Fantom X or Motif XS

I cant believe all of the Motf XS haters in here...
their is room for both of the synths to coexcist...
me personally, sonically, I think that the Motif XS Blows
circles around the fantom.....
I'm a roland man.. 90% of my gear is roland, including the fantomXR. I don't understand why people say things like,
"for acoustic sounds try the motif, but for synth sounds try the fantom". thats crapp... both synths does this equally as well.... IMO the Motif has more umph!
the MV8000 used to be the centerpiece of my studio.. but now the MOTIF XS8 has taken over along with Sonar & i'm not looking back

MJ3

Hello mjames4208,

Welcome to the Roland Clan.

I don't think that folks are 'Motif haters' here. What I've read here for the most part are comments from folks offering their opinions about what they feel are the differences between the Fantom and Motif, and what they feel one board does better than the other.

And after all, this is a Roland forum. So you are going to have folks who have chosen the Roland/Fantom as their board of choice. Their comments are going to naturally reflect that.

Bassman

also sequencer and sampler on Motif XS sucks!

sampling has still limit to 380s and sequencer is less then logical.

"They say that, you can sample audio directly into any track you want, so that makes it 16 audio tracks + 16 midi tracks ! And once you have the firewire card, you can stream your song directly to PC in just one shot !"

.....I'm not so sure about that. It MIGHT just mean that you just have 16 Audio/Midi Tracks

Will you be able to adjust volume and add effects to the Audio and midi tracks INDEPENDENTLY of one another like you can on the fantom????????

These are functions that you probably NEED the software for....

That's why they include it...it's not so much a BONUS as it is a NECESSITY!!!

Keep Makin Music!!!!!
T.R.I.C.K.M.A. Entertainment 2007
http://www.myspace.com/trickmaseang

See what I mean???

)

Bassman

"They say that, you can sample audio directly into any track you want, so that makes it 16 audio tracks + 16 midi tracks ! And once you have the firewire card, you can stream your song directly to PC in just one shot !"

.....I'm not so sure about that. It MIGHT just mean that you just have 16 Audio/Midi Tracks

Will you be able to adjust volume and add effects to the Audio and midi tracks INDEPENDENTLY of one another like you can on the fantom????????

To my knowledge only Fantoms X (and Juno-G) have proper "audio tracks". The rest use just sample triggers so say XS will not play an "audio track" from a middle or timestretch it in a realtime.

These are functions that you probably NEED the software for....

That's why they include it...it's not so much a BONUS as it is a NECESSITY!!!

To say a truth an audio capability even in FantomX (which is among the best in keyboard workstation) isn't up to par with software audio/midi sequencers. But it has a different purpose and is very useful.

You might be right !
A person in the Motifator forum mentioned that, it cannot play aduio sequences from the middle, but does have time stretch capabilites and does that very beautifully.

Maybe the Fantom presets are programmed with more emphasis on electronic music out of the box en the Yamaha presets are more contemporary pop when you switch the unit on the first time. But even that is point of discussion.

Check the raw waveforms of both synths! They both can do a broad range of styles. Take the time to program it to your own taste. That's why it's a synthesizer. All main workstations can sound dry and wet, fat, lush, or tiny, clear, lot of bass, lack of bass. Just tweak, learn the synth engine, use or switch off FX, just program.

If you're missing raw waveforms for a particular sound. Try to find a WAV-file, buy an expansion that has the sound or synth engine, or sample the sound you're after yourself.

I bought the Fantom(X8) because I could find my way around the user interface very quickly and I liked the keyboard action. I checked the sounds just to get some feeling about the boards capabilities. I tried the Alesis Fusion and Yamaha Fantom SE8 too. Just liked the Fantoms UI and found that it's capable of the same sound quality. Now I sometimes even use some presets.

It's all in the UI, the RAW waveforms and the options to expand those.

I finally plaed an XS yesterday ... very nice ... it would make a nice companion to a Fantom X ...

however, it does not blow the Fantom away in any category ... some of the sounds are nice ... and the unit has more-or-less a quality feel (I didn't love the knobs, esp. the way they click back to the middle ... cycling through patches was a lot slower than I would have expected ... )

but the sounds were nice ... and there are plenty of them ...

it was a cursory run-through ... and I didn't get into the sequencer or even the arpeggiator ...



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Roland Fantom X7, Alesis Fusion 6HD, Novation X/A-Station 25, Alesis Micron

Diametro,
"unfortunately" sound wise and effects XS blows fantomX away significantly.
Anything else, keys action, sequencer, sampler is better in fantomX.

Um ... in your opinion, Cuborg ...

however, yes, there was an omission ... the number of XS's inserts does humble the Fantom X ... but there's a lot more to a workstation than just effects ... C'mon ... Motifs have to have SOMETHING they can crow about ... especially now that Yamaha is releasing the Motif they should have two years ago ...

sounds? That's highly subjective and really not worth wasting time debating ...

IMO, the piano still sounds like Yamaha sampled in ice-picks ... 18,000 insert effects or not ...

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Roland Fantom X7, Alesis Fusion 6HD, Novation X/A-Station 25, Alesis Micron

"Diametro,
"unfortunately" sound wise and effects XS blows fantomX away significantly.
Anything else, keys action, sequencer, sampler is better in fantomX."



Diametro is right, this is only an opinion. Taking it a step further, there are other people on other forums who own the Motif XS who disagree with your statement about the effects. I was also at a local guitar center and a guy was returning his Motif XS he purchased one month ago. He was saying he was unhappy with the new workstation from Yamaha as he felt it was geared way too much towards home users. He went on to say he was also disappointed with the effects as he felt they didn't deliver as the specs indicated they would. Whether this guy is right or wrong is unknown. Its just an opinion. Remember to keep the subjective things subjective and don't treat them like facts.

sure it is my opinion as yours is yours but there is some reality too.
Don't loose your objectivity only because you have different instrument...

The reality in it is your opinion only. That's the whole point. An opinion is not a fact. Others will not share your opinion and there will be no reality in the statement as far as they are concerned.

I have owned a Motif XS for about 3 weeks now. I've got a number of friends that come over to play it. When they come over, we usually jam together. We switch off, one plays the Motif XS and the other plays the Fantom XR. There's six of us total that jam although never at once. I prefer the sounds and effects of the Motif XS with one other guy. The other four prefer the Fantom X's sounds and effects. Based on my experiences over the past few weeks, Silver Dragon Sound is correct IMO that some people are going to have differing opinions on these different workstations. This is almost always the case. We all have different ears and different perceptions, and sounds, effects and how they sound are perceptions.