Just another RANT from a loyal Roland Guy

I usualy say...
Stop and think what you want to achieve.
How do you want to work, and how flexible would you like your gear to be.
Forget an all in one and think outside the box.
Now break it all down and then your ready to build your gear.
and because its not an all in one, everything is independant, so its going to be alot more flexible in what you can achieve.
I know for sure my FantomX will remain central to any gear, so I would be building around that.
as far as gigs go, I have not done one yet but i would use a DAW to do the gig and not carry all the equipment used to create the work.
and although i have 2 DAWs, they have been put on the back burner for quite a while since i have managed to do everything from within the FX(trying the all in one philosophy)
So it is possible but you need to learn your gear and be patient.


Listen to GlassSlipper


X-Bugs.org

Results not Excuses

My Setup


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J mos I have to agree with you on that one-- the filters on that raggity mpc 2000 some how sounds so sweet when it comes to drumz... Im taking a wild guess that the fantom filters are superb when it comes to synths....I mean I have the M3 and the sound sucks a$$ it doesnt come anywhere near to the fantom..so One day I decided to connect the m3 through midi into the fantom and I was blown away ...a little tweaking between my m3 and fantom stepped up my whole game up -----


I dont think having an one and all workstation would be a great idea to begin with, it would just saturate the whole hip hop industry, everyone and their mothers would sound the same..

You do know, that hooking the Fantom up to the M3 via midi does not affect the M3 drums with the Fantom's filters don't you?? At most, all you're doing is using the Fantom's control knob to control the M3's filter.

FantomX8
FantomS
AW4416
Now all I need is talent.
Anyone selling any talent??
member # 55
registered 21 May 2003

tundrkys98@yahoo.com Yahoo messenger: tundrkys98

"as far as gigs go, I have not done one yet but i would use a DAW to do the gig and not carry all the equipment used to create the work. "



i used to do this. i would use sonar 6 or reason 3.0 live. i mainly used the Roland TTS-1 in sonar 6 cause it is made by roland. it was cool cause i got a 3 tier ultimate apex keyboard stand, so i had my laptop on the top tier and my other 2 boards on the bottom 2 (pre-fan x; juno-d and edirol pcr m80).

o o o o o o o o o o o o o

Fantom-X6, Juno-D, Edirol Pcr M-80
Reggae, RnB, Hip Hop, Funk Keyboardist
Roland Junkie
Coming Soon: Fantom-XR

Thunderkyss, has a good point, maybe for 98% of people who own the X, the drums are perfect. So why should Roland cater to the 2% of us B-Boyz and Dance music headz who need better drums? Well, they should not cater to us, losing that 2% wont ruin their business.

Roland has been in business awhile, I guess they know what they are doing.

They only get Hip Hop producers to promote the MV.

The X, they tend to aim at musicans in the traditional/conventional sense.

Roland, so why put pads on the X, Why include sampling on the X?

Excuse me if I'm wrong, Pads and Sampling sound like the HIP HOP/Dance Music dominion to me.

You see a Lexus with 24inch rims, who do you think is driving it. D-TRUMP? M-Stewart? I THIINK NOT.

How about P.Combs or More Like Scott Storch, Dr. Dre. DJ Quik, KANYE, WILL-I-AM, TiMBERLAND etc........

If it smells like a rat, looks like a rat and squells like a rat, its probably supposed to be a rat.

Tommy Hilfiger did not expect us to by his cloths, Timberland didn't expect us to buy his boots and Roger Linn did not expect us to buy his MPC. But they are all more richer because we did. How about giving back to the people that showed some love and presented your product to a whole different market, you did not know even exsisted.

Is asking for a few KICKS and SNARES asking to much? Would doing that price the X out of range for the other 98%?

By the way people I'm not trying to be a smart A@# or nothing. Turn on the radio my peeps if you still have one, Maybe it's me, but I only hear the 2% in rotation these days. Videos the same 2%. The Charts the same 2%. Hell go to a night club if your still one of the ones thats cool enough to do so. You guessed it, THE SAME 2%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So can a brotha getta KICK? How bout a snare? Maybe some better filters 4 DA drum section? Maybe I shoud get Sharpton and Jessie on this, they get results sometimes. ASK IMUS

JUST ONE OF THE ROLAND GUYS.
PEACE MY BROTHERS, I'M OUT

funny thread.

you probably want a mixdown/master button on there too?

maybe an auto-riff writer?

blunt roller?



make some beats.

-grandhustle-

jmoss501, why don't you do a google on words like sampler, compressor, filter, & gate.


Then if you still feel like being lazy, go over to MV Nation, or one of the many MPC sites, and download some of the free samples they link to.

FantomX8
FantomS
AW4416
Now all I need is talent.
Anyone selling any talent??
member # 55
registered 21 May 2003

tundrkys98@yahoo.com Yahoo messenger: tundrkys98

Actually thunder I haven't used the drums yet, but controlling the fantom knob gives you a different sound than you would by just controlling the knobs from the m3


blunt roller should definetly be included with every mv,
and some meth with your fantom x ,lol

Fantom X6, M3 Korg, Dig 002 Rack, Monitor K5, I- Mac Intel Processor (Dual Core)

Thunderkyss, I do own a few hundred gigs of samples I use in conjuction with my FS. I use to own a jv30,jv35 and a JV80 plus all of the XP SERIES back in the day, the drums in the F/X are the same drums just with different effects on them. Thats all I'm saying in my own comedic way. I'm just bustin Roland's Balz a little bit. When Roland drops their next GEN workstation, I'll be at Guitar Center droppin my money stacks.

hi jmoss501,

with a FantomX and Yase software you just wouldn't have the problem:

you would grab into your 200gig of sounds, take the best bass drum and snare drum sounds you want in Akai or Wav format and put them into the Fantom X within 20 minutes (plus 2 hours 'once for all ' for reading and understanding and practising the Yase manual).

Life can be very simple if you got the right keys sometimes.

But if you you prefer spending a lot more bucks for a small version of the Open Labs Miko that's an alternative as well

ya know in all honesty.. this is just a best of both worlds converstation. I mean there really is not ONE piece of gear that does it all..

I have a multi function printer/scanner/copier HP device.. and you can bet your ass it does all three things, but it prints way better than it scans.. and it even copies better than it scans.

point is not one device does everything well..

Jmoss just wants some drums.. figures for roland to toss some GOOD drums his way isnt to much to ask..
but even then.. if they did it wouldnt be very many man.. and you would use them on a few songs and then realize that you wanted or needed NEW ones..
guys that look for the instant gratification effect (lets say on a motif with tons of phat, low and tight drum samples) will use the sounds onboard the workstation over and over until they get layed out.. then everyone has heard em over and over and they get wack.

I believe that the drums you are in search of are being heard on songs made by producers that SAMPLE their drums.. and filter, effect and process them how they see fit sound wise to get the overall sound they want..
and you should do the same thing.

to me , using one board is to limiting.. and I HAVE TO sample to get the sound I want.. especially out of drums.. (i mean i had to install a 9gb SCSI HD internally into my sampler just to make room to store all my drums)

If you want some great drum sounds moss, make a cd of songs that have drums you love.. and look for points in those songs that you might be able to grab a sample from.. and presto you have your drums.. then tweak em and your ready to go.

but overall.. there cant be one piece of gear that does everything perfect.. it will always have one feature that towers over another in everyones opinion.. and half the time i wont even be the same feature person to person.

Producers have to be versatile.
start sampling man

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Cynical, pessimistic, sarcastic, and holding a low opinion of humanity.

triple-x,
not meant offensive in any way, but I can't resist speaking clearcut.

Producers have to be versatile?
Well why aren't they?
Are they missing sounds or lacking musical creatitivity?

When Led Zeppelin was produced, John Bohnham was able to play 'versatile' with one single Ludwig Vistalite drumset and some Paiste cymbals. He became one of those who wrote drum history, because *he* was versatile *with* the sound he could get, not for dozens of sounds he would add every ten minutes. I'm glad I can download this drumsound today at Chocolate Audio and use it in my FantomX. But if it wasn't available I would use something else. No problem. I like making music. I don't need just trivial sound grabbing.

Now who will remember *any* of those thousands of drum sampling kids who offer new drum sounds and effects every ten minutes? Get the difference?

Sounds are absolutely secondary for making music, from stone age to present times.

Their way into music is normally absolutely arbitrary: The Beatles just casually happened to play Vox amps because a VC30 was about the loudest amp you could get then. But by chance it added to shaping their signature sound. John Lennon just casually had the idea of running reverse tapes because tapes were used anyway. Jimi Hendrix didn't *search* for a wahwah to get a new sound. He just stumbled over its possibilities and integrated it into his playing style. He had done much practising and a great style *before* and just added a new flavor to that. Today it seems many try to do it the other way round. No idea at all as playing musicians on *any* instrument, but a terrific sound library and a drum machine at hand. So what???

What I mean is: creativity *never* lies in what is just there, *not* in two zillion samples nor in any imagineable super synth or whatever. The *only* thing worth calling creative is how you use what you meat by chance.

For me a generation of musicians not getting this fundamental thing clear (which does not count for all thankfully) is a lost generation, no matter how much attention they get in clubs, radio stations or podcasts. It will be ten minutes attention just like the ten minutes sounds they depend on.

Once more, believe me: not meant offensive personally in any way, just my general (admittedly sharp) point of view.

no offense taken..

maybe i should be more clear.
I believe Jmoss creates music in the hiphop/r&b/Dance genre, In which the sounds used overtly contribute to which portion of each genre a song or even just a sound may fit into.

for example , 80 drums kicks and drops are often associated with "down south crunk" hiphop.

now with all due respect..I understand and somewhat agree with the moral of your point which i believe was more or less "use what you got" .. but in this day and age why shouldn't producers, or anyone for that matter who creates music not strive for "more" that just what is available to them?
they have not and as a result sampling is a major means of sounds especially for hiphop producers.

Now i am not one to go and take a complete chorus of an old song and attempt to build an entirely new song around it.. thats not my personal style , although I don't fault it and have heard some really cool remakes.. but I WILL certainly sample drums and other sounds from anywhere and tweak them into something new and fresh to use. because lets face it... after a while people (even just the listeners) get tired of the same old thing.

I mean if your fine just "using whatever you have or whatever is just laying around" why not stick with your previous board instead of having bought a fantom?
the answer is probably something along the lines of , you wanted the new features or the fresh new sounds, etc etc etc.

The point I was trying to make originally is you shouldn't limit yourself to one thing.. producers of electronic music are not just guitarists, drummers, bassists or keyboardists.. they are the entire band in one. If Jmoss or anyone for that matter is using a workstation that they feel is missing something you want for a song or their entire "sound" for that matter, then they have to find a way to get it.. for me and a ton of others, that is in sampling.

at the same time, in hiphop r&b and dance, a lot of guys use the same gear and sounds become easy to define as specific brands or boards sounds.. so producers often try to change their sound so as to stand out from the bunch. Some may sample the actual drums sounds in a fantom lets say and then stack them together and mix them to create new sounds that are harder to identify as "fantom drums" for instance. Others may go to a sample cd, sound web sites, songs they like or all of the above..

I'm not saying one cant make a great piece of music with just a single workstation.. of course they can.. but what could the same person do if they opened their mind up to using other tools and methods as well?

thus .. producers need to be versatile

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Cynical, pessimistic, sarcastic, and holding a low opinion of humanity.

ok, understand your point. Then I see two solutions:

a)
you just live with the conditions of today's music business in the hiphop area without questioning them, and then a producer really needs a machine completely different from the Fantom.

The FantomX obviously is a workstation for *playing* keyboarders with nice sampling features. It is not the other way round: it's no sampling device for hip hop producers with some black and white keys added to be able to play a four notes bassline.

In this case buying a FantomX (and all the more a Fantom S) has not made any sense right from the start, and the later feature request is unrealistic, because what is requested is a completely other machine design and not just an additional feature or some drum sounds Roland could provide.

In this sense Jmoss is right to look for something completely else (although he seems to a bit late in regognizing that).


b)
if you are critical about the development of hiphop:

An interesting direction into which hiphop would have developing potential from my view would mean that hiphop producers concentrate more on some true musical skills, learn to play at least one instrument in a way worth mentioning (not just the famous three fingers for producing a beep here and there)

Playing musicians have already begun to show that kind of flexibility. I know many keyboarders, who have learned to deal with sampled material not just to reproduce traditional sounds, but to introduce elements of hiphop and electronica into their playing style.

What about the other way round?
What I would like to hear is not just technical creativity, but *musical* creativity. Why can't hiphop producers go the other way round of what keyboarders do?

You said they don't just play one instrument, but are guitarists, drummers, bassists or keyboarders, the entire band in one. From my view most of them are neither guitarrists nor drummers, neither bassists nor keyboarders. The musical abilities of many of them are tiny, they just trigger sounds and produce sound tapestries from played material of others or from the automatisms of machines: that's admittedly an art of it's own and can be fine art sometimes, but in the long run it is quite limited from a musical point of view.

From my view it is clear that this will end in a dead end rather sooner than later. Techno with all its raving power has already died the poor-musicianship death, and hiphop will follow soon if they don't develop into sime kind of real muscianship.

Now there's one point where I am really critical:
If the consuming curve of hiphop producers and listeners means they are like junkies who need a higher dose of ever "new" samples and electronica sounds (for my ears they aren't that new anyway) in ever shorter circles, then I can't regard that as musical development. If a music style becomes just style it will die or be eternally consumed by baby brains who always need more of the very least significant things and thrills: more stupid violence, more porn language, more low instinct thrills and sounds.

It would mean that hiphop would would have lost all significance as music culture of its own and would become a part of all the other idiotic forms of consuming capitalism: gimme a new hamburger (one mexican week, one china week), gimme a new shirt, gimme a new car. And all the idiotic car and jewelry and harem posers from the hiphop scene would finally be home: in an America of consuming baby brains buying and selling and never growing adult: child food for the music industry.

They other way round hip hop would have a chance to avoid the dead end: then hiphop producers could use their sampling machines *besides* really playing (I mean more than two chords) a Rhodes or a workstation like the FantomX, and develop really musical ideas besides sampling techniques.

*That* would be creative and could be discussed here. But something like "I just detected I used the wrong machine since years" won't help much and cannot really be discussed.

My points:

1) As I said, it's only been recently that Keyboard instruments have become popular with the hip hop crowd. As such, Roland hasn't been including them in the demographic they use when deciding what to put into the Fantom-S/Fantom-X, and most definitely not the original FA-76.

Maybe Roland sees this trend, and how much hip-hop is influencing all other music genre's & life in general, and they will include sounds aimed at the hip-hop conniesuer(sp)

2)The MPC was originally created for the rock producer(by a rock producer) to fix drum tracks. True hip-hoppers didn't complain because the MPC was sold with out the right drum sounds.

FantomX8
FantomS
AW4416
Now all I need is talent.
Anyone selling any talent??
member # 55
registered 21 May 2003

tundrkys98@yahoo.com Yahoo messenger: tundrkys98

Jim:

well its obvious that you are getting completely off topic at this point and its despicably easy to see that you have a preconceived opinion of hiphop, r&b, and dance music already (not that I care about your opinion). It appears you would rather be stereotypical and judgmental rather than objective and sensible so at this point its pointless to continue.

I can appreciate either piano wizards or two finger hunt-and-peck players if at the end of the day they can both create something that feels and sounds good. To me thats what its all about.. I'm not real big on genre and sub genre music filing to stick a piece of music in a appropriate place with a label, but rather if it "sounds good" I will listen. unfortunately that is becoming increasingly harder to find in ALL areas not just the genres mentioned previously here.

additionally, it sounds like you have drawn YOUR conclusion by watching people on you tube that claim the title "producer" or from guys that have videos with titles like "new beat in 5 minutes", or at least thats what one would think based on your ridiculous stereotypes...... "4 note bass lines".. lol

this thread is about one user who would have liked more drums sounds in his roland board. thats all
not the wine and cheese debate your attempting to make it.

Now i am going to celebrate my countries independence, so have a nice day.

P.s.
"2)The MPC was originally created for the rock producer(by a rock producer) to fix drum tracks. True hip-hoppers didn't complain because the MPC was sold with out the right drum sounds."

I agree completely.. instead they went out and found their own sounds and in turn created a style of their own....for Jim to stereotype... lol

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Cynical, pessimistic, sarcastic, and holding a low opinion of humanity.