is... until I need it! ugh. I'll definitely be saving a secondary backup in the future to my computer, not just the USB drive.

All in all Roland ended up paying for the part but their support was less than stellar. I sure hope that nothing like this happens again or to my new Juno-X.

It is likely the last new Roland product I ever buy, sadly.